AD 300–900 The Migration Period occurred within the period in the area which comprises Central Europe. The migration included the Goths, Vandals, and Franks, among other Germanic and Slavic tribes. The migration may have been triggered by the incursions of the Huns, population pressures, or climate changes.
AD 300-500 The first phase of the Migration Period seen from the Mediterranean perspective, saw the movement of Germanic and other tribes and resulted in putting Germanic peoples in control of most areas of the former Western Roman Empire; Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Burgundians, Alans, Langobards, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Suebi, Alamann. The first to formally enter Roman territory were the Visigoths who are considered nowadays to have put an end to the last outliving form of Roman Empire. They were soon followed by the Ostrogoths led by Thiudareiks.
AD 300-600 Late Antiquity; the interval between high Classical Antiquity and the Middle Ages in Europe and the Mediterranean world - between the decline of the western Roman Empire from the 3rd century AD onward, to the islamic Conquests, and the re-forming of Eastern Europe under the Byzantine Empire. The continuities between imperial Rome as it was reorganized by Diocletian and the Early Middle Ages. Late Antiquity marks the decline of Roman state religion, circumscribed in degrees by edicts inspired by Christian advisers to 4th century emperors and the trans/formation and evolution of the Abrahamic religions: Christianity, post-diaspora Judaism, and eventually Islam, which marked a decisive end to Late Antiquity wherever it reached.
410- Visigoths sack Rome
410- Rome leaves Britain
439- Vandals at Carthage
451- Battle of Chalons
454- Battle of Nedao
455- Vandals sack Rome
AD 500- 900 The second phase saw Slavic, Turkish and other tribes on the move, re-settling in Eastern Europe and gradually making it predominantly Slavic, and affecting Anatolia and the Caucasus as the first Turkic peoples arrived; Avars, Huns, Arabs, Varangians. The last phase of the migrations saw the coming of the Magyars to Pannonia and the expansion of the Vikings out of Scandinavia. In cultures that are heirs to Latin culture, these migrations are often called "invasions."
476- last Western Emperor
476- September 4 - Romulus Augustus, the last Emperor of the Western Roman Empire, is deposed when Odoacer proclaims himself King of Italy. Conventional date for the fall of the Roman Empire, and widely considered the end of ancient history (and hence the beginning of the European Dark Ages). However the Eastern Roman Empire survives the event.
476- The beginning of the Middle Ages.
486- Rome leaves Gaul
560- Alboin, a new, energetic king emerged who defeated the neighbouring people of the Gepidae, made them his subjects. The Lombards were at that time dwelling in Noricum and Pannonia (the plain of eastern Austria south and east of the Danube, modern-day Slovenia and Istria).
566-Alboin married the daughter of their king Cunimond, Rosmunda. In alliance with the Avars, an Asiatic people who had invaded central Europe, Alboin defeated the Lombards' hereditary enemies, the Gepids, a powerful nation on his eastern frontier, slew their new king Cunimund, whose skull he fashioned into a drinking-cup, and whose daughter Rosamund he carried off and made his wife.
568- In the spring, Alboin led the Lombards to cross the Julian Alps and to invade northern Italy, together with other Germanic tribes living with them (Bavarians, Gepidae, Saxons) and Bulgars.
569- The first important city to fall was Forum Iulii (Cividale del Friuli), in North-Eastern Italy. There, Alboin created the first Lombard duchy, which he entrusted to his nephew Gisulf. Soon Vicenza, Verona, and Brescia fell in Germanic hands.
569- In the summer , the Lombards conquered the main Roman centre of northern Italy, Milan. The area was then recovering from the terrible Gothic Wars, and the small Byzantine army left for its defence could do almost nothing: the Exarch sent to Italy by Emperor Justinian II, Longinus, could defend only coastal cities that could be supplied by the powerful Byzantine fleet.
569- The Gothic War, which had ended in the downfall of the Goths, had exhausted Italy, which was wracked with famine and plague, and the Eastern Emperor's government at Constantinople was powerless to retain the Italian province which Belisarius and Narses had recently recovered for it. Alboin's horde overran Venetia and the wide district which we now call Lombardy, took Milan in 569, meeting with but feeble resistance till he came to the city of Ticinum (Pavia), which for three years (569-572) kept the Lombards at bay and then became the new capital. Where the Lombards did meet with resistance, retribution was savage beyond anything Italy had experienced before. The bishops, who were virtually the leaders of the late antique Roman cities, fled, like the bishop of Milan, or compounded with the barbarians for gentler treatment of their people.
572, according to Paul the Deacon (Paulus Diaconus), the 8th century Lombard chronicler, Alboin fell a victim to the revenge of his wife Rosamund, the daughter of the king of the Gepids. Peredeo and the queen fled from affair to the protection of the Byzantine representative at Ravenna. In these few years the Lombards had established themselves in the north of Italy (Lombardy).
