Basileus' Interference Timeline

I proceed to inflict on you the 1st half of the 7th century. Have a good time (if you can :D ). I'll divide it into groups of ten years for easier reading and less headache ;)

601 The Byzantine army defeats the Avars at Viminacium (Pannonia) and raids deep into the Tisza river plain
602 The Byzantine army, after receveing orders to camp and winter there, living off the land, revolts under a junior officer, Phocas, marches on Constantinople (herself revolting under the tax burden) where emperor Maurice is slain together with his entire family, save for Belisarius II who goes on ruling from Rome; this marks the end of any Byzantine authority over the Sklavinian (*OTL Balcanic) hinterland. Fragmentation of the Western Gökturk empire, who splits in two parts, wheereas the Khazars gain a wide autonomy. The Persians wrest Tylos/Bahrain and ancient Characene (Kuwait and southernmost Iraq) from the kingdom of Hirah
602-604 Lombards, Slovenians ed Avars follow one another in plundering war-torn Byzantine Histria, where Phocaists and Belisarists vie for power
602-605 The Sui Chinese general Liu Fang reconquers Nam Viet (Vietnam), defeats again and again the Chams and sacks their capital, Indrapura
603 Khusraw II’s Persians after the assassination of Maurice (who was instrumental in enthroning Khusraw) renew war on Byzantium. The Eastern Gökturks distruggono destroy the first Uygur (Tele/Dulo) Khanate in Mongolia. Antipersian rebellion in Central Asia and Afghanistan (areas still colletively known as Tocharistan)
604 Sui Yangdi murders his father Yang Jian and succeeds him on the imperial Chinese throne, moving the capital to Luoyang
605 The Persians oust the Bizantines from (northern) Mesopotamia. The Chinese complete the Great Canal, linking the Huang He and the Yang-tse-Kiang rivers. The Khitans rebel against the Eastern Gökturks
606-647 The Buddhist king Harshavardhana of Kanauj, a scion of the Guptas, reunifies most of northen India, but dies heirless and his work is quickly undone
607 The Persians conquer Cappadocia and its chief city, Caesarea, briefly raiding up to the Bosphorus. (Eastern) Byzantine Phocaist agents murder Belisarius II and his son and heir Maurice in Perugia; Pope Bonifacius III happily acknowledges Phoca’s authority in the West in exchange for a nominal recognition of Papal primacy ovver Constantinople in the Catholic church. Carthage and Byzantine Africa, instead, react to Belisarius II’s assassination by raising the flag of rebellion under the exarch Heraclius Crispus and his son Heraclius the Younger. The Aquileia Patriarchate splits in two over Belisarius II’s violent death: John Abbas, loyal to the memory of the murdered Western emperor, defects to the Lombards reopening the Patriarchal see at Aquileia under the protection of the Lombard (and Arian!) Duke of Friul Gisulf II, while Candianus takes an oath of loyalty to Phocas and keeps his see in Grado (in time, from Grad’s Patriarchate will form the Patriarchate of Venice). King Agilulf of the Lombards takes Bononia/Bologna but fails in his siege of the Byzantine/Venetic strongholds of Padua and Monselice. Pulakesin II of the Vatapi/Badami Chalukyas conquers and annexes the Kadamba kingdom
607-608 The Sui Chinese invasion of Sichuan (Western China) ends in a dismal failure
608 A formal peace treaty is brokered between Byzantium and the Lombards, whose possession of northern Italy (except Maritime Venetia and “Romania” around Ravenna), Tuscany and the Duchy of Spoleto (comprising most of the future Marche and Abruzzo) is recognized
609 The Persians conquer Osrhoene with its capital, Edessa. Heraclius’ revolt extends to Egypt and Palestine, where civil war rages; Phocas sends his troops south, thus weakening the Persian front, but to no avail
610 The Arab cameleer Muhammad, from the paramount Quraysh tribe of Mecca, receives the divine revelation of Islam and becomes the Prophet. The Carthaginian rebel Heraclius the Younger, son of the exarch of Africa Heraclius Crispus, sail to Constantinople with his fleet, is hailed as a savior and liquidates the tyrant Phocas, ascending the Byzantine throne. Gisulf II, Duke of Friul, is trounced and killed at Castra Fluvii Frigidi/Aidussina by Khan Bayan’s Avars, who take and devastate Cividale together with the Slovenians of Carantania; the latter also leak into eastern Tyrol and defeat Lombards and Bavarians at Aguntum/Lienz
610-620 Incessant (and unopposed) Avaro-Slavic raids throughout the Sklaviniai (*OTL Balkans), Greece and Thrace. Quick abandonment of the Latin language in Byzantine army and bureaucracy in favor of Greek

611 The Persians invade Syria, conquer Antioch and Theodosiopolis (*OTL Erzerum) and subjugate Armenia and Iberia/Georgia. Persian defeat against an Arab tribal army at Dhu Qar (southern Iraq). The Mayan kingdom of B’aakal/Palenque suffers another defeat at the hands of its rival Calakmul
612-614 The Koreans of Koguryo thrice repulse imperial Chinese armies
612-618 Thessalonica successfully resists repeated Avaro-Slavic sieges
613 The Lombards resume war against Byzantium and invade southern Italy, carefully avoiding well-defended Rome. The Persians complete their conquest of Syria and take Damascus. The Anglo-Saxons destroy the Celtic kingdom of South Rheged (in the area of Liverpool) reaching the Irish Sea, but the Welsh beat them at Chester. Chlotarius II, king of Neustria, reunifies the Frankish kingdom by liquidating his relative Sigebert II, pretender to the thrones of Austrasia and Borgogna
614 Khusraw II’s Persians invade Palestine, take Jerusalem and deport its inhabitants to Mesopotamia, stealing the Christian relic of the True Cross. King Clement of Dumnonia defeats the Saxons at Beandun (Bindon, Devon). The Lombards take Benevento (Campania), where they found another powerful Duchy, and destroy the Abbey of Montecassino. The Irish monk St. Columban founds the monastery of Bobbio in the Trebbia valley (northern Apennines). Avars and Slavs destroy Salona, whose surviving inhabitants build Split/Spalato; inner Dalmatia is Slavicized, almost all of the region falls under Avar sway
615 Renewed Persian invasion of Asia Minor up to the Bosphorus
615-620 The Persians manage to conquer several Aegean islands
615-683 The very long rule of king K’inich Janaab’ Pakal I leads the Mayan city-state of Maya di B’aakal/Palenque to its apogee
617 The Angles of Deira terminate the Celtic kingdom of Elmet. John Abbas, the pro-Lombard Patriarch of Aquileia, moves the Patriarchal See from Aquileia to Cormons (Friul). The Byzantines repel an Avaro-Slavic attack on Costantinople; emperor Heraclius narrowly escapes a treacherous attempted assassination during peace talks
618 After killing despotic and cruel Sui Yangdi, general Li Yuan founds the glorious T’ang dynasty of China ascending the throne as T’ai-tzu and resetting the imperial capital in Chang’an/Xian. Kubrat becomes Khan of the Onoguro-Bulgars
618-624 Li Shi-Min, T’ai-tzu’s third son, crushes the rebels in northern China
619 The Persians conquer Egypt, de facto restoring Darius’ and Xerxes’ ancient Achaemenid Persian Empire. Heraclius, while seriously considering the idea of abandoning the beleaguered Constantinople, threatened by both Avars and Persians, on pressure from Patriarch Sergius decides fro staying in the City of Constantine, provided that the local Church partakes in financing his military campaigns. The Eastern Gökturks revolt against Chinese overlordship and conquer the Tarim basin in eastern Turkestan, but lose control over the Orkhon Uygurs of Mongolia
620 Pulakesin II of the Vatapi/Badami Chalukyas defeats in battle Harrshavardhana of Kanauj, thus stopping cold his ambitions in the Deccan area. The Persians conquers Rhodes. The Lombards oust the Byzantines from northern Puglia defeating them at Fovea/Foggia
ca. 620 The Prophet Muhammad preaches Islam in Mecca and gains a wide number of followers. The Angles conquer the Celtic kingdom of Cynwidion (Midlands), replacing it with a new Germanic state, Mercia. The Anglic kingdom of Bernicia vassalizes its neighbor of the same nation, Lindsey (Lincolnshire). Axum, the capital of Ethiopia, once a simple bishopric, becomes the see of a Metropolite of the Coptic Church
620-633 Brief Anglo-Saxon domination over the Isle of Man

