Empires and Events: 600s-1400s

• Islam began in the 600s.

Early Empires and Dynasties

• The Srivijaya Empire existed from the 800s to the 1200s.
• The Khmer Empire spanned from the 800s to the 1400s.
• The Abbasid Caliphate existed from the 700s to the 1200s.
• The Song Dynasty existed from the 900s to the 1200s.
• Great Zimbabwe was prominent from the 1100s to the 1400s.
• The Delhi Sultanate established Muslim rule in India in the 1200s.
• The Kingdom of Mali existed from the 1200s to the 1600s.

Key Events of the 1200s-1400s

• Height of Swahili city-states occurred in the 1200s.
• Marco Polo traveled in the 1200s.
• Mongol invasions of China, the Middle East, and Russia took place in the mid-1200s.
• The Magna Carta was signed in 1215, limiting the power of the English monarch.
• The Pax Mongolica occurred during the 1200s and 1300s.
• Mansa Musa's pilgrimage happened in the 1300s.
• Ibn Battuta traveled in the 1300s.
• The Black Plague spread across Eurasia in the mid-1300s.
• The Ming Dynasty existed from the 1300s to the 1600s.
• The end of Polynesian Migrations occurred in the 1300s.
• The Crusades spanned from the 1000s to the 1400s.

1400s Events

• The Aztec and Inca Empires were established, lasting until the early 1500s.
• The European Renaissance took place during the 1400s and 1500s.
• Zheng He's voyages occurred in the 1400s.
• Sikhism emerged in the late 1400s.
• Columbus discovered the Americas in 1492.

1500s Events

• The Atlantic slave trade began in the early 1500s.
• Cortez defeated the Aztecs and Pizarro defeated the Inca in the 1500s.
• The Safavid Empire existed from the 1500s to the 1700s.
• The Mughal Empire existed from the 1500s to the 1700s.
• Russian expansion into Siberia began in the 1500s.
• The age of absolute European monarchs spanned from the 1500s to the 1700s.
• The Protestant Reformation began in 1517.
• Europeans entered the Indian Ocean trade in the 1500s.
• The Dutch colonized the Spice Islands in the 1500s.
• The Scientific Revolution in Europe occurred from the 1500s to the 1700s.
• Height of Ottoman power was reached during the 1500s–1600s.
• Silver trade from the Americas to Asia spanned from the 1500s to the 1700s.

1600s Events

• The Qing Dynasty existed from the 1600s to the 1900s.
• The Iroquois Confederation in North America was established in the 1600s–1700s.
• The Tokugawa Shogunate existed from the 1600s to the 1800s.
• The Enlightenment occurred during the 1600s and 1700s.
• Colonization of North America by the French and British occurred in the 1600s.
• The Thirty Years' War in Europe took place in the 1600s.

1700s Events

• The Industrial Revolution began in Britain in the mid-1700s.

1800s Events

• Napoleon took over most of Europe in the early 1800s.
• The Industrial Revolution began in the US, Russia, and Japan in the mid-1800s.
• Revolutions by creoles in Latin America occurred in the 1810s–1820s.
• Rise of European Nationalism occurred in the 1800s.
• The Tanzimat Reforms occurred in the Ottoman Empire during the 1800s.
• The Self-Strengthening Movement occurred in Qing China during the late 1800s.
• The 2nd Industrial Revolution occurred in the mid-1800s.
• Native American Resistance to US Westward expansion occurred in the 1800s.
• The abolition of slavery in Britain occurred in the 1830s.
• The Opium Wars took place during the 1830s–1860s.
• Matthew Perry "opened up" Japan in the 1850s.
• The Meiji Restoration occurred in the 1860s.
• Slavery ended in the US and Russian serfdom was abolished in the 1860s.
• The Sepoy Rebellion occurred in the 1850s.
• The Taiping Rebellion occurred during the 1850s–1860s.
• The Communist Manifesto was published in 1848, also known as the "Year of Revolutions".
• Women’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls happened in 1848.
• The Unification of Germany and Italy occurred in the 1870s.
• European colonial conquest of Africa expanded during the 1870s–1910s.
• The Berlin Conference occurred in the 1880s.
• The Boer War began in South Africa in the 1890s.
• The Spanish-American War began in the 1890s.
• The Boxer Rebellion occurred in the 1890s.

1700s-1900s Events

• The French Revolution began in 1789.
• The Haitian Revolution began in 1791.

20th Century Events

• Collapse of Imperial China occurred in 1911.
• The Armenian Genocide occurred in the 1910s.
• World War I occurred from 1914 to 1918.
• Rise of fascism in Europe occurred during the 1920s–1930s.
• The US stock markets collapsed and the Great Depression began in 1929.
• World War II occurred from 1939 to 1945.
• The Holocaust occurred in the early 1940s.
• Formation of the United Nations, World Bank, and IMF occurred in the 1940s.
• British left South Asia, partitioning Pakistan and India in 1947.
• Israel was created as a modern government in 1948.
• Mao Zedong won the Communist revolution in China in 1949.
• Much of Africa was decolonized during the 1950s–1960s.
• Conservative governments reduced spending and involvement in US, UK, China during the 1980s–1990s.
• The Rwandan genocide occurred in the 1990s.
• The Collapse of the Soviet Union occurred in 1991.