765 
Djenne, a prominent West African intellectual center, is founded. It alongwith Gao and Timbuktu are part of the Songhay Empire. 

768 
Charlemagne becomes King of France after Pepin’s death. In 800 he is crowned Holy Roman Emperor. 

774 
Charlemagne conquers Lombardy. In 776 he is in Dalmatia. 

786 
Haroun–al–Rashid is the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad until 809. 

795 
Leo III becomes Pope until 816. 

800 
The Kingdom of Ghana lasts until 1076. At Ghana there were forty–four white rulers, so the myth goes, half coming before the hegira of Muhammed and half after it. Then the power passed to black Sarakolles with whom Semites had amalgamated. See Charles Ammah’s The Ga Homowo, Accra (1968); J.J. Williams, S.J., Hebrewisms in West Africa (1930). 

802 
Egbert, formerly an English refugee at the court of Charlemagne, establishes himself as King of Wessex. 

811 
Krum of Bulgaria defeats and kills Emperor Nicephorus. 

814 
Charlemagne dies; his son, Louis the Pious, succeeds him. 

828 
Egbert becomes the first King of England. 

843 
Louis the Pious dies, and the Carolingian Empire goes to pieces. Up to 962 there is no regular succession of “Holy Roman Emperors,” though the title appears intermittently. 

850 
About this time Rurik, a Northman, becomes ruler of Novgorod and Kieff in Russia. 

852 
Boris becomes the first Christian King of Bulgaria and reigns until 884. 

865 
The fleet of the Russians or Northmen threatens Constantinople. 

886 
The Treaty between King Alfred the Great of England and Guthrum the Dane establishes the Danes in Danelaw. 

904 
The Russian fleet is again off the coast of Constantinople. 

911 
Rolf the Ganger establishes himself in Normandy. 

919 
Henry the Fowler is elected King of Germany. 

928 
Marozia, a woman, of the Theophylactus Clan imprisons Pope John X at the Castle of St. Angelo in Rome where he soon dies. 

931 
John XI is Pope until 936. 

936 
Otto I, or Otto the Great, becomes King of Germany in succession to his father, Henry the Fowler. 

955 
John XII becomes Pope. 

960 
The Sung dynasty begins in northern China. 

962 
Otto the Great, King of Germany, is crowned as the first Saxon Holy Roman Emperor by Pope John XII. 

963 
Emperor Otto I deposes Pope John XII. 

969 
A separate Fatimite Caliphate is set up in Egypt. 

987 
Hugh Capet becomes King of France, marking the end of the Carolingian line of French kings. 

1016 
Canute becomes King of England, Denmark, and Norway. 

1037 
Avicenna (Ibn Siinaa), the prince of physicians, dies. He was born in 980 in Bokhara (one of the oldest cities of Turkestan in Russia and a center of Islamic culture). 

1043 
A Russian fleet threatens Constantinople once again. 

1066 
William, Duke of Normandy, conquers England. 

1071 
Islam under the Seljuk Turks is revived. At the Battle of Melasgird (Manzikert), the Byzantine army is smashed. 

1073 
Hildebrand becomes Pope Gregory VII until 1085. 

1077 
Henry IV of Germany crosses the Alps barefoot and does penance at Canossa. 

1079 
Peter Abélard, the French philosopher, is born. 

1082 
The Norman Robert Guiscard captures Durazzo in Italy. In 1084 he sacks Rome. 

1087 
Urban II becomes Pope and remains in office until 1099. 

1094 
A pestilence spreads throughout Europe. 

1095 
Urban II at Clermont summons the First Crusade, i.e., the People’s Crusade, which massacres Jews in the Rhineland before setting out for Jerusalem. Pope Urban's exhorts the Crusaders to commit absolute violence on the Muslim enemies of the Church.

1099 
Godfrey of Bouillon captures Jerusalem. 

Paschal II becomes Pope and holds this office until 1118. 

1138 
The Kin Empire flourishes in China. The Sung capital  shifts from Nanking to Hang Chau. 

1147 
The Second Crusade is initiated. 

The Christian kingdom of Portugal is established. 

1169 
Saladin becomes sultan of Egypt. 

1177 
Frederick Barbarossa acknowledges the supremacy of Pope Alexander at Venice. 

1187 
Saladin captures Jerusalem. 

1189 
The Third Crusade takes place. 

1193 
Albertus Magnus, medieval scholar, is born. 

1198 
Averroës (Ibn Rushd) of Cordoba, Spain, the Moorish philosopher, who was born in 1126, dies. 

Innocent III becomes Pope and remains in office until 1216. Frederick II, who becomes King of Sicily at the age of four, is his ward. 

1202 
The Fourth Crusade attacks Byzantium, the Eastern Empire. In 1204, Constantinople is captured. 

1206 
Kutub founds a Moslem state at Delhi, India. 

1212 
The Children’s Crusade starts out to free the Holy Land. Instead of freeing the Holy Land, however, hundreds of these youthful crusaders for Jesus Christ are sold into slavery. 

