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Islamic Ascendancy

570 A Muhammad born

610 Gabriel calls Muhammad to be a prophet of Allah

622 Muhammad’s flight from Mecca to Medina

632 Muhammad dies

638 Jerusalem surrenders to Muslim military

711 Muslims invade Spain

717 Caliph Umar II begins first general persecution of nonMuslims

726 John of Damascus leaves public office, enters monastery

732 Charles Martel defeats Muslim armies at Tours (Poitiers)

781 Nestorian Patriarch Timothy I debates Caliph Mahdi

807 Caliph Harun al-Rashid orders destruction of all newer churches

850 Caliph Mutawakkil forces Christians to wear yellow patches

956 Seljuk Turks embrace Islam

988 Prince Vladimir of Kiev adopts Christianity, stopping Islam’s advance into Eastern Europe

1009 Fatimid Caliph Hakim destroys Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem

1025 Muslim raiders level a temple of Shiva in Gujarat, India

1055 Seljuk Turks capture Baghdad, ending a stable Islamic dynasty

1071 Byzantines lose major battle at Manzikert

1091 Seljuk Turks drive Christian priests out of Jerusalem

Crusades

1099 First Crusade recaptures Jerusalem

1118 Military Order of Knights Templar formed to protect Holy Land pilgrims

1147 German knights of Second Crusade suffer major defeat at Dorylaeum, in Asia Minor

1169 Saladin comes to power in Egypt

1187 Saladin’s forces crush crusader army, take Jerusalem

1191 England’s Richard the LionHeart negotiates access to Jerusalem

1204 Fourth Crusade sacks Constantinople, an allied city

1216 Jacques de Vitry named bishop of Acre

1219 Francis of Assisi preaches to Saladin’s nephew

1238 Thomas Aquinas writes Summa Contra Gentiles, an apologetic aimed at Islam

1244 Christian settlers forced out of Jerusalem

1261 Byzantines regain Constantinople

1291 Fall of Acre ends Christian power in Holy Land

Ottoman Rise and Fall

1300 Sultan Osman I founds Ottoman Empire in presentday Turkey

1315 Christian missionary Ramon Llull stoned by Muslim crowd in Algeria

1389 Christian Prince Lazar of Serbia defeated and killed at first Battle of Kosovo

1393 Muslim forces overrun Bulgaria

1453 Ottoman Turks take Constantinople

1492 Spanish capture Grenada, ending Reconquista

1509 Portuguese fleet sinks Muslim fleet in battle near India

1520 Sulaiman the Magnificent comes to power

1529 First Islamic siege of Vienna

1683 Second siege of Vienna

1736 First of many territorial wars with Russia

1854 Ottomans and Russians face off in Crimean War

1878 Ottomans lose Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Bulgaria due to Slavic uprising

1911 Italians win Libya

1915 Turks begin brutal campaign against Armenian Christians

1917 Balfour Declaration, backed by many Western Christians, proposes Jewish homeland

1919 Ottomans lose Syria, Palestine, Arabia, and Mesopotamia in Treaty of Versailles

1924 Kemal Ataturk abolishes caliphate, founds secular Republic of Turkey

By the Editors

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