621 The Lombards take the nothern half of Bruttium/Calabria with Cosenza and Crotone
622 The Hegira (Hijrah): the Prophet Muhammad flees from Mecca to Medina, where he soon manages to enforce his theocratic leadership. The Byzantine emperor Heraclius expels the Persian from Asia Minor
623 Heraclius’ brilliant campaign in Armenia, Kurdistan and Caucasian Albania/Azerbaigian, who are freed from Persian overlordship; Gandža, important religious center of Zoroastrism, is taken; the Mihranid ruler of Girdyaman, Varaz, accepts Christianity and reigns as Gregory over the whole of Caucasian Albania/Azerbaigian. The Frankish trader Samo creates the first Slavic kingdom in Moravia after successful revolts against the Avars, further supported by Onoguro-Bulgar raids. The southern Slavs raid Crete
624 The Lombards of Benevento wrest all of Lucania/Basilicata and the Cilento (southern Campania) from the Byzantines, who hold their positions in Salerno, Naples, Calabria and the southern two thirds of Puglia (plus the Rome-Ravenna “highway” in central Italy). Muhammad defeats the Meccan forces at Badr. Li Shi-Min of the T’ang dynasty of China eliminates his two elder brothers. The eastern Chalukya kingdom is established when Pulakesin II of Vatapi/Badami takes the city of Vengi (coastal Andhra Pradesh region) and enthrones there his brother Kubja Vishnuvardhana. King Swinthila’s Spanish Visigoths conquer Tingis/Tangier on the North African coast
624-627 Muhammad exiles, exterminates or sells as slaves the hostile Jewish tribes living around Medina
625 Inconclusive battle of Uhud between Muhammad Islamic army and the Meccan heathens. The Persians stage a counterinvasion of Anatolia. The Lombard king, the Catholic Adaloald, son of Agilulfo and Theodolinda, is deposed and replaced by th Duke of Turin Arioald (an Arian) for trying an appeasement with Rome and Byzantium; the Lombard capital is finally set in Pavia. The Byzantines successfully defend their Venetic stronghold at Heraclea by killing there Duke Caco of Friul and his brother Tasso
626 Avar, Slavs and Persians jointly siege Constantinople, but in the end are decisively routed. Turkic-Khazar invasion of Persian Caucasus. Kubrat’s Onoguro-Bulgars again fall under Avar influence and free themselves from Western Gökturk hegemony. Decisive battle of Caer Gloui/Gloucester in England: the Brythons are defeated by the Saxons, who advance to the Irish Sea cutting Wales from Cornwall and ceating in the newly-conquered area the kingdom of Wiccia/Hwicce. Li Shi-Min of the T’angs of China forces his father’s abdication and ascends the throne of the Heaven’s Son as T’ai-tsung
627 Heraclius invades Mesopotamia and finally overcomes the Persians led by general Rhahzadh at Nineveh, while the Khazars take Tbilisi eradicating the Persian presence from Iberia/Georgia. Muhammad breakes the Meccan siege of Medina in the Battle of the Trench (al-Khandaq). Samo’s Slavs heavily defeat the Avars. The Karkota dynasty ascends the throne of Kashmir with Prajhaditya. The kingdom of Chenla (Laos) annexes the quickly decayed Funan empire; the Khmers, now the paramount power in the region, migrate south to Cambodia
627-629 Altzek’s Hunno-Bulgars, bursting out from Taurida (*OTL Crimea) at Byzantine invitation, try to shake the Avar power in Pannonia, but are defeated and take refuge in Bavaria; in the their footsteps the the Croats and the Serbs, in alliance with Byzantium, migrate from the Carpathian and settle between southern Pannonia, Illyria and Dalmatia, wresting those lands from Avar hands, while the Byzantines manage to reassert their authority over the surviving coastal towns of Dalmatia
628 The Treaty of Hudaybiyya establishes a ten-year truce between Muhammad and the Meccans
628-632 After the assassination of Khusraw II civil war erupts in the Sassanian Persian Empire, now reduced to servitude towards an exhausted Byzantium; conflict and anarchy persist till Yazdagird III ascends the throne
629 The Persians abandon Yemen, where Muslim forces quickly prevail
629-632 New short-lived partition of the Frankish kingdom upon Chlotarius II’s death: Charibert II has Neustria, Dagobert I Austrasia and the rest
629-649 Tibet rises to great power in eastern central Asia under king Songtsen Gampo
630 Muhammad reenters Mecca hailed in triumph by the populace; Meccan and Islamic forces, now united, defeat the heathen bedouins of Ta’if in the battle of Hunayn. The Chinese T’ang emperor T’ai-tsung/Li Shi-min destroys the Eastern Gökturks’ empire in Mongolia, forcing them to recognize him as their Khagan instead of the defeated Kat Il-Khan Tugbir; Chebi Khan keeps on resisting in the Altai range, but the Eastern Gökturk empire is de facto overthrown. Kubrat Khan frees the Onoguro-Bulgars from Avar vassalage and creates the Khanate of Greater Bulgaria straddling the areas surrounding the Azov Sea; the new Khanate gains recognition from the Western Gökturks too; indeed one of the two Western Gökturk Khans vying for power, Bagadur Kiliug Sibir/Shibir of the Tele/Dulu (Uygurs), is a maternal uncle of Kubrat. The Lombards raze Capua, thus cutting land contact between Byzantine-held Rome and Naples
630-651 The Sabirs of Caucasia exert their supremacy over the Sarir kingdom in Daghestan, then are subjugated by the Khazars
ca. 630 Altzek’s Bulgars are slaughtered by the Bavarians on pressure from the Frankish king Dagobert; Altzek leads the survivors in Italy, where they settle in the Duchy of Benevento in the Sannio subregion (between Campania and Molise). The weakened Ethiopian Empire, abandons its old capital, Axum, being now centered in the mountain ranges south of the city
630-640 The T’ang Chinese conquer the Tarim basin (eastern Turkestan)

