| Timeline of the Crusades | |
| A.D. 355 | Roman Emporer Constantine removes a Roman temple from the historical site of the Crucifixion in Jerusalem (possibly the Temple of Aphrodite built by Hadrian), and builds the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. |
| A.D. 610 | Muhammad claims that after meditating in the desert God revealed messages to him through the angel Gabriel. He believes that God had called him to found a new religion -- Islam. |
| A.D. 614 | The Persians sack Jerusalem, damaging the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. |
| A.D. 632 | Muhammad dies in 632 with the majority of the Arabian Peninsula under Islam. This invasion of Iraq had been one of the last military orders given by Muhammed before his death. |
| A.D. 633 | The Muslims conquer Syria and Iraq. |
| A.D. 635 | Arab Muslims capture the city of Damascus from the Byzantines. |
| A.D. 637 | Arab Muslims occupy the Persian capital of Ctesiphon. Persia comes completely under the rule of Islam by A.D. 651. |
| A.D. 637 | Jerusalem falls to invading Muslim forces. |
| A.D. 639 | Muslims conquer Egypt. |
| A.D. 641 | Under the leadership of Abd-al-Rahman, Muslims conquer southern areas of Azerbaijan, Daghestan, Georgia, and Armenia. |
| A.D. 654 | Muslims conquer Cyprus and station a large garrison there. The island remains in Muslim control until A.D. 966. |
| A.D. 655 | In the Battle of the Masts off the coast of Lycia, one of the only Muslim naval victories in the entire history of Islam, Muslim forces under the command of Uthman bin Affan defeat Byzantine forces under Emperor Constant II. The battle foreshadows the decline of Byzantine power. |
| A.D. 668 | The first siege of Constantinople lasts for seven years, with the Muslim forces sailing against the city during the spring and summer months. The Greeks fend off repeated attacks with Greek Fire, a weapon feared by the Arabs. |
| A.D. 669 | The Muslim conquest reaches to Morocco in North Africa. |
| A.D. 674 | Arab conquest reaches the Indus River. |
| A.D. 698 | The Muslims capture Carthage in North Africa. |
| A.D. 711 | With the conquest of Egypt, Spain and North Africa, Islam control includes all of the Persian empire and most of the old Roman world. Muslims begIn the conquest of Afghanistan. |
| A.D. 717 | Taking advantage of the civil unrest in the Byzantine Empire, Caliph Sulieman sends 120,000 Muslims in the second siege of Constantinople. Another force of around 100,000 Muslims arrives from Syria and Egypt to assist. Most of these reinforcements are quickly destroyed with Greek Fire. The Bulgarians, usually hostile to the Byzantines, send a force to destroy Muslim reinforcements marching from Adrianopolis. |
| A.D. 719 | Muslim attack Septimania in southern France (so named because it was the base of operations for Rome's Seventh Legion) and become established in the region known as Languedoc. |
| A.D. 721 | The Muslim army under the command of Al-Semah cross the Pyrenees and are defeated by the Franks near Toulouse. Al-Semah is killed and his army is driven back across the Pyrenees into Spain. |
| A.D. 722 | In the Battle of Covadonga, Pelayo defeats a Muslim army at Alcama near Covadonga. This is the first real Christian victory over the Muslims in the Reconquista. |
| A.D. 732 | With approximately 1,500 soldiers, Charles Martel (Charles the Hammer) halts a Muslim force of 40,000 to 60,000 cavalry under Abd el-Rahman Al Ghafiqi from moving farther into Europe in the Battle of Tours. Many believe this decisive battle saved Europe from Muslim control. |
| A.D. 846 | Muslim raiders sail a fleet of ships from Africa up the Tiber river and attack outlying areas around Ostia and Rome. Some enter Rome and damage the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul. Pope Leo IV promises a yearly tribute of 25,000 silver coins to the raiders. The Leonine Wall is built to defend the city from further attacks. |
| A.D. 849 | Aghlabid monarch Muhammad sends a fleet of ships from Sardinia to attack Rome. As the fleet prepares to land troops, a powerful storm and an alliance of Christian forces destroy the Muslims ships. |
