A 1,000 YEARS OF HELL ON EARTH. THE MIDDLE AGES WERE DARK INDEED

• The Middle Ages in Europe started with the fall of Rome in 476 AD. The Middle Ages lasted almost a thousand years. The Renaissance began in 1450 in Italy. It ended in 1650. There were three eras. Constantinople fell to the hands of the invading Ottoman Empire on May 29, 1453. The Byzantine Empire ended. 
• There were three Middle Ages periods.
• Early Middle Ages (also called Dark Ages), High Middle Ages, and Late Middle Ages.
• The Mongols took most of China in 1215 AD. and Central Asia a few years later. They took out Russia in 1223. In the late 1230s, they conquered Eastern Europe. 1260s Capital moves to Beijing. In the 1350s, Most of the Mongol Empire is destroyed.
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• The Mongol Horde had a fearsome reputation as an essentially undefeated fighting force. They conquered China, and Eastern Europe, sacked Baghdad, and attacked the Mamluks in Egypt. Japan beat the Mongols in two naval wars. Genghis Khan (1162–1227 C.E.) founded the Mongol Empire. Genghis Khan and his generals were brilliant military planners. The Mongols linked Europe and Asia, ushering in an era of frequent and extended contact between East and West.
• The Huns were a nomadic tribe in the 4th and 6th century AD. They took control over large parts of present-day Russia.
• The Huns were instrumental in bringing down the Roman Empire. From 434 to 453, Attila was king of the Huns. The Huns invaded many regions in Central Europe, including Germany. The Goths did the final takedown of Rome.  
• Nomadic tribes controlled the Great Stepes for thousands of years. They domesticated camels and horses 5,000 years ago. Steppe grassland is found in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. The Mongols and Huns were great warriors on horseback who killed enemies with bows and arrows.
• The Tang dynasty was stable. It was China’s most significant dynasty. The dynasty ruled from 618 to 907.

• The Golden Horde was the political entity established in the 13th century and ruled initially by Batu Khan. Batu Khan was the grandson of the Mongol ruler Genghis Khan and inherited a sub-khanate of the Mongol Empire. The Mongols had golden-colored tents during wartime.
• From 1200 to 1450, an extensive trans-Saharan trading system reached its peak. Vast caravans of camels and merchants transported goods across the desert. Trade across the Sahara linked the great kingdoms of West Africa to the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean worlds. A caravan of camels took 70 to 90 days to cross the Sahara. The first traders to sail down the West African coast were the Portuguese in the 15th century. Later the Dutch, British, French, and Scandinavians followed.
• Commodities carried southward were silk, cotton, horses, and salt. Commodities carried northward were gold, ivory, pepper, and enslaved people.
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• The Islamic religion spread through military conquest, trade, pilgrimage, and missionaries. The Arab Muslim forces conquered many territories. Most of the significant expansion occurred from 632 to 661 AD under the reign of the first four successors of Muhammad. Mecca was connected to many global trade routes. The Islamic military conquered many territories. Sufism is Islamic mysticism or asceticism, which through belief and practice, helps Muslims attain nearness to Allah through the direct personal experience of God.
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• Black Death, the pandemic that ravaged Europe between 1347 and 1351. In October 1347, a ship came from Crimea and Asia. It docked in Messina, Sicily.
• Rats were the bubonic plague carriers. The plague killed an estimated 25 million people, almost a third of the continent’s population. The Black Death lingered on for centuries, particularly in cities.

• THE MIDDLE AGES HAD FAMINE, THE BLACK PLAGUE, INVASIONS, INQUISTIONS, AND REVOLTS.
• Christianity needed a do-over.
• THE MIDDLE AGES HAD FAMINE, THE BLACK PLAGUE, INVASIONS, AND REVOLTS.
• Christianity needed a do-over.
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Spanish Inquisition. 1879 illustration of a woman being tortured using fire by the Spanish Inquisition. The Catholic monarchs Ferdinand II and Isabella I established the Spanish Inquisition in 1478. It was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their Kingdoms and to replace the Papal (Mediaeval) Inquisition, which was under the control of the Vatican.

• Estimates of the number killed by the Spanish Inquisition, which Sixtus IV authorized in a papal bull in 1478, have ranged from 30,000 to 300,000. Thousands were burned at stake under Torquemada, the most notorious of the grand inquisitors, and tens of thousands were killed during the forced expulsion of Moriscos (Spanish Muslims who had been baptized as Christians), which began in 1609. While the accused heretics were on the rack, inquisitors often applied other torture devices to their bodies. Jews, Muslims, witches, scientists, and other non-Catholics in Europe were imprisoned or killed between the 13th and 19th centuries. Some 300,000 Jews — up to a quarter of the Spanish population — had to convert to Catholicism, flee Spain, or were killed in the Spanish Inquisition.
• The Great Schism of 1054.
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• Western Schism, also called Great Schism or Great Western Schism, in the history of the Roman Catholic Church, the period from 1378 to 1417, when there were two, and later three, rival popes, each with his own following, his own Sacred College of Cardinals, and his own administrative offices. During these chaotic years, there were five successors to Pope Urban (Rome) and four successors to Antipope Clement (Avignon). Feuds among the Italian cardinals and their allies among the Italian nobility led Pope Clement V (1305–14) to move the papal residence from Rome to Avignon in southern France.
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• The Ottomans in the 13th century migrated from their homeland in Central Asia westward to Anatolia. They founded the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman refers to the followers of Osman and the empire’s military-administrative elite. The Ottomans were known for their art, science, and medical achievements. The fall of Constantinople was the capture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire by the Ottoman Empire. in 1451. This date marks the end of the Middle Ages.