631 The Western Gökturk empire is reunified upon Sibir/Shibir Khan’s murder. The Avars quell the rebellion staged by the Kutrigurs, the western branch of the Hunno-Bulgars. The Persians liquidate the Arab kingdom of Hirah
631-646 The Seyantos, a Tele/Dulo tribe akin to the Uygurs, create an empire between Dzungaria and the Gobi desert in the wake of Eastern Gökturk collapse, but in the end are completely wiped out by an Uygur-Chinese alliance
632 Muhammad dies in Medina, hailed as the Prophet and founder of Islam. His followers, ardent with faith, already have unified Arabia and set off to the conquest and conversion of the known world. The Celts of North Rheged/Cumberland gain a resounding victory over the Anglo-Saxons of Bernicia, whose king Edwin dies in battle. Samo’s Slavs defeat king Dagobert’s Franks at the battle of Wogastisburg (Germany)
632-634 Abu Bakr, Muhammad’s father-in-law and successor (“Caliph” meaning precisely “successor”), crushes the rebellious tribes in the Ridda, or Apostasy Wars
632-639 Dagobert is the last strong Merovingian ruler, reigning over the entire Frankish kingdom
633 Irish monks introduce Christianity in Northumbria. Kubrat Khan is finally able to unify all Honoguro-Bulgars and manages to avoid falling under Western Gökturk patronage. The Muslim Arabs, led by Caliph Abu Bakr, assault the Sassanian Persian empire conquering the former kingdom of Hirah
634 Under their new Caliph Omar the Arabs, galvanized by Islam, undertake the attack on the Byzantine Empire, beating the Byzantines at Ajnadayn (Palestine) and conquering Bosra (Syria)
ca. 635 The Muslim Arabs wrench Bahrain from the Persians
636 The Arabs heavily defeat the Byzantines at the Yarmuk (Jordan) and the Persians at Qadisiyya, where the Persian general Rustam is killed, then subdue ancient Characene (Kuwait and southernmost Iraq). Upon the death of the Lombard king Arioald, Rotharis succeeds him by marrying his widow Gundiperga, the daughter of Agilulf and Theodolinda
637 Arab pirates sack Tana (near future Bombay). The Arabs conquer the Sassanian capital, Ctesiphon, and take Damascus overthrowing the local Monophysite Christian kingdom of Ghassan
638 Jerusalem falls to the Muslim Arabs with Palestine, Lebanon and Edessa. The Lombard king Rotharis (from the “barbarian” faction) destroys the Byzantine/Venetic strongholds of Padua and Monselice. In a new attempt to broker a lasting accord with the Monophysites (who are supporting en masse the invading Muslims) emperor Heraclius and Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople abandon Monoenergism (Christ has two natures, human and divine, but one “energy), rejected by Rome and the Ptriarchate of Jerusalem, and start the Monothelite controversy (Christ has only one will)
638-666 St. Maximus the Confessor (of Carthaginian origin) is the paramount defender of Catholicism anganinst Monothelism, finally enduring martyrdom and exile for his stance
639 New subdivision of the Frankish kingdom upon king Dagobert’s death; the dead sovereign leaves Austrasia to Sigebert III and Neustria to Chlovis II, both weak rulers who’ll foster the ascendance of the powerful Mayors of Palace as the real force beyond the Frankish thrones. Austrasia trades Burgundy to the formerly lesser Neustria; Aquitania follows a rather independent path with a local dynasty of dukes. The Arabs conquer Amida/Diyarbakir and Kurdistan
640 The Arabs, led by ‘Amr, conquer Egypt after defeating the Byzantines at Heliopolis; they also conquer Antioch and attack Armenia taking Dvin, where they set up a local governorship. Morgan Glas stops the Anglo-Saxon onslaught at the battle of Glastenning/Glastonbury/Avalon. The Lombard duke of Benevento Arechis conquers Salerno from the Byzantines. The T’ang Chinese take Turfan (eastern Turkestan) overthowing the Kara-Khodjo kingdom
ca. 640 Caliph Omar enforces the poll-tax (jizya) and land tax (kharadj) on non-Muslims, which will result in mass conversion to Islam in most conquered lands. In the mountains of inner central Lebanon a solid block of Christians, led by the Mardaite warrior elite, resists the Muslim conquest and founds the Marada States, de facto free from Muslim yoke for centuries onwards

641 The Arabs take Alexandria and the last Byzantine stronghold in Palestine, Jaffa; in Alexandria they commit the unspeakable crime of burning the books of the ancient hellenistic Library, likely the greatest in the world. Upon Heraclius’ death in Costantinople, Heracleonas, son of Heraclius and his niece and second wife (!) Martina, and Costantine III, Heracleonas half-brother, expected to reign over the West from Rome, are enthroned according to Heraclius’ last will; but when Constantine quickly dies, Patriarch Pyrrhus and the Senate, following popular hate against Martina, depose and mutilate her and Heracleonas (plus Martina’s other surviving sons). In their place the young Belisarius III (*OTL Constans II), son of Constantine III, is enthroned under the regency of the Senate. During this succession crisis, the Byzantine exarch of Africa Gregory the Patrician rebels, backed by the local fleet, and has himself hailed as Western Roman emperor; most Aegean Sea islands, controlled by his fleet, side with him
642 The Arabs beat the Persians at Jalula and finally trounce them at Nehavend, near Hamadan, securing their hold on western Persia. The Pallava king of southern Deccan Narasimhavarman defeats and kills the Chalukya ruler Pulakesin II and destroys his capital, Vatapi/Badami (Karnataka, SW India). The Slavic Narentan tribe, pushed ahead by the onrushing Serbs, with Byzantine help stages an all-out invasion of southern Italy through the Adriatic Sea: the Lombards of Benevento, caught by surprise and ridden with internal conflicts, are overwhelmed at Ausculum/Ascoli Satriano, Benevento is taken and razed by the Slavic horde, who soon proves to be completely out of Byzantine control and goes rampant throughout the south of Italy. Surviving Lombard forces withdraw north to the Spoleto Duchy. Khazars and Arabs begin to clash in the Caucasus region
643 The Arabs conquer Barce, Cyrenaica. The Slavic horde in southern Italy narrowly fails the siege of Naples, frantically held by the staggered Byzantines, then heads north in the Apennines
644 Caliph Omar is murdered; his appointed successor Uthman will arrange the final layout of the Quran, the holy text of Islam. The Narentan Slavic horde is stopped by an unholy Byzantine-Lombard alliance in the battle of the Marmore Waterfalls (Umbria); but neither the Lombards nor the Byzantines can chase the surviving Slavs from the inner south of Italy, where the tribal Slavic duchy of Idalska is established with its capital in Avlengrad/Avellino
644-646 The Korean kingdom of Koguryo stages a brilliant defence against two subsequent Chinese invasions
645 The Arabs conquer Tbilisi and install there an emirate: the Christian kingdom of Iberia/Georgia survives as a vassal state. The Arabs also take Tripoli (Lybia) and the island of Djirva (*OTL Djerba). The Nakatomis/Fujiwaras replace the Sogas as the paramount Japanese clan. The Vijaya (Buddhist) kingdom of Khotan (eastern Turkestan) frees itself from T’ang Chinese yoke under Futushin/Fudu Xiong/Vijaya Sangrama
645-647 The Byzantines retake Alexandria, but their desperate attempt to reeconquer Egyppt is frustrated at the battle of Naqyus by general ‘Amr, the Muslim conqueror of the county; then Alexandria itself falls again to the Arabs 646 The Uygurs, dwelling in the Orkhon region of Mongolia, after destroying the Seyanto power become vassal to the T’ang Chinese empire. The Arabs conquer the Byzantine fortress of Melitene (*OTL Malatya) on the upper Euphrates
647 The Arabs unleash their first raids into Anatolia; they also conquer Cyprus and the Fars/Persis (southern Persia). Harshavardhana of Kanauj is newly repulsed by the Chalukyas in the Malwa, then dies heirless and his empire splinters into local kingdoms. He was the last great Budddhist ruler of India: Buddhism itself begins to quickly disappear from northern India, save for the Bengal area. The Slavs of Idalska (southern Italy) take and raze Naples; the surviving Byzantine forces in the region are besieged in Salerno and the Amalfi peninsula. The loyalist Byzantine fleet clears the Aegean from Gregory’s supporters. Following the Byzantine-Lombard thaw after the Slavic aggression in Italy, the archbishop of Milan John Bonus reinstates the Ambrosian see in its due town after 73 years of exile.
648 T’ai-tsung/Li Shi-min, the T’ang ruler of China, defeats and vassalizes the Tibetans. The young basileus (Byzantine emperor) Belisarius III renounces Monothelism as a gesture of good will towards the Papacy. The Arabs sack and destroy Salamis, the ancient capital of Cyprus
649 The Arabs attack Byzantine Africa (Ifrigia/Punia) but the self-proclaimed emperor Gregory abandons his capital at Sufetula/Sbeitla e locks himself in Carthage, whence he sharply repels the invaaders. The Lateran Council, held in a beleaguered Rome under the threat of Idalskan Slavic raids, condemns as heresies both Monothelism and Monoergism
649-653 Temporary Byzantine recapture of Cyprus
650 The Salasthambhas replace the extinct Varman dynasty on the throne of Kamrupa/Assam (NE India). The Qarluq/Kipchak, a collateral Uygur group, under the pressure of the T’ang Chinese and their Uygur vassal migrate to the upper Irtyš river region
ca. 650 The Theme State structure is finally established within the Byzantine empire: each theme is a civilian and military province, inhabited by peasant-soldiers and ruled by a strategos (generalissimo). The Slavic wave of colonization in the Sklaviniai (*OTL Balkans) stops, the area having beeen almost completely Slavicized; only the Vlachs, dispersed in semi-nomadic groups in the area, Greek and Dalmatian coastal strongholds and the solid block of Illyrians in Albania resist the barbarians. The Serbians eenforce theire rule between Macedonia and Bosnia under their “ban” (leader, prince) Svevlad. In southern Italy/Idalska, the local Slavs go rampant with piracy in both the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian Sea, sacking and pillaging from Greece to Sardinia and distant Africa. The White Croats’ kingdom arises straddling the Tatra Mountains, Silesia and Bohemia. The Khazars free themselves from Western Gökturk tutelage. The Zenete (Berber) tribe of the Jarawas, paramount in the Aurés region of Numidia, converts en masse to Judaism under its chieftain Tifanes. The city and empire of Teotihuacàn in Mexico are destroyed; local ascendancy now passes over to Cholula (near Puebla). The Srivijaya kingdom enforces its power as master of the Malacca and Sunda Straits; it also conquers the kingdom of Taruma on western Java. The Arabs start spreading Islam along the eastern coast of Africa. Budddhism spreads into the Chenla kingdom (Laos and Cambodia). The Arabs vassalize the Georgian kingdom of Khakheti. An independent Turkic-Sogdian kingdom arises in the Usrushana (the region north of Samarcanda, centered around Chach/Tashkent)
 