| A.D. 850-851 | In Muslim Cordova, a Christian priest named Perfectus is executed after he refuses to retract numerous insults he made about the Prophet Muhammed. Many other priests, monks, and Christian believers would follow seeking martyrdom. |
| A.D. 863 | Two brothers, Cyril and Methodius, are sent by the patriarch of Constantinople to begin the evangelization of Moravia. Th Moravian ruler, Rostilav, decreed in 863 that any preaching done had to be in the language of the people. As a result, Cyril and Methodius developed the first usable alphabet for the Slavic tongue - the Cyrillic alphabet. |
| A.D. 866 | Emperor Louis II travels from Germany to southern Italy to battle Muslim raiders. |
| A.D. 880 | Emperor Basil leads the Byzantines to recapture lands occupied by Arabs in Italy. |
| A.D. 902 | Muslim armies take control of Sicily when the last Christian stronghold, the city of Taorminia, is captured. Muslim rule of Sicily for 264 years. |
| A.D. 911 | Muslim raider control all the passes in the Alps between France and Italy, cutting off passage between the two countries. |
| A.D. 916 | Greek and German emperors and Italian city-states combine to defeat Muslim invaders at Garigliano, putting Muslim raids in Italy to an end. |
| A.D. 950 | Catholicism becomes prevalent and dominant religion throughout Europe. |
| A.D. 1009 | Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, founder of the Druze sect, orders the Holy Sepulcher and all Christian buildings in Jerusalem be destroyed. In Europe a rumor develops that a "Prince of Babylon" had ordered the destruction of the Holy Sepulcher at the instigation of the Jews. Attacks on Jewish communities ensue. This event lays the basis for latter massacres of Jewish communities by Crusaders marching to the Holy Land. |
| A.D. 1012 | Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah orders the destruction of all Christian and Jewish houses of worship in his lands. |
| A.D. 1015 | Byzantine emperor Constantine IX Monomachos restores the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. |
| A.D. 1070 | Seljuk Turks capture Jerusalem and Christian pilgrims begin returning to Europe with tales of persecution and oppression. |
| A.D. 1070 | A leader of the Benedictine monks and nuns, Brother Gerard, begins to organize The Order of Knights of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem (most commonly as Knights Hospitaller) as a military force for the protection of Christian pilgrims. |
| A.D. 1080 | An Armenian state is founded in Cilicia, a district on the southeastern coast of Asia Minor (Turkey), north of Cyprus, by refugees fleeing the Seljuk invasion of their Armenian homeland. "Armenia Minor" would later provide important assistance to Crusaders from Europe. |
| A.D. 1088 | Urban II is elected pope, and would become responsible for launching the First Crusade. |
| A.D. 1095 | Pope Urban II opens the Council of Clermont where ambassadors from the Byzantine emperor Alexius I Comnenus, asks for help against the Muslims. His famous speech helps to launch the First Crusade. |
| A.D. 1096 (April) | The armies of the First Crusade depart to swarm towards Jerusalem and make it safe for Christian pilgrims by taking it away from the Muslims. The first of the four planned Crusader armies arrives in Constantinople. |
| A.D. 1096 (April) | A native of Amiens in France, Peter the Hermit leads 20,000 commoners out of Cologne (in present-day Germany) on the Peasants' Crusade. |
| A.D. 1096 (May) | Crusaders moving through the Rhine Valley massacre Jews in Speyer in the first major slaughter of a Jewish community by Crusaders marching to the Holy Land. They also attack and kill Jews in Worms, Cologne, and Mainz, Germany. |
| A.D. 1096 (July) | Peter the Hermit's Peasants' Crusade meets Byzantine forces at Nish. Peter is victorious and moves towards Constantinople, but a quarter of his forces are lost. |
| A.D. 1096 (September) | A group from the Peasants' Crusade surrenders to Muslims at Xerigordon. Everyone is given a choice of beheading or conversion. Those who convert in order to avoid beheading are sent into slavery and never heard from again. |
