Church Council of Ephesus condemns NESTORIUS, and approves "Mother of God" as a title of Mary the mother of the Lord Jesus.

In Jerusalem – Empress EUDOKIA (wife of THEODOSIUS II) gives the Jews permission to pray on Temple Mount on holy days other than the Ninth of Av.
On Sukkoth many Jews gather in Jerusalem and process around the 'Temple ruins' waving palm branches.
Syrian monk BAR SAUMA, known for violence against Jews, mobilizes his disciples to stone the Jewish procession. Many Jews die. The survivors capture 18 of his disciples and appeal to empress EUDOKIA for justice.
BAR SAUMA assembles a crowd of monks that threaten to burn the Empress if she sides with the Jews.
The Roman Governor's investigators announce that all Jewish victims died of natural causes.
BAR SAUMA publishes the news as a victory for the Cross.

In Constantinople – The Theodosian Code is published which, among others, imposes the death penalty on any Jew who tries to convert a Christian to Judaism.
January 31: Emperor THEODOSIUS II, under the influence of bishops of imperial Christianity, excludes all Jews from holding public office –

'no Jew ...shall be allowed to hold office or receive honours. He shall not be allowed to administer the city, neither shall he carry out the office of defending the city. We regard it as a sin that the enemies of the heavenly Majesty and of Roman law should be the executors of our laws ...For the same reason we refuse permission for any synagogue to erect a new building...'.

In North Africa – The Vandals make Carthage their capital.
May 15: Empress EUDOKIA dedicates a small shrine to "St. Stephen" outside the northern gate of Jerusalem.

In Jerusalem – Jews gather en mass confidently looking forward to the coming of a Messianic Redeemer.

In Rome – Pope LEO I teaches that a young man's desertion of his 'concubine' (common law wife) is his first step to godliness. (Bishop AUGUSTINE of Hippo is an example of this perverse belief).

Empress EUDOKIA permits Temple reconstruction, but the effort fails.

Empress EUDOKIA quarrels with THEODOSIUS II's sister, PULCHERIA, is banished to Jerusalem, and then becomes the ruler of Palestine.
She builds many new churches and hospices in and around Jerusalem. She, together with Bishop JUVENAL of Jerusalem, support the monophysite Christians (represented in Jerusalem today by Coptic, Syrian Jacobites, Armenian, and Ethiopian Christians).

The Dark Ages Cold Period begins in large areas of central Europe and Scandinavia, causing the retreat of agriculture, including pasturing, with consequent reforestation, and the decline of the Roman Empire.
In Crete – False Messiah MOSES (FISKIS) of Crete persuades the Jewish community on the island to leave their possessions and follow him into the sea in a march toward Palestine for it would open as the Red Sea had done. Many drown.

PULCHERIA (sister of Theodosius II) summons a general council of the Christian Church to Constantinople. JUVENAL of Jerusalem sides with bishop LEO of Rome in return for the diocese of Jerusalem being promoted to a Patriarchate, thus taking precedence over Caesarea, Beth Shan and Petra.
Empress EUDOKIA and the Jerusalem Christians feel betrayed and appoint the Monophysite THEODOSIUS as bishop. Bishop JUVENAL is attacked by monks on his return from Constantinople and goes into hiding at Rubra to the west of Qumran.

On the death of Bishop THEODOSIUS, EUDOKIA consults Syrian ascetic SIMEON STYLITES over the disunity of Christendom. He refers her to Armenian monastic leader, EUTHYMIUS, who convinces her of the Orthodox theology. Orthodox patriarch ANASTASIUS therefore becomes archbishop of Jerusalem.

The last West Roman emperor, ROMULUS AUGUSTULUS, is deposed by ODOVACAR.

CLOVIS becomes king of the Franks, and eventually completes the conquest of Gaul.

In Britain – West Saxon advance is halted at the battle of Mount Badon (probably by ARTORIUS, the 'king Arthur' of later legend).

In Yemen – DHU NUWAS, the last Himyarite Arab ruler, is defeated after proclaiming himself a Jew, thus helping his own defeat by motivating the Christianised Abyssinian armies against him.

In Rome – DIONYSIUS EXIGUUS invents the present day Anno Domini dating system (BC/AD) and erroneously fixes Christ's birth as 25 December, 1 AD, but it's use is only popularised two centuries later by Saxon Abbot BEDE.