650-660

For now on I'll post the TL in 10 years "pills".


651 The Arabs sign a non-aggression pact (“bakt”) with Christian Nubia (kingdom of Mukurra). The last Sassanian emperor of Persia, Yazdagird III, is murdered at Merv; the Arabs subjugate Khorasan conquering Nishapur and defeat on the upper Euphrates Khazars and Alans, called for help by the Byzantines. T’ang Chinese supremacy extends up to the Kirghiz and Khakassian lands on the upper Yenisey. Greater Bulgaria wrests control over Moldavia from the Avars, who are repelled beyond the Carpathian range. The African rebel Gregory passes in Sicily and conquers the island in a short campaign

652 Persia is finally tamed by the Arabs, who also leak into northern Afghanistan where they take the town of Balkh. Despite the Muslim conquest and the spreading of Islam, Zoroastrism will survive stubbornly, though as a minority, throughout the lands between the Caucasus and Central Asia. Khorezm frees itself from Western Gökturk vassalage and strongly opposes Arab encroachments. The Arabs invade Eritrea and spread Islam there. The self-proclaimed Western Roman emperor, Gregory, sets his capital in Syracuse and has the ancient Sicilian town fortified. The new Lombard king Aribert I, Theodolinda’s grandson, formally enforces Catholicism over Arianism. The Slavs of Idalska, now unified under their ban/duke Zveroboj, vainly besiege Rome, then ravage the Lombard duchy of Spoleto before withdrawing south again

653 Arab takeover of Byzantine (western) Armenia, ridden with internal squabbling, of Rhodes and the Dodecanese. Belisarius III, angered by the Western church’s independence and condemnation of Monothelism (he never really renounced it) sends an army to Ravenna; the Byzantines then march on Rome, but the Western emperor Gregory, with a naval expedition, anticipates them entering Rome and carries Pope Martin I and most prelates to safety in Syracuse. The Pope was in danger of being kidnapped by Belisarius III’s men, who thereafter occupy the Urbs Aeterna, where they severely mistreat the remaining Catholic clergy

654 The Anglic kingdom of Bernicia and Deira is renamed Northumbria

654-658 King Oswiu of Northumbria briefly rules Mercia; being Wessex at the same time under Mercian suzerainty, during these four years Oswiu is the de facto ruler of England

655 Basileus Belisarius III is defeated at Phoenix (off the Lycian coast, SW Anatolia) by the Arab fleet

ca. 655 The Christian heresy of Paulicianism (from the name of St. Paul) appears in Anatolia, preached by the Armenian Constantine of Manamali (near Samosata, on the upper Euphrates). Dualist and Manichaean in nature, with a drive for restoration of primitive Christianity, it will gain a wide following between Syria and Armenia; later its Bogomil and Cathar variants will be widely accepted in the Sklaviniai (*OTL Balkans), in France and northern Italy and in Christian North Africa. The Arabs begin constant raids into Byzantine Africa

655-672 The Mayan city-state of Mutul/Tikal is vassal to its rival Calakmul

656 The Anglo-Saxons complete their conquest of the Midlands, then Maurice II’s Welshmen repel them on the Severn river. Caliph Uthman is murdered in Medina at the hands of rebel Egyptian Muslims; he is succeeded by Alì, cousin of the Prophet Muhammad and husband to his daughter Fatima, but soon civil war erupts. Alì overcomes his enemies, led by Aysha, Muhammad’s last wife, at the Battle of the Camel near Basra

657 The Muslim governor of Syria, Mu’awya, of the Arab Umayyad clan, rebels against Alì; a tense struggle for power, not without attempts to broker accords, ensues. Some of Alì’s followers abandon him in favor of di Mu’awya and create the Kharijite sect of Islam (egualitarian and e rigorist, which will gain wide acceptance in Egypt, Lybia and parts of Arabia and Syria). The T’ang Chinese, taking advantage of internecine strife, destroy the Western Gökturk empire; they will occupy for some years Sogdiana (Central Asia), turning it thereafter into an increasingly weak protectorate, while the Western Gökturks will reorganize. A branch of the Eastern Gökturks, the Turgesh/T’u-Ch’ueh, splinters in two groups composed by five tribes each. They migrate from the Orkhon valley in Mongolia respectively to the Volga (the Yellow Turgesh, who merge with the Khazars) and to the Talas river in Central Asia (the Black Turgesh, later known as Oghuz/Ouzoi). The exarch of Ravenna, Olympius, has himself hailed emperor by the Byzantine troops in Rome; he subsequently appoints a Pope of his own, John (V) Venantius, while in Syracuse Vitalian succeeds Pope Martin I. Zveroboj’s Slavic heathen horde again heads north, then trounces and kills Olympius at Praeneste/Palestrina; thereafter the Slavs horribly sack and put to the torch Rome, slaying its inhabitants and carrying away John (V) as a slave

657-658 Byzantine temporary recapture of Melitene (*OTL Malatya) and (western) Armenia; the Arabs quickly regain both. The news from Rome shock the Byzantines and Carthaginians alike