| A.D. 1096 (October) | The Peasants' Crusade is massacred at Civeot, Anatolia, by the Turks. Only small children are spared the sword so that they could be sent into slavery. Nearly 3,000 manage to escape back to Constantinople. |
| A.D. 1096 (December) | The last of the four Crusader armies arrives at Constantinople, bringing the numbers to approximately 50,000 knights and 500,000 footmen. |
| A.D. 1097 (May) | Duke Robert of Normandy joins the Crusades as the large force crosses into Asia Minor. Peter the Hermit and his few remaining followers join them. |
| A.D. 1097 (June) | Crusaders capture Antioch after a long siege, delaying progress towards Jerusalem by a year. |
| A.D. 1099 (June) | The Crusaders reach the gates of Jerusalem, then controlled by governor Iftikhar ad-Daula. The Fatimid caliph offers the Crusaders a peace agreement that includes protection of Christian pilgrims and worshippers in the city. The Crusaders refuse anything less than full control of the Holy City. |
| A.D. 1099 (July 15) | Crusaders breach the walls of Jerusalem at two points: Godfrey of Bouillon and his brother Baldwin at St. Stephen's Gate on the north wall and Count Raymond at the Jaffa Gate on the west wall, thus allowing them to capture the city. Estimates place the number of casualties as high as 100,000. |
| A.D. 1099 (July 16) | Crusaders drive hundreds of Jews of Jerusalem into a synagogue and set it on fire. |
| A.D. 1099 (July 29) | Pope Urban II dies without ever learning that the First Crusade had taken Jerusalem and was a success. |
| A.D. 1099 (August 12) | Crusaders successfully fight off an Egyptian army of 50,000 men sent to relieve Jerusalem by al-Afdal, the vizier of Egypt. The Egyptian army outnumbers the remaining Crusaders five to one. The Battle of Ascalon is the final battle in the First Crusade. |
| A.D. 1100 (December 25) | Baldwin I is crowned King of Jerusalem on Christmas Day. Baldwin has only limited control as the kingdom is divided into four feudal principalities. An ecclesiastical hierarchy is subject only to the pope in Rome. |
| A.D. 1101 (August) | In the Battle of Heraclia, Turks under Kilij Arslan I halt the advance of the final waves of Crusading armies from Europe travelling to reinforce the new Crusader States in Syria. |
| A.D. 1102 (May) | English and German Crusaders arrive by ship at Jaffa. With these additional forces, Baldwin I fights successfully against the Muslims who had been besieging the city, driving the Egyptians back as far as Ascalon. |
| A.D. 1105 (August) | In the third Battle of Ramleh, the Egyptians try one more time to take control of Jerusalem. The Egyptian Muslim forces are defeated by the smaller numbers of Crusaders. |
| A.D. 1110 (May) | The Franks defeat the Muslims in Beirut. |
| A.D. 1113 (February) | The Pope recognizes the Knights Hospitaller as a separate and independent monastic order. The Hospitallers play an important role in the security of the Crusader states in the Middle East. |
| A.D. 1115 (July) | Peter the Hermit dies. Peter was one of those primarily responsible for spreading the vision for the First Crusade. |
| A.D. 1119 | The Order of Knights Templar is founded by Hugues de Payens in Jerusalem. They took their name from the fact that their headquarters was on the site of Solomon's Temple. |
| A.D. 1124 (July) | The port of Tyre is starved into submission with the aid of a Venetian sea blockade. Most of the Mediterranean coast is now in the hands of the Crusaders and under the control of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. |
| A.D. 1125 | Pope Callistus II launches a Crusade against Spain and eastern regions controlled by Muslims. |
| A.D. 1138 | Salah-al-Din Yusuf ib-Ayyub (Salah al-Din, Saladin) is born. Saladin is a Kurd who acquires a strong reputation in Europe both for his fighting skills and his honorable diplomacy. |
| A.D. 1144 | Muslim forces under the command of Imad ad-Din Zengi re-capture Edessa, originally taken by Crusaders under Baldwin of Boulogne in 1098. This event leads to a call for a Second Crusade in Europe. |