Emperor JUSTINIAN publishes edicts that effectively make Judaism an illegal religion. Jews are forbidden to hold civil or military posts even in towns where they are a majority. They are forbidden to use Hebrew in their synagogues, or to celebrate Passover if it fell on a date before Easter.
In Jerusalem – JUSTINIAN builds the 'Mary Theotokos Church' (the 'Nea') on the southern slope of its western hill to commemorate the Orthodox doctrine of Christ. (see 746 AD/CE)

In Constantinople – Emperor JUSTINIAN appoints a commission of ten men who classify the constitutions written by various Roman emperors into a single code of 4,652 laws.
The kings of the Heruli (a Germanic tribe settled south of the Danube) and the Crimean Huns come to Constantinople to be formally baptised into the Christian faith, with JUSTINIAN acting a their godfather in the ceremony (Daniélou and Marrou 1964:383).

In Athens – The famous Neo-Platonist school is closed.
In Constantinople – Lawsuites are brought against pagans and conducted with great cruelty, including imprisonment, torture and burning.

In Constantinople – The Nika riots, followed by a fire which burns for five days, destroys half of the city, including the Hagia Sophia church. Empress THEODORA prevents her husband (JUSTINIAN) from fleeing the city. The city's population is estimated at about 600,000.

In Constantinople – Byzantine Emperor JUSTINIAN dedicates his reconstruction of the Hagia Sophia church, declaring "Solomon, I have outdone you", and celebrates it with a banquet of 6,000 sheep, and 1,000 oxen, 1,000 pigs, 1,000 poultry, and 500 deer roasted for his court and the population.

Bubonic plague begins to ravage across Europe, weakening the Byzantine Empire and so helping the Barbarian invasions.

Emperor JUSTINIAN orders the monk JOHN of Amida (who later becomes Monophystite bishop of Ephesus) to preach Christianity in the provinces of Asia, Caria, Lydia, and Phrygia. About 70,000 pagans are baptised, each new convert receiving a small gold coin from the Emperor, and 96 churches built with half the cost born by the imperial treasury (Daniélou and Marrou 1964:384).

JUSTINIAN's army defeats the Ostrogoths in Sicily, Italy and Damatia, and the Visigoths in Spain, while repelling attacks by the Persians and Slavs.

In Mecca – ABU AL-QASIM MUHAMMAD (the founder of Islam) is born to recently widowed AMINAH. At age 6 his mother dies and he comes into the care of his uncle ABU TALIB.

In Yemen – The collapse of the Ma'rib dam devastates agriculture in the region and hastens the collapse of South Arabian culture which included significant settlements of Jews.

In Babylon – The Jewish Talmud (Gemara), commentary on Mishna, goes through several stages of redaction (proto-Talmuds used in rabbinic academies) to become the standard for judicial precedent and theological doctrine for all Babylonian Jewry and those under its influence, and eventually as the basis for modern Judaism (Talmud Bavli).
Jewish vigorous missionary activity in the Near East, especially the Arabian Peninsula, competes with Christian influences, and helps to lay the monotheistic groundwork for the establishment and spread of Islam in the region.
Jewish commercial interests improve, as the Roman Empire breaks up, through:

MUHAMMAD marries his wealthy employer, the widow KHADIJA, 15 years his senior. She bears him two sons (who die in infancy) and four daughters.

In Arabia – A violent storm shatters Mecca's Ka'ba (meaning cube).
The city's tribe violently disagrees on who should replace the sacred black stone (meteorite) in its east wall.
Tradition reports that they agreed to the next person to enter the gates and this happens to be MUHAMMAD, thus helping to awaken a sense of his mission.

MUHAMMAD experiences his first vision of the angel, is deeply disturbed but reassured by his wife, whose Christian cousin, WARAQAH, helps him to understand his experience in the Judeo-Christian Biblical tradition of prophets.

In Arabia – MUHAMMAD begins preaching publicly.
In Syria – Damascus is captured by the Persians (Parthians).
In Visigoth Spain – Legislation is passed which forces all Jews to choose between conversion to Christianity or exile.

Sasanian Parthians (Persians) conquer Jerusalem, massacre its inhabitants, exile Patriarch ZECHARIAS, and attempt unsuccessfully to reconstruct a temple on Temple Mount.

MUHAMMAD's wife KHADIJA dies in Mecca, and also his uncle and patron ABU TALIB.

June: Twelve men from Yathrib on a pilgrimage to the pagan Ka'bah shrine of Mecca (of the main god Hubal and more than 300 lesser idols) secretly profess allegiance to MUHAMMAD's message of monotheism.
MUHAMMAD marries SAUDA BINT ZAM'AH (wife 1) and is betrothed to 13 year old AYISHAH.

April: MUHAMMAD commands his followers in Mecca to emigrate to Yathrib, later called Medina (Medinat-en-nabi = City of the prophet).
June 20: MUHAMMAD and ABU BAKR flee from Mecca southward to the cave of Thaur. (see 639 AD regarding dating).
September 24: MUHAMMAD arrives safely in Yathrib.