1214 
Genghis Khan takes Peking. 

1215 
The Magna Charta is signed by King John at Runnemede, England. 

1216 
Honorius II becomes Pope. 

1218 
Genghis Khan invades Kharismia (modern–day Syria, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan). 

1221 
The Fifth Crusade returns from Egypt in failure. 

St. Dominic, founder of the Dominican Order, dies. 

1225 
St. Thomas Aquinas is born in Italy. 

1227 
Genghis Khan, khan from the Caspian to the Pacific, dies. He is succeeded by Ogdai Khan. 

Gregory IX becomes Pope. 

1228 
Frederick II embarks upon the peaceful Sixth Crusade and acquires Jerusalem. 

1230 
Sundiata, grandfather of Mansa Musa, becomes King of Mali. 

1234 
The Mongols complete their conquest of the Kin Empire with the help of the Sung Empire. 

1239 
Frederick II is excommunicated for the second time. 

1240 
The Mongols destroy Kieff and make Russia one of their tributaries. 

1241 
The Mongols are victorious at Liegnitz in Silesia, a historic region consisting of southeast Germany, southwest Poland and northern Czechoslovakia. 

1244 
The Egyptian sultan recaptures Jerusalem, which leads to the Seventh Crusade led by Louis IX of France. 

1245 
Frederick II is excommunicated again. 

The men of Schwyz (modern–day Switzerland) burn the castle of New Habsburg which was established near Lucerne to overawe them. This castle’s ruins can still be seen there. 

1250 
Ghana is overthrown by the Mandingo. 

The present-day Republic of the Gambia* is one of the neighboring West African nations with a large Mandinka-speaking (i.e., Mandingo) population. Some of the relevant languages and dialects spoken are: 

KRIO (PATOIS) 6,600 Aku in Gambia (1991 Vanderaa), 0.8% of the population (1983 census); 472,600 in Sierra Leone (1993); 480,000 or more in all countries; 4,000,000 second language speakers. Bathhurst. Also in Senegal, Guinea, Equatorial Guinea. [Creole], English based, Atlantic, Krio. Dialect: AKU. Aku is derived from Krio (Todd and Hancock 1986). Christian. NT 1986-1992. 

MANDINKA (MANDINGUE, MANDINGO, MANDINQUE, MANDING) 350,000 in Gambia (1993 UBS) or 40.4% of the population; 445,500 in Senegal (1991); 119,500 in Guinea Bissau (1993); 914,500 in all countries. Central Gambia. [Niger-Congo] Mande, Western, Northwestern, Northern, Greater Mandekan, Mandekan, Manding. Significantly different from Maninka of Guinea and Malinke of Senegal (Church). 79% lexical similarity with Kalanke, 75% with Jahanka, 70% with Kassonke, 59% with Malinke, 53% with Mori, 48% with Bambara. The main language of middle Gambia. About half the speakers are reported to be literate in Mandinka in Arabic script, but not Roman. Some related varieties may be distinct languages. Muslim. NT 1989. Bible portions 1837-1966. 

*Additional ethnological information on the Gambia and other African nations is found at:
                             http://www.sil.org/ethnologue/countries/africa.html. 

Frederick II, the last Hohenstaufen emperor, dies, precipitating the German interregnum until 1273. 

1251 
Mangu Khan becomes the Great Khan. Kublai Khan becomes governor of China. 

1258 
Hulagu Khan takes and destroys Baghdad. 

1260 
Kublai Khan becomes the Great Khan. Ketboga is defeated in Palestine. 

1261 
The Greeks recapture Constantinople. 

1265 
The first regular parliament is held in England. 

Dante Alighieri, Italian author of the Divine Comedy, is born. 

1266 
Giotto, Florentine painter and architect, is born. 

1269 
Kublai Khan sends a message of inquiry to the Pope by the older Polos. 

1270 
The Eighth Crusade is cut short by death of Louis IX. 

1271 
Marco Polo starts his travels in China. 

The Ninth and last Crusade, led by Edward I of England, is abortive. 

1273 
Rudolph of Habsburg is elected emperor of Germany. 

1274 
St. Thomas Aquinas dies. 

1280 
Kublai Khan founds the Yuan dynasty in China. 

Albertus Magnus, German scholastic philosopher, dies. 

1291 
The Schwyz form the Everlasting League to stave off German domination under Rudolph I of Hapsburg. 

Acre, the last Christian stronghold in the Holy Land, falls. 

1292 
Kublai Khan dies. 

1293 
Roger Bacon, the English philosopher and experimental scientist, dies. 

Hindu–Javanese state of Majapahit rules over most of Indonesia and Malay Peninsula. 

1294 
Boniface VIII becomes Pope and remains in office until 1303. 

1295 
Marco Polo returns to Venice. 

1303 
Pope Boniface VIII dies after the outrage of Anagni by Guillaume de Nogaret. 

1304 
Petrarch, the Italian poet, is born. 

1305 
Clement V becomes Pope. 

1308 
Duns Scotus, Scottish scholar and theologian, dies. 

1309 
The papal Court is set up at Avignon. 

1318 
Dante completes the Divine Comedy, an Italian epic poem in terza rima in which the narrator is led by Virgil through Hell and Purgatory; Beatrice leads him through Paradise. 