| A.D. 1145-1149 | The Second Crusade is launched to recapture territory recently lost to Muslim forces. In the end only a few Greek islands are taken. |
| A.D. 1145 | Pope Eugene III proclaims the Second Crusade in an effort to retake territory in the control of Muslim forces. This Bull was sent directly to the French King, Louis VII, and although he had been contemplating a Crusade on his own, he chose to ignore it at first. |
| A.D. 1146 | Saxon nobles meeting in Frankfurt ask Bernard of Clairvaux for permission to launch a Crusade on pagan Slavs in the east. Pope Eugene III authorizes a Crusade. |
| A.D. 1146 (June) | King Louis VII announces that France will join in the Second Crusade after being moved by the preaching of St. Bernard. |
| A.D. 1149 (July) | The Crusader Church of the Holy Sepulcher is dedicated. |
| A.D. 1186 | Reynald of Chantillon breaks a truce with Saladin by attacking a Muslim caravan and taking several prisoners, including a sister of Saladin. This infuriates the Muslim leader who vows to kill Reynald with his own hands. |
| A.D. 1186 (August) | Baldwin V, young king of Jerusalem dies of an illness. His mother, Sibylla, sister of King Baldwin IV, is crowned Queen of Jerusalem and her husband, Guy of Lusignan, is crowned King. This is contrary to the dead king's will. The forces of Raymond of Tripoli are based in Nablus and Raymond himself is in Tiberias; in reaction, the entire kingdom is effectively split in two and chaos reigns. |
| A.D. 1187 (July) | Saladin crosses the Jordan River with a large army to attack the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. |
| A.D. 1187 (July) | In the Battle of Hattin, Saladin defeats the Crusaders and assumes control of most of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. After the battle Saladin moves north and captures the cities of Acre, Beirut, and Sidon with little effort. |
| A.D. 1187 (September) | Saladin and his forces arrive outside of Jerusalem and prepare to assault the city. Defense of Jerusalem is led by Balian of Ibelin. After two days of heavy battering, the walls of Jerusalem begin to buckle under the Muslim assault. |
| A.D. 1187 (October) | Saladin and his forces officially take control Jerusalem from the Crusaders. Saladin delayed his entry into the city by two days so that it would fall on the anniversary of when Muslims believe that Muhammed ascended from the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem to heaven. |
| A.D. 1189 (May) | German ruler Frederick I Barbarossa joins the Third Crusade. His march through Byzantine land has to be made quickly because Emperor Isaac II Angelus has signed a treaty with Saladin against the Crusaders. |
| A.D. 1190 (June) | Wearing heavy armor, Frederick Barbarossa drowns in the Saleph River in Cilcia, after which the German forces of the Third Crusade are defeated by Muslim attacks. |
| A.D. 1190 (June) | Philip II of France and Richard the Lionheart of England leave for the Holy Land, officially launching the Third Crusade. Together their armies are estimated at more than 100,000 men. |
| A.D. 1191 (September) | Richard I the Lion Heart and Hugh, Duke of Burgundy, are ambushed by Saladin in Arsuf, a small town near Jaffa about 50 miles from Jerusalem. But a prepared Richard defeats the Muslim forces. |
| A.D. 1192 | The Muslims conquer Dehli in India and later all of Northern and Eastern India. Hindus would suffer many periods of persecution under the Muslims. |
| A.D. 1192 (June) | Richard the Lion Heart marches on Jerusalem, but is turned back by Saladin's scorched-earth tactics, denying the Crusaders food and water. |
| A.D. 1192 (September) | The Treaty of Jaffa is negotiated between Richard I the Lion Heart and Saladin, ending the Third Crusade. Christian pilgrims are allowed travel around Palestine and in Jerusalem. |
| A.D. 1193 (March) | Saladin dies and his sons fight over control of the Ayyubid Empire, including Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and some of Iraq. |
