The Yamato clan adapt Shinto to their own purposes, and claim imperial descent from the sun

Attila murders his brother and becomes the sole ruler of the Huns, who are now pressing through Dacia and across the Danube

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

According to Bede, the first widely accepted Anglo-Saxon ruler in southern Britain is Aelli, founder of the West Sussex kingdom

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

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

Khosrau I builds himself a superb new palace, of which the great vaulted Taq-e Kisra remains today at Ctesiphon

After three centuries of chaos and disunion in China, a stable dynasty - the Sui - is established by Wen Ti (the Cultured Emperor)

A high official of the Sui empire seizes power and establishes one of China's greatest dynasties, the T'ang

The Byzantine emperor Heraclius recovers the True Cross from Ctesiphon

The death of Muhammad at Medina is followed by the election of the first caliph, Abu Bakr, a father-in-law of the prophet

Omar, another father-in-law of Muhammad, is elected as the second Muslim caliph (the word means 'sucessor to the Messenger of God')

After the assassination of Omar, Othman is elected as the third Muslim caliph

Othman is assassinated, and Ali wins power as the fourth Muslim caliph - defeating Muhammad's widow Aisha at the 'battle of the camel' near Basra

Ali is assassinated and Mu'awiya becomes the fifth Muslim caliph, establishing the Umayyad dynasty

The king of Northumbria summons a synod at Whitby to hear the arguments of Roman and Celtic Christians, then opts for Rome

With the entire middle east under their control, the Arabs make Damascus the capital of the Umayyad caliphate

With a victory at Tertry, Pepin II wins effective control over all three Frankish kingdoms

The earliest two Turkish states are the confederation of Gök Türk and the empire of the Khazars

The death of the Frankish 'mayor of the palace' Pepin II is followed by civil war between members of his family

The civil war among the Franks ends with complete victory for Charles Martel, an illegitimate grandson of Pepin II