Four heretical Franciscans are burned at Marseilles. 

1324
The Pre–Columbian presence of Africans is based on data that became available sometime during the first few centuries following the death of Jesus the Christ and afterward. These African explorers, Caliph Abdul-Rahman III and others, began their voyages to the so-called "New World" perhaps as a part of a world-wide trade network in the latter half of the 10th century. Some Atlantic crossings by Africans departed Muslim Spain between 929–961 and others, probably Mandinkas (Mandingos), sailed from the Guinea coast in the 14 century, during the time of Mansa Musa. These explorations have been reported in Muhammedan writings. See Ivan Van Sertima’s They
Came before Columbus (1976) and Alexander von Wuthenau’s Unexpected Faces in Ancient Africa, 1500 BC–AD 1500 (1975). For further information consult Carter G. Woodson, The Story of the Negro Retold (Washington, DC, 1942); Justin Winsor, Critical History of America (Boston, 1884-1889); W.E.B. DuBois, The Gift of Black Folk (Boston, 1924),  pp. 35-51; Roland B. Dixon, Racial History of Man (New York, 1923), pp. 393-406, 436-451 and 459; J.B. Thatcher, Christopher Columbus, Vol. 2 (New York, 1903-1904), pp. 379-380; J. McCabe, The Splendor of Moorish Spain (London, 1935), pp. 179-202; A. Quatrefages, Introduction a l'étude des races humaines (Paris, 1889), p. 406; Leo Wiener, Africa and the Discovery of America, Vol. 1 (Chicago, 1922), pp. 169-170, 172, 174, 175 and Vol. 3, pp. 225-261, 264-266, 314-322; Harold Lawrence, "African Explorers in the New World," Crisis, 1962, pp. 321-332; N. Leon, História géneral de México (México, 1919), p. 14; Carter G. Woodson, African Background Outlined (Washington, DC, 1936), pp. 3-19; Almose A. Thompson, "Pre-Columbian Black Presence in the Western Hemisphere," Negro History Bulletin, 1975, pp. 452-456; James Churchward, The Lost Continent of Mu (New York, 1968-1969). Of similar importance to a full understanding of the ubiquity of African people throughout the world is the fact that black people also populated Asia and Russia. For information on these subjects, see Joseph E. Harris, The African Presence in Asia: Consequences of the East African Slave Trade (1972), and East African Slave Trade and Repatriation in Kenya, Howard University Publications (1974); Vasant D. Roa, “The Habshis: India’s Unknown Africans,” Africa Report, September–October 1973; W.E.B. DuBois, The  World and Africa (1965); and Allison Blakely, “The Negro in Imperial Russia,” Journal of Negro History, 1976. 

1325 
After a long, slow migration from northwestern Mexico (present–day Nayarit) southward, the Aztecs establish their capital city of Tenochtitlàn in the Valley of Mexico. Ultimately, this city attains a population of about 200,000 inhabitants, making it perhaps the largest city in the world before the Spanish invasion. 

1347 
William of Occam, English scholastic philosopher, dies. 

1348 
The Great Plague, the “Black Death,” ravages the European population. 

1358 
The Jacquerie, or peasant revolt, occurs in France. 

1368 
In China the Mongol Yuan Dynasty falls and is followed by the Ming Dynasty, which lasts until 1644. 

1369 
Tamerlane assumes the title of Great Khan. 

1373 
The Songhay city of Timbuktu appears on the Catalan map. Other Songhay cities are Gao, Kano and Djenne. 

1374 
Petrarch dies. 

1375 
The Catalan Atlas depicts Mansa Musa, King of Mali, seated on a throne with a huge gold nugget in his right hand, symbolic of Mali’s tremendous wealth. 

1377 
Pope Gregory XI returns to Rome. 

1378 
The Great Schism: Urban VI is Pope in Rome; Clement VII is Pope in Avignon, France. 

1381 
The peasants revolt in England. 

Wat Tyler, an English rebel, is murdered in the presence of King Richard II. 

1384 
Wycliffe, the English ecclesiastical reformer, dies. 

1387 
Fra Angelico da Fiesole, Italian painter, is born. 

1395 
Tamerlane, the Mongol, invades Russia. 

1398 
John Huss, the Bohemian religious reformer, preaches Wycliffism at Prague. 

1400 
Geoffrey Chaucer, English author of The Canterbury Tales, dies. 

1405 
Tamerlane dies. 

1415 
The Council of Constance issues a decree ordering Wycliffe’s bones to be dug up and burned. 

John Huss is burned at the stake. 

The Portuguese capture Ceuta, i.e., Spanish Morocco. 

1417 
The Great Schism ends.  Martin V becomes Pope. 

1420 
The Hussites revolt to prevent succession of Emperor Sigismund to Bohemian crown.  Martin V preaches a crusade against them. 