658 Caliph Alì defeats the Kharijites at Nahrawan. Greater Bulgaria divides into two main hordes, the Black Bulgarians west of the Don river, the White Bulgarians east of it. The kingdom of Sarir (Daghestan), a vassal to the Khazars, converts to Zoroastrism. The Byzantines also retake Rhides from Arab hands. Samo’s death is followed by the quick disintegration of his Slavic empire; the Slovenians reestablish their own principality of Koroška/Carantania. The T’ang Chinese vassalize the kingdom of Kucha (eastern Turkestan). Mercia shakes off Bernician/Northumbrian suzerainty, asserting its independence under king Wulfhere, and gains the obedience of Lindsey (Lincolnshire), thus becoming the new power of central England. The Lombards occupy abandoned Rome, reduced to an impressive field of ruins

658-659 Belisarius III kills his brother and co-emperor Theodosius to eliminate a possible rival for the crown for his sons; then, hated by the populace because of this crime, abandons Constantinople to lead a vast campaign against the Slavs in Thrace and Macedonia, vanquishing and deporting thousands of them to Anatolia, and sets his new headquarters in Thessalonica. St. Maximus the Confessor is jailed, tortured, mutilated and exiled to Schemarion (Lazica) for his opposition to Monothelism. Two renewed T’ang Chinese offensives against Koguryo fail

660 After striking an alliance with the southern Korean kingdom of Silla, the T’ang Chinese destroy its neighbour state, Paekche, with a naval expedition. Basileus Belisarius III sails from Thessalonica with a fleet and army and regains control over coastal Dalmatia, where he recruits thousands of Serbs and Croats; with these he crosses the Adriatic Sea and winters in Siponto (northern Puglia). The Khagan of Greater Bulgaria, Kubrat, dies; he is succeeded by his elder son Bat-Boyan, while his second son Kotrag gains independence east of the Don river with his horde. The Arabs take Herat (Afghanistan)

ca. 660 Lazica (NW Georgia) becomes formally independent from Byzantium under king Barnuk I: it nevertheless remains a staunch ally of the Byzantines against the Arabs
 
660-670

661 A Kharijite assassinates Caliph Alì: Mu’awya, now the new Caliph, transfers the capital from medina to Damascus and founds the Omayyad dynasty. Alì’s remaining followers, instead, create the Islamic Shi’a sect, who supports Muhammad’s direct descendants, opposed to the majoritary “Sunnis” (followers of the Sunnah and the Hadith of the Prophet, the tradition). The Lombard king Aribert I dies at Pavia: a civil war ensues between his sons Gothefrid (supported by the “barbarian” faction) and Bertharid (a “Romanophile”), with the latter fleeing for safety to the Avar Khaganate

661-662 In a fierce series of campaigns Belisarius III mauls and enslaves the heathen Slavs of Idalska in the south of Italy; their ban/duke Zveroboj is impaled after losing the battle of Drevnja Gora/Mt. Terminio (Campania)

662 Grimoald, son of the former Duke of Friul Gisulf II, an Arian from the “barbarian” faction of the Lombards, usurps the throne at Pavia by eliminating his brother-in-law king Gothefrid. The Arabs stage their first pirate raids on Sicily

662-663 The Japanese are newly ousted from Korea after vainly trying to help Paekche against Silla and China

663 Basileus Belisarius III marches on Rome; Grimoald’s Lombards entrench in the ruined city, stubbornly resisting the Byzantine siege and calling for help the new Western Byzantine emperor Maurus Heraclian, Gregory’s eldest son. When Maurus lands in Naples and marches north, Belisarius III raises the siege of Rome. The two Byzantine armies clash at Arpino (Lazio): when Belisarius III seemes to be on the winning side, he falls, pierced by a javelin, and his army surenders. Duke Lupus of Friul sacks Grado and carries the Patriarchal treasury in Aquileia. When king Guaram II dies the kingdom of Iberia/Georgia, vassal to the Arab Caliphate, sinks into a very long era of dynastical struggles

663-664 Duke Lupus of Friul tries to usurp the Lombard throne in Pavia taking advantage of Grimoald being stuck in subduing the rebellious Duchy of Spoleto; the Avars and Slovenians then stage a devastating invasion of Friul to support the fugitive Bertharid in a three-sided civil war. Maurus Heraclian, now the sole ruler of Byzantine West, deports by the thousands the vanquished Slavs of Idalska to Sicily and the exarchate of Carthage as a barrier against the Arabs; Ravenna and the Venetic Duchy confirm instead their loyalty to the new basileus in Constantinople, young Constantine IV

663-668 Greater Bulgaria, already threatened by the Khazars, implodes in a succession war between Kubrat’s sons

664 St. Cadwallader the Blessed of Gwynedd (Wales) dies, the last Celtic king to claim the title of High King of Britain. Chaos in Lombard Italy, with Bertharid controlling Friul and inner Veneto supported by Avars, Slavs and Eastern Byzantines, Grimoald holding central Italy supported by the Western Byzantines and Lupus keeping most of the north with support from the Franks and the Bavarians

665 The Neustrian Franks enter Italy in support of Lupus - who swore loyalty to the Catholic cause to gain their support, then clash with Bertharid’s Avaro-Slavs at the Mincio river: Bertharid is captured and blinded, his allies routed back to Friul. In the meantime Grimoald takes and razes the Eastern Byzantine fortress of Forlimpopoli (Romagna) and occupies Emilia. The Avars newly enforce their rule over the Moravian Slavs, whose power has decayed after Samo’s demise. Tabaristan, a mountainous region south of the Caspian Sea whose inhabitants didn’t convert to Islam, frees itself from Arab yoke under Bau ibn Qabus, founder of the local Bavandid dynasty, and becomes a troublesome Zoroastrian enclave shielded by its mountains

ca. 665 The Khazars become the paramount rulers between the Caspian and the Black Sea and absorb the remains of Greater Bulgaria; they establish a powerful empire whose influence extends from the middle Volga to the Caucasus range. The southern Onoguro-Bulgarians of the Terek river region, pushed west by Khazar power, settle in future Circassia (NW Caucasus) and in Taurida (*OTL Crimea)

666 Grimoald’s army, led by his sons Garibald and Romuald, marches on Luni and Genoa, then suddenly appears in the Frankish rear in Piedmont: Lupus and his son Arnefridus then fall in battle at Pontestura (Montferrat), where the Franks are annihilated; then Grimoald himself ousts the Avars and Slovenians from Friul overcoming them at Opitergium/Oderzo.