572- Pavia fell after a siege of three years, becoming the first capital city of the new Lombard kingdom of Italy. In the following years, the Lombards penetrated further south, conquering Tuscany and establishing two duchies, the Spoleto and Benevento under Zotto, which soon became semi-independent and even outlasted the northern kingdom, surviving well into the 12th century. The Byzantines managed to retain control of the area of Ravenna and Rome, linked by a thin land corridor running through Perugia.
626- Avars raid Constantinople. Constantinople also was under siege by Slavic and Avar forces supported by the Persians.
The whole Lombard territory was divided into 36 duchies, whose leader settled in the main cities. The king controlled them and administered the land through emissaries called gastaldi. This subdivision, however, together with the independent indocility of the duchies, deprived the kingdom of its unity, making it weak even with the Byzantines when they partly recovered after the initial invasion, and even more so when the Lombards had to face the increasing power of the Franks. When they entered Italy, some Lombards were and remained pagan, while some were Arian Christians. Hence they did not enjoy good relations with the Catholic Church. Gradually, as they remained in Italy, they adopted Roman titles, names, and traditions, and partially converted to orthodoxy (7th century), not without a long series of religious and ethnic strifes. The Lombards then lived not far from Visigothic Iberia and after an Exarchate of Ravenna.
681- Khan Asparauh recognized by Byzantium
800- The north became subject to the Carolingian Empire around 800, when in 796 a Croatian Pannonian duke Vojnomir switched sides between the Avars and the Franks. Charlemagne's invasion of the Dalmatian cities provoked a war with the Eastern Roman Empire -after a peace deal was signed, the Byzantium restored the city-states and islands while Charlemagne kept Istria and inland Dalmatia. After the death of Charlemagne in 814, the Frankish influence decreased, and the Croatian duke Ljudevit Posavski raised in Pannonia a rebellion (819).
805- Franks destroy Avars who were succeeded by Samo's realm. From Bulgaria, Great Moravia began in 833 and the Medieval Croatian state followed. The Croatian people trace their origins to Slavic peoples which moved into the territory of the former Galicia and Roman provinces Pannonia and Dalmatia between the 7th and 8th centuries, and formed dukedoms. The origin of the Croat tribe before the great migration of the Slavs is uncertain. One theory suggests they are descended from ancient Persia (cf. Alans). The second wave of migration, possibly around yeare 620, began when the Croats were invited by the Emperor Heraclius to counter the Avar threat on the Byzantine Empire.
820-The Frankish Margraves sent armies in 820, 821 and 822, but each time they failed to crush the rebels until finally Ljudevit's forces withdrew to Bosnia. Most of the Pannonian Croatia would remain in Frankish suzerainty until the end of the 9th century. What is today eastern Slavonia and Srijem fell to the Bulgarians in 827 and it took until 845 before the Franks conquered it again.
828- The Dalmatian Croats were recorded to have been subject to the Kingdom of Italy under Lothair I.
839-The Croatian duke Mislav (835–845) built up a formidable navy, and in 839 signed a peace treaty with Pietro Tradonico, doge of Venice. The Venetians soon proceeded to battle with the independent Slavic pirates of the Pagania region, but failed to defeat them. The Bulgarian duke Boris I also waged a lengthy war against the Dalmatian Croats, trying to expand his state to the Adriatic.
852- The Croatian duke Trpimir I (845–864) succeeded Mislav and managed to finally win the war against the Bulgarians and their Rascian subjects. Trpimir I expanded his realm to include the whole of Bosnia up to the Drina river. Trpimir I menaged to consolidated power over Dalmatia and much of the inland regions towards Pannonia, while instituting counties as a way of controlling his subordinates (an idea he picked up from the Franks). The first known written mention of the Croats, dates form March 4, 852, in statute by Trpimir. Trpimir is remembered as the initiator of the Trpimirovic dynasty, that ruled in Croatia, with interruptions, from 845 until 1091.
876-Domagoj's son, of unknown name, ruled Dalmatian Croatia between 876 and 878. His forces attacked the western Istrian towns in 876, but were subsequently defeated by the Venetian navy. His ground forces defeated the Pannonian duke Kocelj (861–874) who was suzerain to the Franks, and thereby shed the Frankish vassal status. Wars of Domagoj and his son liberated Dalmatian Croats from supreme Franks rule.
995- Battle of Lechfeld; Otto pitched his camp in the territory of the city of Augsburg and joined there the forces of Henry I, Duke of Bavaria, who was himself lying mortally ill nearby, and by duke Conrad with a large following of Franconian knights. A legion of Swabians were commanded by duke Burchard, who had married Hedwig, the daughter of Henry, the brother of Otto. Also among those fighting under Otto was Boleslav I of Bohemia. And of course about 3,000 Saxons under Otto himself.