1429 
At the Siege of Orleans, France, the English are defeated by Joan of Arc. 

1431 
The Catholic Crusaders are repulsed before the Hussites at Domazlice. 

The Council of Basel meets and accepts the Compactata which allows the Utraquist, or moderate Hussites, to reunite with the Roman Catholic Church. 

Francois Villon, French poet, is born. 

Andrea Mantegna, Italian painter, is born. 

1436 
The Hussites recognize Sigismund and come to terms with the church. 

1439 
The Council of Basel creates a fresh schism in the church. 

1440 
Johann Gutenberg invents printing from movable type in Mainz, Germany. The Chinese discovered the principle as early as 868, using engraved wood blocks. Printing from movable type was first done by Pi Shêng during the years 1041 to 1049.

1441 
Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal, explores the west coast of Africa looking for the fields of sugar cane outside of Arab dominion. He does not find the fields he is searching for, but he does find a large number of black people acclimated to work in the tropical zones where the cane flourishes. This event sets the stage for the destruction of African civili
zation and the horrors that attend it. 

1442 
The first African captives are brought to Lisbon as slaves. 

1444 
Portuguese explorer Diniz Diaz claims Gorée, an island off the coast of Senegal for Prince Henry the Navigator. Although Gorée changes hands among the European powers — Portugal, the Netherlands, Britain, and France, each uses the island for the same purpose, as the launching point for slave ships bound for the New World. Between the late 15th century and 1848, nearly 20 million Africans pass through "the Doorway of No Return” in Gorée’s House of Slaves. 

1445 
The Cape Verde Islands are “discovered” by the Portuguese. 

1446 
The first printed books are produced at Coster in Haarlem, Holland. 

1450 
The West African Kingdom of Mali is in decline. For an account on other African kingdoms, see J.G. Jackson, Introduction to African Civilization (1971). 

The Rozwi Empire of Mwene Mutapa in Central Africa is at its greatest height. 

1452 
Leonardo da Vinci, Italian painter and inventor, is born. 

1453 
Ottoman Turks, under the leadership of Muhammad II, take Constantinople. 

The European Renaissance is at its zenith. 

1456 
Portugal has control of the European sugar trade. Spain is not far behind, for the Arabs (Moors), when they were expelled from Spain, left behind cane fields in Grenada and Andalusia. 

1460 
Sonni Ali rapidly expands the Songhay Empire in the Western Sudan. 

1471 
Albrecht Dürer, German painter and engraver, is born. 

1473 
Nicholas Copernicus, Polish astronomer, who describes the sun as being in the center of the universe, is born. 

1480 
Islam slowly spreads into northern Nigeria and the Gambia. 

The Changamire people who reside in the area of South Eastern Africa currently called Zimbabwe, revolt against Mwene Mutapa. 

Ivan III, grand–duke of Moscow, throws off the Mongol allegiance. 

1481 
Sultan Muhammad II dies while preparing for the conquest of Italy. Bayezid II becomes the Turkish sultan and reigns until 1512. 

1482 
A Portuguese fleet lands on the Gold Coast of Africa precipitating the eventual underdevelop- ment of African people through the slave trade. The Portuguese build the first European slave trading fort (barracoon) in West Africa at Elmina. They also establish contact with Benin. 

1487 
Bartolomé Díaz, a Portuguese, arrives at Mossel Bay, South Africa, which he calls the Bay of “Cowherds.”  Before this year South Africa was inhabited by different African ethnic groups, which had vital and meaningful contacts with each other, lived peacefully, tilled their lands, looked after their cattle and involved themselves in other socio-economic activities. 

1490 
The King of Kongo invites Portuguese missionaries and craftsmen to his country. 

1492 
The first voyage of Columbus to Samana Cay in the Bahamas, Cuba, and Hispaniola* (3rd August 1492 to 15th March 1493). Alonzo Pietro, known as “il Negro,” was a navigator on this voyage to America. 

*This West Indian Island, settled by both the Spanish and French at various times in Caribbean history, is referred to in YOUR HISTORY with several different historical names and spellings: Hispaniola, Haiti, Hayti, San Domingo, Santo Domingo, Saint Domingue. In 1512, Africans are imported.  In 1697, with the Treaty of Ryswick, the western third of island is ceded to France as a colony with the name La Partie Française de Saint Domingue. In 1804, the Indian name Haiti is taken to stand for the Republic of Haiti when independence is proclaimed by Jacques Dessa- lines, who becomes emperor. In 1821, the Spanish portion of the island becomes independent.  J.B. Boyer, a Haitian, invades it in 1822 and rules the island until 1843.  When a revolution drives Boyer out, Santo Domingo is founded on the Spanish two thirds.  Since 1844, the Republic of Haiti and the Dominican Republic have been established on the island.

When Columbus returns to Europe, he brings gold, cotton, strange beasts and birds, and two wild–eyed painted Indians to be baptized. He had not found Japan, as was planned. It was thought that he had reached India instead. The islands he found, therefore, were called the West Indies. 

African servants, slaves, and explorers come to the “New World” with the first Spanish and French explorers. Pedro Niño of Columbus’ crew is identified as black by some scholars. 