January: MUHAMMAD's followers, disguised as pilgrims during the annual period of sacred truce among all Arab tribes, attack an unarmed trade caravan from Yemen, at Nakhlah south of Mecca, killing one person and taking two for ransom. MUHAMMAD receives a revelation justifying the crimes because of Mecca's banning of his access to the Ka'bah (Qur'an, 2:217).
MUHAMMAD marries AYISHAH (wife 2), who remains his favourite.
MUHAMMAD, in his 'Charter of Medina', regards the Jewish tribes as at par with his own followers, but his experiences of their betrayals of the pacts they enter into with him for the joint defence of Medina (Yathrib) against his Meccan enemies, lead him to expel them and execute all Jewish males in Medina.
He consequently also changes the prayer direction (qiblah) of his followers from Jerusalem to Mecca's Ka'bah, even though it is a shrine of tribal idols, and justifies this by announcing that ABRAHAM with ISHMAEL had built it as a shrine to God (Qur'an 2:125,127).
March 15: MUHAMMAD leads a raiding party of about 315 men to attack a Meccan trade caravan which eludes him but the leader of the Makhuzum clan of Mecca confronts him with a force of 800 near Badr. MUHAMMAD's troops triumph.
In the aftermath many of MUHAMMAD's critics in Medina are assassinated and the Muslim movement grows.
MUHAMMAD marries widow HAFSAH (wife 3).
MUHAMMAD marries UMM SALAMAH (wife 4).
MUHAMMAD marries ZAYNAB BINT KHUZAYMAH (wife 5).
March 16: Islamic battle of Badr expels the Jewish tribe Banu-Qaynuqa.

March 23: A Meccan force of 3000 attacks Medina at Uhud. They return to Mecca having killed as many Muslim troops as the men as they had lost.
March 24: The Jewish tribe Banu-Nadir are expelled by MOHAMMAD and their poet Ka'b al-Ashraf (known for his hostility to Mohammad) is assassinated.

April: The battle of Ohod – A Meccan confederacy of 10,000 troops besiege MUHAMMAD and his troops at Medina together with Jewish tribes, but he is well prepared and the siege fails.
In consequence MUHAMMAD attacks the Jewish clan of Qurayzah who surrender. Their men are savagely executed and their women and children sold as slaves.
MUHAMMAD's forces attack and defeat the Banu Khuza'ah tribe. He takes the beautiful JUWAYRIYAH (wife 6) to wife from the tribe instead of a ransom.
MUHAMMAD marries his cousin ZAYNAB BINT JAHSH (wife 7), after she is divorced from his adopted son. He receives a revelation to justify it.
MUHAMMAD marries MARIYAH (wife 8) (a Coptic Christian slavewoman).

March: MUHAMMAD sets out on pilgrimage to the Ka'bah at Mecca driving sacrificial animals ahead of him but is disappointed that only 1,600 of his men are willing to accompany him. After long negotiation at al-Hudaybiyah the Meccans and Muslims agree to stop hostilities and Muslims will be allowed to make the pilgrimage the following year.
MUHAMMAD marries UMM HABI'BAH (wife 9).
MUHAMMAD marries SAFIYAH (wife 10) (a Jewess, whose husband, father and brothers had been massacred by Muslims).
June: MUHAMMAD conquers a coalition of local Arabs and the Jewish Kaybar tribe (north of Medina) and levies a special tax (jizyah) on the Jews (creating a precedent that later led orthodox Islam to conclude it must be paid by Christians and Jews to the Muslim state).

March 21/29: Byzantine king HERACLIUS drives the Persians from Jerusalem and enters in triumph. (The 'Golden Gate' in the eastern wall of Temple Mount may have been built to commemorate this victorious entrance). Jews lament his victory.
HERACLIUS builds an octagonal victory shrine over the centre of the pentagonally cut bedrock on Temple Mount (probably originally cut to this shape for SOLOMON's Sidonian queen's shrine to Ashtoreth north of his great Temple. Click for the research on Temple Mount).
Bishop MODESTOS is appointed Christian Patriarch of Jerusalem. Jews are once again banned from Jerusalem.
March: MUHAMMAD enters Mecca by the Hudaybiyah agreements with unarmed followers as an act of worship. While in Mecca, MUHAMMAD marries the widow MAYMUNAH (wife 11).
c.November: MUHAMMAD's allies are attacked by allies of Mecca and so he repudiates the Hudaybiyah agreements.
MUHAMMAD takes Jewess RAYHANAH as concubine after his men kill her husband.