667 The Arabs kill the last Sassanian pretender to the throne of Persia, Firuz, and invade Transoxania (Central Asia) beyond the Oxus/Amu Darja river. The Khazars, with Western Gökturk support, defeat on the Volga the Onoguro-Bulgarians ridden by succession struggles. The Arabs conquer the kingdom of Phazania (Fezzan, Lybia)

668 The kingdom of Silla, with T’ang Chinese support, crushes its northern rival Koguryo and unifies Korea under king Munmu. King Oswiu of Northumbria repels an invasion led by the southern Picts, pushed ahead by the DalRiada Scots. The Onoguro-Bulgarians defat the Khazars at the Khalka river, near the Don river’s mouth, nevertheless they must acknowledge Khazar suzerainty

669 Basileus Constantine IV sails to Sicily with the Eastern Byzantine fleet and puts Syracuse under siege; Pope Vitalianus, with a safe-conduct, is allowed to leave the besieged town for Carthage. The Arabs invade inner Ifrigia (Byzantine Africa, *OTL Tunisia) and massacre the local Christians; in the ensuing chaos many deported Idalskan Slavs desert and convert to Islam, other stay loyal. The Lombard king Grimoald destroys the last Eastern Byzantine strongholds on mainland Veneto, Concordia Sagittaria and Eraclea, whose inhabitants take refuge into the lagoons. The Black Bulgarians west of the Dnieper river secede from the remains of Greater Bulgaria under Asparukh, the third son of Kubrat; the tribes dwelling between Don and Dnieper recognize instead Bat-Boyan as their Khan

670 The Arabs found al-Kayrawan as their outpost in Ifrigia (*OTL Tunisia) and subdue Afghanistan (though leaving in place the existing pre-Islamic rulers). The Tibetans vassalize the entire region of eastern Turkestan. Constantine IV takes Syracuse by famine after a one year long siege: the Western Emperor Maurus Heraclian is tortured and slain. Then Constantine heads to Carthage, where Constantianus, Maurus’ son and heir, flees to the Arabs for safety: the Byzantine empire is thus reunified

ca. 670 Bat-Boyan’s Onoguro-Bulgarians are finally subdued by the Khazars
 
670-680

671 Constantine IV overcomes the Arabs at al-Kayrawan, razing the new city. Upon Grimoald’s death his sons Garibald and Romuald divide the Lombard kingdom among themselves, establishing the kingdoms and dynasties of Lombard Neustria (centered at Pavia) and Austrasia centered at Zividal tal Friul [*OTL Cividale del Friuli]); the former rules northern Italy up to the Adda river, Tuscany and Rome; the latter Veneto, Friul, Trentino, Tyrol, and has a theoretical suzerainty over the Lombard Duchy of Spoleto

672 The Arab fleet retakes Rhodes (where the remains of the Colossus are sold to a cameleer...) and leaks into the sea of Marmara, where they take the strategic Cyzicum peninsula, whence they blockade Costantinoples itself. When news arrive in Carthage, Constantine IV hurries back to Thessalonica, where he eliminates the rebellious Slav chieftain Perbundus (whose warriors vainly siege the city in revenge); thereafter he reaches his capital by land. A new schism arises when Pope Vitalianus dies in Carthage: some of the exiled Roman prelates, fearing both Byzantine power and renewed Muslim aggression, come back in Rome where Adeodatus II is elected Pope with Lombard agreement (while the city itself is left de facto under Papal authority by king Garibald, eager to avoid any problem with the Catholic church), while in Carthage another faction, supported by Constantine IV, elects Donus

672-678 Constantinople successfully resist the Arab naval blockade; the Byzantine fleet exploits a most ingenious weapon, the “Greek Fire”, a forerunner to the flamethrower

672-680 In Visigothic Spain King Wamba persecutes the Jews, accusing them to be in favor of a Berber invasion of Spain

673 After various postponements because of the papal vacancy from Rome, the Synod of Whitby (Northumbria) seals the complete Christianization of the British islands; the Irish church, grown in authority and independence, pays obedience to the Roman Popes

673-676 Childeric II and Chlovis III briefly reunify the Frankish domains under the Austrasian line, then Neustria reasserts independence under Dagobert II

674 The Chalukyas of SW India sack the Pallava capital, Kanchi (near Madras). The Arabs conquer Crete

675 The western Bulgarian horde led by Asparukh arrives on the lower Danube. The Arab general Abu’l Muhajir reinvades Byzantine Ifrigia (*OTL Tunisia), where only Cartage and a handful of coastal fortresses resist the Muslim onslaught; he installs in Sufetula/Sbeitla Constantianus as Amir al-Kafirun (Prince of Infidels), a useful pawn against the Byzantines

675-678 Bernicia/Northumbria momentarily wrest suzarainty over the Anglic kingdom of Lindsey/Lincolnshire from Mercia

676 With the Peace of Spoleto Byzantium and the Neustrian Lombard king Garibald broker a lasting accord on both religious and military matters, taking advantage of the death of the Roman Pope Adeodatus II. The Carthaginian candidate Donus is installed in Rome as the new sole Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, which also reconciles with the Archbishopric of Ravenna, always loyal to Constantinople in previous disputes (notably the Three Chapters, but also Monothelism); Rome is acknowledged as the Pope’s estate, with a joint Byzantine-Lombard garrison “to protect the Holy See”. Ravenna, Romagna and the Pentapolis (northern Marche) are recognized as Byzantine possessions, while Perugia and the Rome-Ravenna corridor pass under the Lombard Duchy of Spoleto, whose independence (and Catholicism) is agreed upon by all parts. Lombard Neustria finally accepts Catholicism, while tolerating Arianism (still paramount in Lombard Austrasia). While Byzantium itself is rejecting Monothelism as a useless tool, the Christians of Lebanon accept the Monothelite doctrine and found the Maronite Church (from the name of St. Maron, a monk living two centuries before), whose Patriarch will be recognized by the Marada State of inner Lebanon as their supreme authority

677 The Byzantines gain a decisive victory over the Arab fleet at Syllaeum (Sea of Marmara). Abu’l Muhajir invades Numidia, takes Costantina and Stifa (*OTL Sétif) and defeats prince Kusayla of Tlemsen (*OTL Tlemcen), who converts to Islam to have his life spared

678 The Ultzindur Onoguro-Bulgarians of Taurida (*OTL Crimea), led by Kuber, the fourth son of Kubrat, migrate to Pannonia accepting vassalage to the Avars; Emnetzur, Kuber’s leads his own group in a peaceful migration to Italy, where they settle in Byzantine Romagna and Pentapolis, intermingling with local Italians. The Arabs, utterly defeated, raise the blockade of Constantinople

679 Dagobert II of (Frankish) Austrasia is killed and the Frankish kingdom is newly unified by Neustria under Theodoric III

679-680 Asparukh’s Bulgarians defeat Constantine IV’s Byzantines, cross the Danube and set their new capital at Pliska (Bulgaria); Byzantium accepts defeat and recognizes the new power, that starts recruiting the Slavic tribes already dwelling in the region

679-681 The Eastern Gökturks free themselves from T’ang Chinese yoke and rebuld their empire

679-682 Mutul/Tikal is temporarily subjugated by Dos Pilas during the incessant warfare between the Mayan city-states

680 Austrasian Lombards and Bavarians decisively stem the Carantanians/Slovenians in the battle of the Drava springs (Tyrol). The Arabs subdue the Christian kingdom of Caucasian Albania/Azerbaigian, where a century-long process of conversion to Islam begins. The Omayyad Caliphate accepts a peace with Byzantium, which regains Crete, Rhodes, Cyprus and most of Anatolia and even a gold tribute from the Arabs. Upon Mu’awya’s death a brief but violent civil war erupts in the Caliphate between the Shiites, led by Husayn, a grandson of Prophet Muhammad, and the Sunni Omayyads; Husayn in the end is murdered at Kerbala (Iraq), while Hijaz with the holy cities of Mecca and Medina secede from Caliphal authority under Abu Khubayb Abdallah ibn al-Zubayr, nephew of Khadija, the Prophet’s first wife, and grandson of Abu Bakr, the first Caliph, who gains support in Iraq, Arabia and parts of Syria and Egypt. The Turkic-Uygur confederation of the Qarluqs, dwelling to the east of the Aral lake, overthrows Chinese suzerainty. When the Indochinese kingdom of Dvaravati falls under Srivijayan Sumatran suzerainty, the Mon Buddhist kingdom of Haripunjaya arises in the Chiang Mai region of northern Siam, as an offspring from Dvaravati

ca. 680 The Tutul Xiu tribes begin their migration into Yucatàn
 
680-690

680-681 The Quinisextum Council, held in Costantinople under the auspices of Constantine IV and recognized by all parts involved (save the eastern Jacobite/Nestorian, Monophysite and Coptic Churches) finally rejects Monothelism and reimposes Nicene Catholicism. When things are settled, Constantine IV has his younger brothers Heraclius and Tiberius mutilated of the nose to nsure they’ll not defy Constantine’s son, Belisarius, for the throne