Rodrigo Borgia becomes Pope Alexander VI and remains Pope until 1503. 

1493 
The second voyage of Columbus to Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Dominica, La Desirade, Marie Galante, Guadeloupe, Montserrat, Antigua, St. Christopher, Nevis, St. Martin, St. Croix, other Virgin Islands and Isle of Pines (25th September 1493 to 11th June 1496). 

Maximilian I of Habsburg becomes Holy Roman Emperor. 

1494 
Pope Alexander VI’s Papal Bulls are ratified by the Treaty of Tordesillas. Pope Alexander had decreed that all lands “discovered” by Columbus belong to Spain and provided for a line of demarcation drawn North to South 100 leagues west of the Azores and Cape Verde Islands (off the coast of West Africa) and stipulated that lands and seas west of this line shall be the Spanish sphere of exploration and influence. The Treaty of Tordesillas shifts the line of demarcation 270 leagues further west, thereby giving Portugal not only the right to all of Africa but also to Brazil. 

1497 
Vasco da Gama arrives at St. Helena bay en route to India, lands on southeastern coast of South Africa on Christmas Day, calling it Natal, and sails to the north of a small stream he calls the Copper River. In 1498 he finally completes his circumnavigation of Africa and opens for the Portuguese a sea route to India. 

1498 
The third voyage of Columbus to South America, Trinidad, Grenada, St. Vincent, Margarita, Cubagua, Tobago(?) (31st May 1498 to December 1500). Spanish government allows Columbus to take convicted robbers and murderers on this voyage. In the New World they are granted large freeholds and permitted to treat all non–white Christians as chattel and beasts. 

1499 
Switzerland becomes an independent republic. 

1500 
The Dutch enter the sugar trade. They establish a sugar refinery in Antwerp to which raw sugar cane is shipped from Lisbon, the Canary Islands, Brazil, Spain, and the Barbary Coast.  No other product has so profoundly influenced the political history of the western world as has sugar. 

Charles V of Habsburg and King of Spain is born. 

1501 
Spanish colonists import white slaves into Hispaniola to stave off having to use rebellious Africans. 

1502 
The fourth voyage of Columbus to St. Lucia, Martinique and Central America (9th May 1502 to 6th November 1504). 

The first Africans are brought as laborers to the West Indies from Spain where considerable numbers had been employed for some time before. 

Queen Isabella commissions Ovando to take Africans “born in the power of Christians” to West Indies, but prohibits him from taking Jews and Moors (Moslems). In 1503 Ovando protests against this prohibition since imported Africans either run away or help to “demoralize” the Amerindians. 

1505 
The East African city of Kilwa in present–day Zimbabwe is captured by the Portuguese. 

1506 
Nzinga Mvemba comes to throne of Kongo and begins his attempts to modernize his state with Portuguese help. 

Columbus dies still believing he had discovered Asia. 

1509 
Henry VIII becomes King of England. 

1510 
After the death of Queen Isabella, King Ferdinand consents in the Casa de Contratación to recruiting the first large contingent of 250 African laborers needed to work in the burgeoning Spanish sugar industry. 

1511 
Montesinos, a Dominican friar, issues first protest against Amerindian exploitation in Spanish colonies. 

1512 
A group of Africans lands in Florida with Juan Ponce de León in search of the “Fountain of Youth.” 

In Turkey Selim becomes Ottoman Sultan until 1520; he buys title of caliph of all Islam from last Abbasid rule in Egypt. 

Niccolò Machiavelli and Piero Soderini are active in Florence. Machiavelli publishes The Prince in 1513 and becomes the symbol of political unscrupulousness. Even though The Prince is noted for its complete and cynical detachment, it is neither moral nor immoral, but rather the first “objective and scientific” European analysis of the methods by which political power can be obtained and kept. Machiavelli was born in 1469. He died in 1527. 

1513 
The trans–Atlantic slave trade begins. 

The Real Cedula permits slavery in Cuba. Of the 527,828 Africans imported, 60,000 (11.3%) are brought in between 1513 and 1763. 

Nuño de Olano and 29 other Africans are with Balboa when he “discovers” the Pacific Ocean. 

Leo X becomes Pope. 

1514 
King Ferdinand of Spain restricts the importation of Africans into the Caribbean to one African for every three Spaniards. 

1515 
Francis I becomes King of France. 

1516 
Friar Bartolomé de las Casas is made protector of the Indian and devotes his life to the cause of Indian liberty. He is attributed with having the idea of substituting African slave labor for that of the Arawak Indians. 

1517 
King Charles V of Spain grants a license to his favorite courtier, Laurent de Gouvenot, to supply African slaves to the American colonies. It expires in 1538 and the exclusive right to supply slaves to the West Indian colonies is sold to two German merchants, one of whom is probably Jacob Fugger. 

Selim, the Turkish sultan, annexes Egypt. 

Martin Luther posts his 95 theses on the cathedral door in Wittenberg, Germany. The Reformation, i.e., the Protestant Revolution, begins. 

