A document makes the first known reference to windmills, in use in Persia

Nestorian beliefs become the orthodoxy of the Christian community in Persia, spreading from there to India and China

The eastern part of the Persian empire comes under the control of the Saffarid dynasty

Zoroastrians migrate from Muslim Persia to India, where they become known as Parsees

Firdausi completes his great chronicle of Persian history, the Shah-nama, which becomes established as Iran's national epic

The Persian scholar Avicenna, author of encyclopedic works on philosophy and medicine, spends the last part of his life in Isfahan

The Seljuk Turks win a victory at Dandanqan, which gives them a base in the north of Iran and Afghanistan

Omar Khayyám, mathematician and astronomer, writes four-line verses, or quatrains, in his spare time

The Assassins, a sect of Nizari Ismailis, begin to acquire strongholds in Persia

Hulagu and his horde of Mongols cross the Amu Darya river and move against Muslim Persia

The Persian poet Sa'di publishes his Bustan ('Orchard'), a collection of moral tales in verse

Hulagu and his Mongol descendants rule Persia as Il-khans, subordinate to the great khan in the east

Tabriz under the Mongol Il-khans is the first centre of Persian miniature painting

The Persian poet Hafiz perfects a form of short poem, the ghazal, dwelling on the pleasures of life with an undercurrent of Sufi mysticism

Herat, under Timurid princes, succeeds Tabriz as the main centre of Persian art

The lively realism of Kamal-ud-din Bihzad lays the basis of both the Persian and the Mughal schools of painting

The 14-year-old Ismail I is enthroned as shah of a new Persian dynasty, the Safavids

16-year-old Abbas I, subsequently one of the greatest of shahs, inherits the throne of Persia

Shah Abbas builds up Isfahan as a spectacular new capital of the Persian empire

The leader of a gang of tribal brigands seizes the Persian throne and takes the name Nadir Shah

A leader of the Ismaili sect is granted, by the shah of Persia, the hereditary title of Aga Khan

A stele is found at Susa, in Iran, giving the text of the Code of Hammurabi

The Burman Oil Company, developing a concession granted in 1901 to William Knox D'Arcy, discovers oil in Iran

An army officer, Reza Khan, becomes war minister after seizing control of Tehran with his Cossack brigade

Reza Khan, by now prime minister of Iran, mounts a second coup to depose the last Qajar shah and begin his own Pahlavi dynasty