| A.D. 1198 (August) | Pope Innocent III proclaims the launch of the Fourth Crusade to recapture Jerusalem, but it is diverted to Constantinople instead. |
| A.D. 1200 | Muslim conquests in India cause a decline of Buddhism in northern India, eventually resulting in it disappearing from the nation of its origin. |
| A.D. 1203 (April) | Alexius Angelus, son of deposed Byzantine Emperor Isaac II, offers the Crusaders 200,000 marks and the reunification of the Byzantine Church with Rome if they capture Constantinople for him. The Crusaders agree and attack the Christian city of Constantinople. |
| A.D. 1203 (July) | Constantinople falls to Crusading forces from Western Europe. Emperor Isaac II is freed and rules alongside his son, Alexius IV, while Alexius III flees to Mosynopolis in Thrace. Alexius IV does not follow through on his promise to pay the Crusaders. Thomas Morosini of Venice is installed as patriarch of Constantinople, increasing the rivalry between the Eastern and Western churches. |
| A.D. 1194 (April) | After months of not being paid and infuriated at the execution of their ally, Alexius, soldiers of the Fourth Crusade once again attack Constantinople. Pope Innocent III ordered them not to attack fellow Christians, but the papal letter was ignored. |
| A.D. 1194 (April) | The Crusaders again capture Constantinople establishing the Latin Empire of Byzantium. They sack the city and rape its inhabitants for three straight days -- during Easter week. Pope Innocent III protests the behavior of the Crusaders, but accepts a formal reunion of the Greek and Latin churches. |
| A.D. 1208 (January) | Pierre de Castelnau, a papal legate in southern France was murdered after making progress in converting Cathar heretics (also known as Albigensians) to orthodox Catholicism. This sparks an outcry and, later this same year, a violent Crusade against the Cathar and the Waldenses in Southern France called by Pope Innocent III. |
| A.D. 1215 (April) | The Fifth Crusade is called in 1217, but only Leopold VI of Austria and Andrew II of Hungary participate. The Fifth Crusade is proclaimed by Pope Innocent III in the bull Quia maior. They captured the city of Damietta, but after a major defeat at the Battle of al-Mansura they are forced to return it. |
| A.D. 1216 | Frederick is crowned Holy Roman Emperor in Rome by Pope Honorius III. |
| A.D. 1227 | Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen is excommunicated by Pope Gregory IX for failing to launch the Sixth Crusade. |
| A.D. 1228 | Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen leads the Sixth Crusade. This Crusade would end with a peace treaty granting Christians control of several important holy sites, including Jerusalem. |
| A.D. 1229 (February) | Emperor Frederick II signs a treaty with Sultan Malik Al-Kamil of Egypt gaining control of Jerusalem. Nazareth, and Bethlehem from Muslim forces. |
| A.D. 1229 (March) | Frederick II crowns himself king of Jerusalem in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher after his wife, Yolanda, titular Queen of Jerusalem had died the previous year. Frederick took the crown for himself. |
| A.D. 1229 (August) | Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen arrives at a peace treaty with Pope Gregory IX. |
| A.D. 1229 (November) | The Inquisition is established in Toulouse to eliminate the last of the Cathars. Later the Inquisition would launch a ruthless campaign, burning the Cathars and even digging up bodies to burn. |
| A.D. 1245 | King Louis IX of France (Saint Louis) launches a Crusade against the Muslims in the Middle East since the Crusade against the Cathars in southern France is over. |
| A.D. 1247 | Egypt captures Jerusalem from the Khorezmians. |
| A.D. 1250 (April) | At the Battle of Fariskur, King Louis IX is captured along with his army and ransomed in exchange for the surrender of Damietta in Egypt. This is the final battle in the Seventh Crusade. |
| A.D. 1270 (June) | King Louis IX of France (Saint Louis) attacks Tunisia in the Eighth Crusade (his second Crusade). King Louis IX of France dies in Tunisia and is replaced by his brother Charles of Anjou, King of Sicily. |