1519 
A Maroon revolt is led by Henriques against the Spanish in Hispaniola. 

At least two Africans, Juan Garrido and Juan Cortés, accompany the conquistador Hernando Cortez on his conquest of Mexico. 

Magellan’s expedition sets sail around the world. 

1520 
Suleiman I, the lawgiver, becomes Sultan and reigns from Baghdad in Iraq to Hungary until 1566. 

Charles V becomes Holy Roman Emperor; the German capitalist, Jacob Fugger, finances his election. 

1522 
The slaves revolt on Spanish Island of Hispaniola. 

1525 
Africans accompany the conquistadors Diego de Almagro and Pedro de Valdivia in Chile. The Spanish incursion into Chile precipitated a struggle of the Chilean people, particularly the Araucanians, against Europoean imperialism that lasts until the present day. . . . 

“The conquest of Chile was resisted by the Araucanians [the native people of Chile] in a war which lasted over three hundred years. So fierce was this war that ‘Be careful or they’ll send you to Chile’ became a watchword among soldiers in Spain. The Araucanians at first tried to meet the Spaniards in open combat, but were overwhelmed by the use of horses and superior equipment.  Then they learned to use horses themselves, replaced their bows and arrows with maces and clubs, and stopped launching themselves in masses against the enemy. Everyone who writes about this war has high praise for the military qualities of the Araucanians. They developed tactics remarkably similar to those of modern guerrilla warfare. Alejandro Lipschutz, the distinguished Chilean anthropologist, explains the indomitable resistance of the Araucanians by the nature of their society — it was classless. ‘Por rey jamás regido'  — 'never ruled by a king’ — says Ercilla, a Spanish soldier and poet who fought against the Araucanians and was so impressed that he sang their praises in La Araucana, which became Chile’s national epic. Unlike the lower lasses in the stratified societies of the Incas and Aztecs, the Araucanians had never had rulers and simply could not swallow the idea of having Spanish overlords.  They were definding their land, their people, their way of life. A three hundred year war is bound to have great effects on the societies waging it. Eventually, it ended up destroying the old Araucanian society, leaving several hundred thousand Araucanians — in their own language Mapuches — who now live in the south of Chile, robbed of their land, deprived of their culture and still referring to ordinary Chileans as ‘foreigners’” (see Edward Boorstein, Allende’s Chile, An Inside View (1977). 

1526 
Enslaved Africans in the first European settlement in the United States — a Spanish colony established by Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón in area of present–day South Carolina — revolt and flee to the Indians. 

1527 
The Africans revolt in Puerto Rico. 

German troops in Italy, under the Constable of Bourbon, take and pillage Rome. 

1528 
Estevanico (Little Stephen), a Moroccan, lands in New World near Tampa Bay with a party of 400 explorers. After a series of battles are lost, Estevanico and three others are marooned on the Texas Coast, where he lives among Indians with Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, the Spanish explorer. 

Paul Veronese, Italian painter, is born. 

1529 
The Africans revolt in Santa Maria. 

Suleiman I of the Ottoman Empire besieges Vienna, Austria. 

1530 
Spain makes abortive attempt to settle Trinidad. 

William Hawkins, slave trader, removes Africans from Guinea and sells them as slaves in Brazil. 

The Spanish conquistador, Pizarro, invades Peru. 

Charles V is crowned Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope. 

King Henry VIII begins his quarrel with the Papacy. 

1531 
The enslaved Africans revolt in Mexico. 

The fourth slave revolt in Panama takes place. 

1532 
Africans are with Pizarro during his Peruvian conquests. 

The Anabaptists, Catholic Church reformers, seize Münster, Germany, and establish a theocracy which lasts until 1535. 

1533 
The slaves revolt in Cuba. 

1534 
Africans accompany Alvarado to Quito, Ecuador. 

1537 
Africans, who are used as miners, rebel in Mexico. 

1538 
Estevanico leads Spanish Friar Marcos’ expedition from Mexico to look for Seven Cities of Cibola. 

1539 
The Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) is established. 

Estevanico accompanies the Spaniards and "discovers" the Zuni Pueblo in what is today known as New Mexico. Estevanico travels extensively as an advance scout for the Spanish conquistadores seeking the Seven Cities of Cibola where gold is supposed to be plentiful. In addition to discovering New Mexico and Arizona, Estevanico also makes friends with several Indian nations in the southwest. When he tells the Spanish that the Indians call Zuni Pueblo the Seven Cities of Cibola and no precious metal is found, the Spanish accuse him of lying and murder him. 

1540 
The second settler in Alabama is an African. He accompanies de Soto’s expedition. 

Up to this year approximately 10,000 Africans have been imported into the West Indies. 

1545 
The Council of Trent, which meets until 1563, is assembled to put the Catholic Church in order. 

1546 
Martin Luther dies. He was born in Eisleben, Germany, in 1483. 

1547 
King Henry VIII of England dies. 

Hernando Cortez dies, leaving a huge estate in Mexico to his son. 

Ivan the Terrible takes the title of tsar of Russia. 