682 The Arab general Uqba bin Nafe, after refounding al-Kayrawan, reaches the Atlantic Ocean in Mauretania with his Muslim Arabs, sacking and massacring on the way, but on his way back he is surprised by the Judeo-Christian Berber rebellion led by the prince of Tlemsen Kusayla, who renegades his forced conversion to Islam. Kusayla’s rebels push Uqba bin Nafe south in the desert, where the Zenetes kill him at Ghardaya. The Western Gökturks rebuild their empire under Kutlugh Ilteres Khagan and wrest from T’ang China suzerainty over the Uygurs of Mongolia and the Khirghizes/Khakassians

682-690 Byzantine repression of the Paulician movement in Anatolia: its leader Constantine of Manamali is stoned to death, but the very officer who had him martyred, Simeon, converts on the spot becoming the new Paulician leader, till he himself is burned at the stake

683 Caliph Yazid I marches on Mecca against Abdallah ibn al-Zubayr, but dies while besieging the holy city and his army withdraws. A new civil war skahes the Omayyad Caliphate: rival Arab tribes vie for power. Kusayla of Tlemsen invades Ifrigia, razes al-Kayrawan and Sufetula/Sbeitla and personally beheads the Arabs’ puppet, Constantianus

684 The Banu Kalb, supporters of the ruling Omayyad clan, defeat the rebellious Banu Qays at the battle of Marj Rahit. The second Lambakanna dynasty replaces the Moriya rulers in Sri Lanka/Ceylon

684-685 Caliph Marwan I briefly rules for one year, managing to wrest all of Syria and Egypt from Abdallah ibn al-Zubayr’s hands before dying

685 Northumbria vassalizes North Reged/Cumberland, then invades southern Scotland liquidating the Celtic kingdom of Goutodin, but in the end the Northumbrians suffer a disastrous rout at the hands of a Pictish-Brython alliance at Nechtansmere, where their king Ecgfrith is killed in battle; the Anglo-Saxons are thus ousted from the Lowlands. In the south of England the Saxons finally take Avalon/Glastonbury. The kingdom of Man vassalizes the Picts of Galloway. Belisarius IV (*OTL Justinian II), a paranoid sociopath, begins his infamous rule on the Byzantine throne by treacherously massacring thousands of Lebanese Mardaites who didn’t want to be deported to Anatolia and the Peloponnese (like instead Byzantine-Arab accords imposed)

685-687 At Kufa (Iraq) the Shiites stage a great revolt under al-Mukhtar and Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya, a natural son of Alì: the rebellion is crushed by Omayyad forces

686-688 The Byzantine general Leontius leads a successful campaign in Armenia and Iberia, up to Caucasian Albania; Belisarius IV leads a successful expedition against the Slavs in the Sklaviniai (*OTL Balkans) and resettles them in the thousands in Anatolia as buffers against further Arab encroachments. In the end a new truce between the Arabs and Byzantium “neutralizes” the island of Cyprus, Armenia and Iberia making them “shared” domains whose revenue goes equally to the Arabs and Byzantium

687 Pepin II of Heristal enforces his rule over local lords as Theodoric III’s mayor of palace. Danish raiders destroy the abbey of Whitby (Northumbria)

688 The Arabs defeat Kusayla of Tlemsen at the Battle of the Shotts and reconquer Ifrigia (save Carthage and other Byzantine coastal fortresses)

688-698 Kharijite revolts shake Caliphal power in Iraq and Persia

690 The Byzantines lose Soldaia/Sudak (Chersonese/Taurida [*OTL Crimea]) at the hands of the Khazars. The Chinese empress mother Wu Zetian takes power on her own setting apart the legitimate T’ang heirs in favor of her relatives (which bore the new dynastic name of Zhou); she will prove capable, but greedy and cruel. Basileus Belisarius IV resume the war with the Arabs over Armenia. Anglo-Saxon Northumbria fosters the creation of the client kingdom of Dunbar, successor to the overthrown Goutodin. The Anglo-Saxon preacher Willibrord begins his evangelization in Frisia and Germany
 
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Grey Wolf

Donor
Amazing detail and quite fascinating, but I have to admit to being so unclued-up about this period that I have no idea which bits have been changed and which kept the same. There really was a King Wamba ? I'm guessing so ! Look forward to when it gets into my territory when I'll HOPEFULLY know that the Middle Ages "aren't supposed" to look like that !

Grey Wolf
 
Grey Wolf said:
Amazing detail and quite fascinating, but I have to admit to being so unclued-up about this period that I have no idea which bits have been changed and which kept the same. There really was a King Wamba ? I'm guessing so ! Look forward to when it gets into my territory when I'll HOPEFULLY know that the Middle Ages "aren't supposed" to look like that !

Grey Wolf

One fascinating feature of this eternal work-in-progress is that it's difficult to understand what's historical and what's not. Anyway, Wamba existed and was the Visigothic ruler at thata time OTL.
 
690-700

691-697 The renewed Byzantine occupation of Lazica (NW Georgia) ends with the Arab conquest

692 The Arabs reach the Indus river; at Sebastea (*OTL Sivas), Armenia, they gain a brilliant victory over the Byzantines led by general Leontius, thanks to the desertion of the Byzantine Slavic troops, then Belisarius IV (after arresting Leontius for “his” failure) obtains a peace that abolishes Caliphal tribute to Byzantium and leaves to the Arabs the whole of Cyprus, Armenia and Iberia. Caliph Abd al-Malik defeats and kills Abdallah ibn al-Zubayr in the Hijaz, retaking Mecca and Medina; the revolts in Basra and southern Iraq in favor of Abdallah ibn al-Zubayr are crushed with great bloodhsed by the Omayyad Caliphate. The Frankish mayor of palace Pepin of Heristal defeats the king of the Frisians, Radbod I, and forces him to abandon the royal title to assume that of Duke

693 Basileus Belisarius IV has the Benedictine abbey of Montecassino rebuilt

694 The T’ang Chinese defeat Tibetans and Eastern Göktürks; they wrest from Tibet suzerainty over eastern Turkestan, where in the Khotan kingdom the Sinicized Wei Ch’ih dynasty replaces the Vijaya (Buddhist) rulers

695 Destruction of Barce (Cyrenaica) and fierce sack of Djirva (*OTL Djerba) at the hands of Idalskan Slavic pirates in the service of Byzantium; the Arabs react by conquering most of Iberia/Georgia and putting Carthage under siege. In Constantinople the cruel and unpopular basileus Belisarius IV is overthrown by Leontius, the strategos of the Hellas theme, who after his release from the jail was hailed as emperor by the troops; the new basileus mutilates the deposed one cutting his nose and exiles him at Cherson/Sebastopol in the Taurida (*OTL Crimea). King Jasaw Chan K'awiil I of Mutul/Tikal heavily defeats his rivals of Calakmul, turning them from overlords into vassals

696 The Khitans, rebelling against Chinese overlordship, found an own independent State in northern Manchuria

697 The Arabs take and raze Carthage; this most grave news shakes the Byzantine empire. Final unification of the Pictish kingdom, Alba, in the northernmost region of Britain. King Mercury of Mukurra reunifies the whole of Christian Nubia