| A.D. 1271-1272 | King Edward I of England launches the Ninth Crusade, traveling to Tunis to join Louis IX. He arrives too late, and so continue to the Holy Land on his own. He returns to England when he hears that his father Henry III has died. |
| A.D. 1317 | Osman I, founder of the Ottoman Empire, lays siege to the Christian city of Bursa. It would finally fall in 1326, the year of Othman's death. |
| A.D. 1321 | The Inquisition burns its last Cathar. |
| A.D. 1327 | The Seljuk Empire collapses, leaving the Arab and Persian regions fragmented into several military kingdoms until 1500. The Ottoman Turkish Empire establishes its capital at Bursa. |
| A.D. 1330-1523 | The Hospitallers continue intermittent Crusading from their base in Rhodes, though not officially supported by the church. |
| A.D. 1334 | Crusader ships defeat Turkish pirates in the Gulf of Edremit. |
| A.D. 1336 | The Hundred Years' War between France and England begins. |
| A.D. 1340 | In the Battle of Rio Saldo, Alfonso XI of Castile and Alfonso IV of Portugal defeat a much larger force of Muslims from Morocco. |
| A.D. 1345 | John Cantacuzene asks help from the Ottoman Turks against a rival for the Byzantine throne. This is the first time Muslim Turks crossed the Dardanelles into Europe. |
| A.D. 1354 | The Turks create their first permanent Turkish settlement in Europe after capturing Gallipoli. |
| A.D. 1371 | At the Battle of Maritsa a force consisting of Serbs and Hungarians attacks the encroaching Ottoman Turks in the Balkans. In a night raid they are surprised by an Ottoman attack led by Murad I. Thousands are slain and more drown as they flee. |
| A.D. 1373 | The Ottoman Turks force the Byzantine Empire under John V Palaeologus into vassalage. |
| A.D. 1375 | Armenian independence ends as the Mamluks capture Sis. |
| A.D. 1380 | The final territory of the Byzantine Empire in Asia Minor is captured by the Turks. |
| A.D. 1389 | At the Battle of Kosovo Polje, Murad I demands that Lazar Hrebeljanovic, prince of Serbia, step down and surrender or be killed. Hrebeljanovic chooses to fight and raises an army of soldiers from all over the Balkans -- only half the size of the Turkish force. |
| A.D. 1389 | In the battle Murad I is killed when Milosh Obilich, posing as a traitor, stabs Murad with a poisoned knife. The Christians are utterly defeated and even Hrebeljanovic is captured and killed. Thousands of Christian prisoners are executed and Serbia became a vassal state of the Ottomans. This is the farthest reach of the Ottoman Empire into Europe. |
| A.D. 1395 | King Sigismund of Hungary requests aid from European powers to defend his borders against the Ottoman Turks. Bajazet, Ottoman sultan, boasts that he would drive through Hungary, into Italy, and turn St. Peter's Cathedral into a stable for his horses. |
| A.D. 1396 | Ottoman Turks conquer Bulgaria. |
| A.D. 1396 (April) | Thousands of French knights and soldiers set out to aid the Hungarians against the Ottoman Turks. |
| A.D. 1396 (September) | A Crusader army of 60,000 under Sigismund of Luxembourg along with French, German, Polish, Italian, and English forces lay siege to Nicopolis in Bulgaria. The Ottoman sultan, Bajazet, gathers a massive army made up mostly of soldiers who had been besieging Constantinople. He relieves the besieged city, defeating the Crusaders. Like Serbia, Bulgaria becomes a vassal state until 1878. |
| A.D. 1415 | The Portuguese capture the city of Ceuta on the north coast of Morocco, the first Crusade in northwestern Africa. |
| A.D. 1415 (July) | Jan Hus is burned for heresy in Constance, Switzerland. |
| A.D. 1420 | Pope Martin V calls for crusade against the followers of John Hus. |
| A.D. 1437 | Hungarians drive the Turks from Semendria. |
| A.D. 1444 | At the Battle of Varna an army of 100,000 Turks under sultan Murad II defeats 30,000 Polish and Hungarian Crusaders under Ladislaus III of Poland and John Hunyadi. . |
| A.D. 1448 | At the Battle of Kosovo John Hunyadi leads Hungarian forces but is defeated by the more numerous Turks. |