January: MUHAMMAD enters Mecca with 10,000 men in triumph, kills 28 opponents, removes the statue of the moon god Hubal (هبل‎) from the Ka'bah and destroys it. He destroys all Arab tribal idols, and announces the Law of Islam as obedience to the one and only most high God – Allāh (الله‎). MUHAMMAD insists that Allāh is one and the same with the God of the Jews and accordingly later in the Qur'ãn calls them the People of the Book.
After the Byzantine defeat of the Persians their Arab allies turn to alliances with MUHAMMAD for support against Byzantium, and profess Islam.
MUHAMMAD leads a force of 30,000 men to the Syrian border in a month long campaign, concludes treaties of submission to Islam with various tribes, but Christian support for Byzantium provokes his hostility.

March: MUHAMMAD performs the old pagan Arab rites of the 'hajj' pilgrimage to Mecca, giving them a new, monotheistic meaning.
June 8: MUHAMMAD dies, having by revelation forbidden Muslim's to marry his widows. He is survived by nine wives.
Caliph ABU BAKR (MOHAMMAD's brother-in-law) begins the conquest of Palestine with the battle of Adjnadain (near the future Ramleh).

Islam extends its military campaigns into the power vacuum left by Byzantium and Persia in their exhaustion from long wars. Any loyalty to Byzantium among the large Jewish populations and monophysite Christians had been destroyed by the oppressive religious policies of successive Byzantine rulers. Jews therefore welcome the Muslim armies into Palestine.
In Jerusalem – Orthodox bishop SOPHRONIUS becomes Christian Patriarch and bans all Jews from the city.
In Spain – The Fourth Council of Toledo (under ISIDORE of Seville) condemns forced baptisms but approves the validity of previously achieved conversions of children; converted children are to be removed from their parents to prevent them from being influenced by the false religion of their (Jewish) parents.

Caliph OMAR begins the Islamic invasion of Palestine with a victory in Gaza over governor SERGIUS.
In reaction HERACLIUS of Byzantium commands all Jews of his empire to be baptised into Christianity, and sends messengers to the kings of France and the Visigoths informing them of his decision.

In Britain – OSWALD becomes king of Northumbria at the battle of Heavenfield and introduces Christianity.
In Palestine – Hebron (with its tombs of the Jewish patriarchs) falls to the Islamic invasion. (see 1267).
Islamic troops invade Syrian via the Golan.

August 20: Muslims defeat the Byzantine army at Yarmuk. With the help of the Jews the Muslims begin to subjugate the rest of the country.

February: Islamic conquest of Jerusalem ('Ilya', from the Roman Aelia) by Arabian 'UMAR I (Caliph OMAR BEN HATAV) who enters on a white camel wearing his usual shabby clothes to take possession of the city. After the Muslim conquest, there is no killing or destruction of property or religious symbols; no expropriations or attempt to force the inhabitants to convert to Islam. The Muslim invaders are not permitted to settle. They continue living in special military compounds.
Bishop SOPHRONIUS dies of natural causes a few weeks later, having ascribed the city's defeat to God's punishment on the sins of Christians.
While initially confirming SOPHRONIUS' ban on Jews, 'UMAR later invites seventy Jewish families from Tiberius to settle in Jerusalem near the pool of Siloam.
Jews are allowed to build a synagogue which became known as 'the Cave', probably because it was in the vaults underneath the Temple platform (Haram ash-Sharif).
In Spain – The Sixth Council of Toledo institutes a public confession for converted Jews to prove their loyalty to the Catholic faith.

In Palestine – The anonymous Christian writing 'Doctrina Jacobi' (Teaching of James) appears, referring to MOHAMMAD as –

"the false prophet [who] has appeared among the Saracens".

Caliph 'UMAR I starts the Muslim calendar, counting it from the lunar month Muharram, in the year of MOHAMMAD's escape to Medina – which is 16 July in 622 AD.

Under Islamic rule the heads of the two principal academies of Babylonian Jewry are recognised by the Exilarch (Jewish leader), and through him by the Muslim caliphate, as final arbiters of Jewish law and the religious heads of all Jewish communities under Muslim rule. Thus the Babylonian Talmud comes to replace the Palestinian Talmud and becomes normative for Judaism. (see Gemara).

In Constantinople – Byzantine Emperor HERACLIUS dies. His empire has already lost control of most of its south-easterly territories as the Islamic conquest of Egypt and North Africa begins.
Byzantine Emperor CONSTANTINE dies by poisoning.

The compilation of MOHAMMAD's Qur'ãn is completed.
Caliph UTHMAN ibn AFFAN (third Caliph of Islam) sends a delegation to the Chinese Gaozong Emperor (south west of China) led by SA`D ibn ABI WAQQAS, the maternal uncle of MUHAMMED.