AFTER ROME & PERSIA
This Germanic ruler removed Romulus Augustulus from power in 476 CE, traditionally marking the end of the Western Roman Empire.
Who was Odoacer?
This Arabian city became wealthy through caravan trade and was home to the Kaaba.
What is Mecca?
This close companion of Muhammad became the first caliph after Muhammad’s death in 632 CE.
Who was Abu Bakr?
This Frankish ruler was crowned “Emperor of the Romans” by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day in 800 CE.
Who was Charlemagne?
The Viking attack on this English monastery in 793 CE is traditionally remembered as the dramatic beginning of the Viking Age in the West.
What is Lindisfarne?
While western Europe fragmented, this empire centered on Constantinople preserved Roman law, taxation, bureaucracy, and professional armies.
What was the Eastern Roman—or Byzantine—Empire?
This powerful merchant tribe controlled much of Mecca’s caravan trade and religious pilgrimage before the rise of Islam.
Who were the Quraysh?
The Umayyad Caliphate ruled its enormous empire from this Syrian capital.
What is Damascus?
This Frankish leader defeated an Umayyad force at the Battle of Tours in 732 CE.
Who was Charles Martel?
This region of England came under Danish Viking control after years of invasion and settlement.
What was the Danelaw?
Founded by Ardashir I in 224 CE, this Persian empire became Rome and Byzantium’s greatest eastern rival.
What was the Sasanian Empire?
This prophet, born in Mecca around 570 CE, preached the monotheistic religion that became Islam.
Who was Muhammad?
This dynasty overthrew the Umayyads in 750 CE and shifted the center of the Islamic world east toward Baghdad.
What was the Abbasid Caliphate
In Norse Mythology, this enormous tree connected the Nine Worlds of Norse mythology, including Asgard, Midgard, and Jotunheim.
What is Yggdrasil?
Archaeological remains at this Newfoundland site proved that Norse explorers reached North America around the year 1000.
What is L’Anse aux Meadows?
This ancient Persian religion centered on Ahura Mazda and a cosmic struggle between truth and falsehood, and became closely tied to the Sasanian state.
What is Zoroastrianism?
Muhammad’s 622 CE migration from Mecca to Medina marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar.
What was the Hijra?
This celebrated institution in Baghdad brought together translators and scholars studying Greek philosophy, Roman science, Persian history, and Indian mathematics.
What was the House of Wisdom?
In Norse mythology, valkyries carried warriors who died bravely in battle to this great hall of Odin, where they feast and prepare for Ragnarök.
What is Valhalla?
These Swedish Vikings traveled east along the Volga, Dnieper, and Don Rivers, linking Scandinavia with Byzantium and the Islamic world.
Who were the Varangians?
These mounted Persian warriors became famous for firing arrows backward while galloping away from an enemy, giving their tactic this famous name.
What was the Parthian shot?
According to Islamic tradition, Muhammad received his first revelations from the angel Gabriel while meditating at this cave outside Mecca.
What is the Cave of Hira?
The modern word “algebra” is closely associated with the work of this Persian mathematician of the Islamic Golden Age.
Who was al-Khwarizmi?
Odin hung wounded from Yggdrasil for nine nights in order to gain the secret knowledge of these symbols of Norse writing and magic.
What are runes?
This Muslim traveler left one of history’s most vivid eyewitness accounts of the Rus, describing their appearance, hygiene, trade, and the cremation of a chieftain in a ship.
Who was Ibn Fadlan?