Bishop Juan de Zumarraga establishes in Mexico City, La Concepción, the first convent  in the colony. Many of the nuns in this and other convents in Mexico are African. 

Francis I, king of France, dies. 

1549 
Bahia is made the capital of Brazil. 

First Jesuit missionaries arrive in South America. 

1550 
Slaves revolt in Panama and Peru. 

1551 
The Spanish Crown establishes universities in Mexico City and Lima, Peru.

 

1553 
English traders visit Benin for the first time. 

1554 
Santiago de Cuba and Havana are sacked by the privateering raids of François le Clerc and Jacques de Sores. 

1556 
Charles V abdicates his throne; he dies in 1558. 

Akbar becomes the Great Mogul and remains so until 1605. 

The Jesuit St. Ignatius de Loyola dies. 

1557 
Juan Latino becomes professor of Grammar and Latin in Grenada, Spain. 

Manuel de Nobrega, a priest, denounces using Indians as slaves in Brazil, but like Las Casas, he approves of enslaving Africans. 

1558 
Elizabeth I is crowned Queen of England. 

1559 
Spain allows France to trade in the West Indies; England in 1604 and Holland in 1609. These concessions break Spain’s trade monopoly. 

1560 
The Byno insurrection occurs in Central America. 

There are 15 Africans to every one European in Hispaniola. 

1561 
Sir Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, is born. 

1562 
Sir John Hawkins, British nationalist, joins with the supposedly reluctant Elizabeth I to exploit the Atlantic slave trade for the crown. He imports Africans to Hispaniola for a rich cargo of ginger, hides and pearls. In 1564 and 1567 he makes additional “illegal” slave deals in the Spanish West Indies. Ironically the ship he uses for this nefarious trade in humans is named the good ship Jesus. 

1564 
William Shakespeare is born. 

1565 
African explorers, primarily artisans and agriculturists, accompany Pedro Menéndez  de Avilés when St. Augustine, Florida, is founded. 

1566 
The annihilation of the Amerindians in the Caribbean is almost complete by this year. 

Suleiman I, the lawgiver, dies. Under his rule the Ottoman Empire reaches the height of its glory. 

1567 
The Netherlands are in revolt; in 1568 Counts Egmont and Horn are executed. 

1571 
The Portuguese start their conquest of Angola and send expeditions up the Zambezi River valley into the country of Mwene Mutapa. See David Birmingham, “The African Response to Early Portuguese Activities in Angola” in Protest and Resistance in Angola and Brazil, R.H. Chilote, ed. (1972). 

A royal declaration in France stipulates that “all persons are free in this kingdom; as soon as a slave has reached these frontiers and becomes baptized, he is free.” 

1572 
Nombre de Dios, actually Porto Bello, Panama, is sacked by Sir Francis Drake who later sails to South America. From 1577 – 1580 he is engaged in circumnavigating the world. 

1573 
The Guinean Juan Latino, a 16th century writer in Spain. Latino was brought to Spain as a slave. He served the family of a military general. One of his duties was to fetch books for the general's children. The family also permitted Latino to participate in the children's tutorials. He turned out to be highly intelligent. In 1546, Juan Latino, who came to Spain in 1528 at age twelve, received a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Grenada and went on to become a  professor at the University. He wrote several important works, including his first book of poetry, Austrias, a “praise song” after the African style in honor of Don Juan of Austria, the victor of the Battle of Lepanto. 

The seige of Alkmaar in Holland demonstrates the vast resources and violence of Catholic imperialism. 

1579 
Martín de Porres, the “mulatto” saint of the Catholic Church, is born in Lima, Peru. 

1583 
Sir Walter Raleigh leads an expedition to Virginia. 

1585 
Santo Domingo in the West Indies and Cartagena, Spain, are sacked by Sir Francis Drake. 

Dutch ships land at the Cape Verde Islands for salt. 

1588 
The British defeat and destroy the Spanish Armada. 

Queen Elizabeth I overcomes her sentimental scruples against slavery and commissions the Company of Royal Adventurers of England, giving them a state monopoly on the West African slave trade. 

1591 
Morocco with the help of Spain invades the Western Sudan and conquers Timbuktu, signaling the collapse of the Songhay Empire. 

1592 
Catalina de Erauzú, who later becomes one of the most famous women in colonial Mexico, is born in Spain. 

1595 
Sir Francis Drake is defeated by Spanish at San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Panama. 

Antonio de Berrio is appointed governor and the colonization of Trinidad is firmly established. 

1596 
Following the Portuguese, the Dutch arrive in Java, the destruction of another black civilization continues. After 1619, the Dutch East India Company gradually absorbs the remnants of the Javanese Empire. 

1598 
The first Dutch ships explore and trade along the rivers of Guyana between the Orinoco and the Amazon. 

1600 
More than 900,000 Africans are imported into the Caribbean in less than 100 years. 

1603 
James I becomes King of England and Scotland. 

1605 
Jehangir becomes Great Mogul. 

The Indian population in Central Mexico has declined from approximately 25 million on the eve of the Spanish invasion to about one million. 