| A.D. 1453 | Sultan Mehmed II breaches the walls of Constantinople after only 50 days. The walls protecting Constantinople fell after more than a thousand years, ending the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium). The Ottoman Turkish Empire will move its capital from Bursa to Istanbul (Constantinople). |
| A.D. 1455 | Pope Callistus III proclaims a crusade against the Turks to recapture Constantinople. Few European leaders send assistance, and even the papacy sends only 200 knights. This new call for a Crusade was a total failure. |
| A.D. 1456 | Athens is captured by the Turks. |
| A.D. 1463 | Bosnia is conquered by the Turks. |
| A.D. 1464 | Pope Pius II launches a short crusade against the Turks in Italy, but he falls ill and dies before it gains any interest. This would mark the end of the era of the Crusades that had been a part of the church and state in Europe over the previous three centuries. |
| A.D. 1467 | Herzegovina is conquered by the Turks. |
| A.D. 1480 | Turkish invasions of Italy ends with the death of Mehmed and fighting among his sons over the leadership of the Ottoman Empire. |
| A.D. 1487 | Spanish forces capture Malaga from the Moors. |
| A.D. 1492 | Christopher Columbus discovers the Americas under the Spanish flag, launching an era of extensive European exploration and expansion. |
| A.D. 1517 | A union of several European powers, the Holy League, is created -- a Christian fighting force designed to keep in check the growing threat of Turkish expansion. |
| A.D. 1526 | At the Battle of Mohacs Suleiman the Magnificent defeats Louis II of Hungary. The Ottoman Empire takes control of much of Hungary. |
| A.D. 1527 | Turkish troops arrive at the Bavarian town of Regensburg -- the farthest West Turkish forces ever reach. |
| A.D. 1529 (May) | Suleiman the Magnificent leads 250,000 soldiers with hundreds of canon to lay siege to Vienna, capital of Charles V's Holy Roman Empire. Vienna is defended by just 16,000 men. Suleiman gives up on the siege of Vienna in October. |
| A.D. 1571 | In the naval battle of Lepanto (Aynabakhti), Muslim Turks commanded by Ali Pasha are defeated in the Gulf of Corinth by an alliance of European forces (The Holy League) under the command of Don Juan of Austria. It is the largest naval battle in history since the Battle of Actium in 31 B.C. The Turks lose at least 200 ships, devastating their naval forces. More than 30,000 soldiers and sailors die in about three hours, more casualties than in any other naval battle in history. |
| A.D. 1578 | At the battle of al-Aqsr al-Kabir the Moroccans defeat the Portuguese, ending their military invasion of Africa . |
| A.D. 1672 | The Ottoman Turks defeat the Polish armies under John Sobieski. The Ottoman Empire annexes Podolia and the Ukraine while Poland would be forced to pay an annual tribute. |
| A.D. 1681 | Polish and Russian forces recapture territory lost to the Ottoman Turks. |
| A.D. 1683 (March) | An army of at least 250,000 troops, the last great Ottoman assault on Christian Europe, departs Edirne for Vienna, Austria. |
| A.D. 1683 (September) | Sixty thousand Polish and German soldiers gather on the Kahlenberg mountain (northwest of Vienna) under the command of Polish King John III. The Polish and German forces attack the encamped Turks in a total defeat. The Turks flee back to Istanbul in a panic. |
| A.D. 1691 | At the battle of Slankamen Austrians under Prince Louis of Baden crush the Ottoman Turks liberating most of Hungary. |
| A.D. 1697 | Sultan Mustafa II leads the Ottoman Turks to a crushing defeat at the hands of Eugene of Savoy in the battle of Zenta. This loss move the Turks to ask for peace with the European powers. |
| A.D. 1699 | The Peace Treaty of Carlowitz is signed between the Hapsburgs of Austria and the Ottoman Empire. As a result, the Turks surrender Hungary, Transylvania, Croatia, and Slovenia to the Hapsburgs, Morea in Greece to the Venetian Republic, and Moldavia to Poland. Most historians believe this marks the beginning of the end for the Ottoman Empire. With this treaty, European fears of the Turks subside. |