Western European

Art of the "Dark Ages"

Worldwide Events

• The Arab merchant Shulama wrote that Chinese junk ships could carry 600 to 700 passengers aboard for sailing missions into the Indian Ocean. He wrote that the draft of Chinese ships was too deep for entering the Euphrates River (modern-day Iraq), which forced them to land small boats on the banks of the river for passengers and cargo instead.
• An unknown event causes the decline of the Maya Classical Era.
• Beowulf might have been written down in this century, though it could also have been in the 8th century.
• Reign of Charlemagne, and concurrent (and controversially labeled) Carolingian Renaissance in Western Europe.
• Large-scale Viking attacks on Europe begin, devastating countless numbers of people.
• Oseberg ship burial.
• The Magyars arrive in what is now Hungary, taking it from Bulgaria.
• The Tukolor settle in the Senegal river valley.
• Muslim traders settle in the northwest and southeast of Madagascar.
• 800 — Arab fleet sails up the Tiber.
• 803 — Construction on the Leshan Giant Buddha in Tang Dynasty China is complete, after 90 years of rock-carving on a massive cliff-side.
• C. 813–c. 915 — period of serious Arab naval raids on shores of Tyrrhenian and Adriatic seas.
• 830 - House of Wisdom, a library and translation institute, established by al-Ma'mun, Abbasid caliph, in Baghdad to transfer the knowledge of Greeks, Persians, Indians, etc to Muslim world.(External Link) Also The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing which is one of the book of algebra is written by Al-Khwarizmi who worked there.
• 848–852 — The west bank of the Tiber is annexed into the city of Rome. A defensive wall, commissioned by Pope Leo IV, is built around what came to be called the Leonine City.
• 851 — The Arab merchant Suleiman al-Tajir visits the Chinese seaport at Guangzhou in southern China, and observes the manufacturing of porcelain, the Islamic mosque built at Guangzhou, the granary system of the city, and how its municipal administration functioned.
• 863 — The Chinese author Duan Chengshi describes the slave trade, ivory trade, and ambergris trade of Somalia in East Africa.
• 870 — Prague Castle founded.
• 800–909 — rule of Aghlabids as an independent Muslim dynasty in North Africa.
• 850–875 — The first Norse settlers arrive on Iceland.
• 859 Muslim established the oldest university in the world, University of Al Karaouine, in Fez, Morocco
• 863–879 — period of schism between eastern and western churches.
• 864 — Christianization of Bulgaria under Boris I
• 875–884 — Huang Chao leads an unsuccessful rebellion against the Tang Dynasty in China.
• Late 9th century: Bulgaria stretches from the mouth of the Danube to Epirus and Bosnia.
• In Italy, some cities became free republics: for instance Forlì, in the 889.
• The Christian Nubian kingdom reaches its peak of prosperity and military power. (Early history of Sudan).
• Harald Fairhair was victorious at the battle of Hafrsfjord, and Norway was unified into one kingdom.
• Chess reaches Japan.
• 862 — The beginning the Rurik Dynasty in Russia
• 885 — arrival of the disciples of SS. Cyril and Methodius, Clement of Ohrid and Naum of Preslav in Bulgaria. Development of the Cyrillic Alphabet.
• 867 — onward Revival of the Byzantine Empire under the Macedonian dynasty.
• The Medieval Warm Period begins.

Significant people