1606 
The Virginia Company is formed. 

1607–1611 
Led by Yanga, a runaway African captive, who is reportedly a Congolese prince, several Africans near Veracruz maintain control of the principal route between this port city and Puebla, another important Spanish settlement in Mexico. 

1608 
Quebec, Canada, is settled by the French. 

1609 
Holland becomes independent of Spain. 

1612 
Twenty–nine Africans, males and females, are hanged and their heads displayed in Mexico City after a slave insurrection by more than 1,500 slaves in that city. 

1615 
In South America, Dutch settlements are initiated in Cayenne, the Wiapoco and the Amazon. The first permanent colony is established in Essequibo, Guyana, in 1616. 

1618 
King James I issues first exclusive slave charter to Englishmen. The Company soon fails and a new enterprise is sanctioned by Charles I in 1631. Still another enterprise is chartered in 1662. 

The Thirty Years War begins and spreads throughout Europe; the ideal of a unified Christianity perishes as Catholics war with Protestants. 

Sir Walter Raleigh is beheaded. 

1619 
Twenty “negars” are brought to Jamestown, Virginia, on a Dutch ship and sold as servants, marking the beginning of slavery in the English colonies. 

The Portuguese expel the English from the Amazon. 

In the seventeenth century the Dutch, Danes, French and English compete for the trade of West Africa. 

1622 
Catalina de Erauzú, who often masquerades as a man, has become a famous Mexican soldier, swordsman and daredevil. She is, however ordered back to Spain by colonial authorities. 

1623 
Cardinal Richelieu comes to power in France. 

1624 
William Tucker, the first African child born in English America, is baptized at Jamestown, Virginia. 

Sir Thomas Warner establishes on St. Christopher (St. Kitts) the first English settlement in the West Indies. 

1625 
The English and Dutch establish settlements on St. Croix, one of the Virgin Islands. 

Charles I becomes King of England. 

1626 
With fourteen Dutch ships, Piet Heyn sails to Bahia and seizes twenty–three Spanish vessels loaded with sugar; in 1627 Van Uytgeest captures a rich Honduras galleon; in 1628 Pieter Ita captures two Honduras galleons, and Pieter Heyn with thirty-one ships and 4,000 men captures an entire Spanish silver fleet, a feat hitherto unaccomplished. Its cargo is sold for 15 million florins wherewith the Company pays its debts and plans a major attack against Brazil.  In 1630, Hendrick Loncq with sixty–four ships and 8,000 men captures Pernambuco; during the next seven years, four northern provinces in Brazil are taken, and Dutch occupation of Curaçao, Bonaire, Aruba and St. Martin in the West Indies is begun. Dutch naval victories in Europe and Brazil reinforce the Caribbean conquests. In October, 1639, a combined Spanish– Portuguese armada of sixty-seven vessels and 24,000 men is defeated by Admiral Tromp in the English Channel, and in January 1640, another Spanish–Portuguese Armada, of eighty–six ships and 12,000 men is defeated by a Dutch West India Company fleet of forty–one vessels. 

Nieuw Amsterdam (i.e., New York City) is founded. Eleven African indentured servants are brought in. 

Sir Francis Bacon dies. 

1627
Barbados is settled by the British three years after Captain John Powell takes possion of it. 

1628
Shah Jehan becomes Great Mogul 

The English Petition of Right cites the Magna Charta and rehearses the limitations of the power of the king. 

1629
The King of Monomotapa in South Eastern Africa (Mozambique and Zimbabwe) is forced to become a vassal of the Portuguese. 

Charles I of england begins his eleven years of rule without a parliament. 

1630
The city of Boston, the cultural center and largest city in the colonies until 1743, is founded. 

1631
Yusuf bin Hasan leads Mombasa in present-day Kenya in a revolt against the Portuguese. 

The Dutch establish entrepots in Saba, St. Eustatius, Curaçao, and St. Martin. Nevis (1628), Anguilla and Montserrat (1632), all in the West Indies, are settled by the English. The French settle in Martinique and Guadeloupe (1635). 

1632
Leeuwenhoek, Dutch inventer of the microscope, is born. 

Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, is killed at the Battle of Lützen in eastern Germany. 

1634
Albrecht von Wallenstein, imperialist German generalissimo during the Thirty Years War, is murdered. 

1636
Harvard University is chartered. 

1638
The New England slave trade commences with the arrival in Boston of the first Africans on the Ship Desire. 

Attempt to settle St. Lucia by the English are repulsed by large numbers of Carib Indians. In 1641 the English are beaten off again. 

Japan is closed to Europeans until 1865. 

"Like China under the Mings, had set her face resolutely against the interference of foreigners in her affairs. She was a country leading her own civilized life, magically sealed against intruders. . . . Her picturesque and romantic history stands apart from the general drama of human affairs. Her population was chiefly a Mongolian population, with some very interesting white people suggestive of a primitive Nordic type, the Hairy Aniu, in the northern islands. Her civilization seems to have been derived almost entirely from Korea and china; her art is a special development of Chinese art, her writing an adaptation of the Chinese script" (H.G. Wells, The Outline of History, 1956).

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