The tribal leader and mercenary Odoacer becomes king of Italy - an event often taken as defining the end of the Roman empire in the west

The 15-year-old Clovis inherits the Merovingian crown and becomes leader of the Franks - with his first capital at Tournai

Theodoric the Ostrogoth, threatening Constantinople, is cunningly diverted by the emperor into invading Italy

Theodoric wins Ravenna from Odoacer - by inviting Odoacer to a banquet and murdering him during the meal

The Czechs are the most powerful of the various Slav tribes by now settled in Bohemia

Monks in Ireland live in stone beehive cells on rocky islands, to achieve maximum discomfort

Clovis and some 3000 of his soldiers are baptized in a massive ceremony at Reims

The Slavs cross the Danube and press southwards into the Roman provinces of Moesia and Thracia

Dionysius Exiguus, commissioned by the pope to improve chronology, makes an error of at least four years in his selected event for AD 1

St Benedict gathers fellow hermits at Subiaco into a series of small monasteries

The law is changed to allow Justinian, of senatorial rank, to marry Theodora — whom courtesy describes as an actress

Boethius, in prison in Pavia and awaiting execution, writes the Consolation of Philosophy

By the end of his long reign Theodoric amply justifies his title 'the Great' and his place in legend as Dietrich von Bern

Justinian becomes emperor in Constantinople, beginning a reign which will restore the empire to much of its former glory

Justinian closes down the schools of Athens, famous for their tradition of pagan philosophy

St Finnian founds the first of Ireland's great Celtic monasteries, at Clonard

St Benedict founds a monastery at Monte Cassino and writes a Rule for the monks which becomes the basis of the Benedictine order

Theodora shows her mettle, as empress, in her response to the anarchy and terror unleashed in Constantinople by the Nika revolt

The codification of Roman law, ordered by Justinian, is completed

Belisarius lands in Sicily at the start of a five-year campaign to recover Ravenna for the Byzantine emperor

The great domed church of Santa Sophia, rebuilt on the orders of Justinian, is completed after only five years of construction

The vast dome of Santa Sophia in Constantinople is supported on a square of four arches, making the most sophisticated use so far of the pendentive

Justinian and Theodora, each with a retinue of attendants, face each other in mosaic from the walls of San Vitale in Ravenna

The Slavs arrive in the Balkans and settle in all parts of the region except Albania

Most of Spain is by now in the hands of the Visigoths, though for a while the Byzantines win back territories in the south