698 Basileus Leontius I retakes Carthage and successfully resists the Arab counter-siege; then Kusayla’s Numidians attack from the interior and annihilate the Arab army, freeing Ifrigia (*OTL Tunisia) from the Muslim yoke. Ifrigia reverts to Byzantine possession, while Kusayla is granted the second and third names of Constantine and Sarakenoktons (the Arab-slayer) and the title of Exarch of the Moors as a permanent ally of the empire. The Synod of Pavia finally condemns the Three Chapters once and for all; Patriarch Peter of Aquileia abjures his Tricapitoline stance, so the long schism comes to an end. King Gisulf I of Lombard Austrasia (mainland Veneto and the central-eastern Ladinian lands) officially renounces Arianism and converts to catholicism and brokers an accord by which the nearby Patriarchates of Aquileia and Grado recognize each other and divide their spheres of influence – Aquileia up to Austria and the central Alps, Grado on the Venetic lagoons, Byzantine Histria and Dalmatia. The Black (or eastern) Turgesh/T’u-Chueh, now completely free from Chinese overlordship, establish their Khanate in the Talas-Balkhash area of eastern Kazakhstan. With the support of the Korean-Tungusic Mohe tribe, Tae Ko/Da Zuruong, former general of the Koguryo army, founds in southern Manchuria the kingdom of Bohai/Parhae, a vassal to T’ang China

8th century In eastern Africa the encounter of Islam brought by Arab and Persian merchants and the local tribal cultures fosters the birth of the Swahili culture

ca. 700 Irish monks discover the Faer Oer archipelago. The Basques enforce their independence from both Franks and Visigoths; Frankish Aquitaine too gains de facto independence under Duke Eude. The Pallava ruler of SE Deccan, Srimaravarman, converts to Saivism (a branch of Hinduism worshiping Shiva as the supreme God) and has 8,000 Jains impaled in a single day in Madura. The Khmer kingdom of Chenla dominates over the middle and lower Mekong valley (SE Asia). After Kusayla-Constantine’s death the Kahina, a Jewish prophetess of the Jarawa tribe who already distinguished herself against the Arabs, is hailed as the Queen of North African Berbers; she will lead their successful resistance against the Spanish Visigoths, founding the Judeo-Christian Kahinid Exarchate. The Bulgarians of the Sklaviniai (*OTL Balkans) wrench from the Byzantines the strategic fortress of Durostorum/Drystra/Silistra on the lower Danube; The Bulgarians north of the Danube retain the name of Onogurs, while those south undertake a slow path to Slavicization. Daura, the most ancient city-State of Hausaland (*OTL southern Niger and northern Nigeria), is founded. In the Mississippi plains the Hopewell culture is replaced by the Mississippian or proto-Mandan culture. Tuhun/Tarhun establishes an independent Turkic kingdom in Samarkand. The Norwegian kingdom of Vestfold absorbs its neighbour Solor
 
700-710

700-701 A new failed anti-Omayyad revolt at Kufa (Iraq)
701 New anti-Caliphal rebellion in Basra led by al-Ash'ath. When hearing news that Leontius wants to eliminate him, the exiled and mutilated Belisarius IV the Rhinotmetus (the slit-nose) escapes from his exile in Cherson/Sebastopol, finding hospitality among the Khazars, who attack and conquer Cherson. The Duke of Turin Regimpert and his son Aribert rebel against king Anfus of Lombard Neustria. The Franks, supporting the rebels, invade northern Italy and win the battle of Novara, after which Aribert II is enthroned in Pavia (his father died in the battle); king Anfus flees to Lombard Austrasia, where his cousin Gisulf I reigns
702 The Spoletan Lombards occupy Tuscany, enlarging their domains to most of central Italy
705 Belisarius IV, escaped from Khazaria when his brother-in-law, Khan Busir Glavan, tried to hand him over to Byzantine agents to appease Leontius, finds new friends in the Bulgarians; but when they try to help him reenter Constantinople, Leontius quickly reacts, crushing them at Adrianople and killing Belisarius on the spot
706 The Khmer kingdom of Chenla splits into a northern (between Laos and Siam) and southern (Cambodia and Mekong delta) half
707 Basileus Leontius leads a naval expedition to Africa: Tripoli is sacked, in the island of Djirva (*OTL Djerba), an obnoxious nest of Arab piracy, all Muslims are slain and replaced by Idalskan Slavs, Cibyrrheotes (a people from SW Anatolia) and Mardaites (Lebanese Christians), who also are sent to repopulate devastated Ifrigia (*OTL Tunisia)
708 The Byzantine attempt to chase the Bulgarians beyond the Danube is frustrated by their defeat at Ankialos. Leontius rebuilds Carthage
709 The Arabs conquer Bokhara and Samarkand in Central Asia and invade Anatolia, defeating the Byzantines at Tiana; in Ifrigia, instead, they are trounced by Leontius at Matmata. After long pressure by Leontius, Pope Constantine bestows on the Archbishopric of Carthage the title of Primate of Africa. In Visigothic Spain King Witiza is slain whn he tries to pass the crown to his son; the (mostly) elective character of the Visigothic Crown of Spain is confirmed
710 The Arabs destroy the Ethiopian port of Adulis/Zula: the decaying Axumite empire, ridden with internecine strife, cannot counter Muslim encroachments along the coast. Nara is set as the new capital of Japan. King Gerontius of Dumnonia/Devon defeats the Wessex Saxons at Exeter. The legitimate T’ang dynasty is restored in China with Ruizong/Li Dan. Khapgham, Khagan of the Eastern Gökturks, subdues Kirghizes and Qarluqs, then invades Transoxiana (Central Asia) establishing contact with the Omayyad Arabs
ca. 710 The Norwegian kingdom of Vestfold vassalizes Vendeyssel (the northern “tip” of Jutland)
 
it's very difficult, I have no time to make it and am not a good designer.
In this moment you must imagine things in practice as they were OTL, except for North Africa not conquered by the Arabs and Italy divided as follows: the Northwest with Piedmont, Liguria, Lombardy west of the Adda, Emilia and parts of Romagna to Lombard Neustria; Lombardy east of the Adda, mainland Veneto, Trentino, all of Tyrol, Friuli to Lmbard Austrasia; central Italy (Abruzzo, Lazio north of Rome, Umbria, almost all of Marche, Tuscany) to the Lombard Duchy of Spoleto; the Byzantine possessions are Tunisia, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica and Italy south of Rome and the Sangro river between Abruzzo and Molise, plus Ravenna, parts of Romagna and northern Marche, alla the lagoon coast from the Po delta to Grado. Rome and a little land around it are de facto independent under the Papacy.
 
710-720

710-711 Sergius, Leontius’ eldest son, hurries back in Constantinople to fight back the Arab invasion of Anatolia, but after early successes his forces are routed at Samosata; on the way back to the capital a high officer, Smaragdus, rebels and kills Sergius, entering Constaninople as the new emperor

710-718 Great rebellion staged by Uygurs, Qarluqs and Western Gökturks from Mongolia to Turkestan, crushed in the end by the Eastern Gökturks

711 Leontius dies in Syracuse (he will be later sanctified by both the Catholic and the Orthodox churches); his younger son assumes the imperial Roman crown of the West (Ifrigia, southern Italy, Ravenna) as Tiberius III with Papal approval (in Constantinople Smaragdus supports again Monothelism as the state doctrine). The Visigothic kingdom of Spain experiences a severe war of succession, won by Roderic/Rodrigo I thanks to the support of Mauretanian mercenaries. Supported by the Picts of Alba, the Celts of Dunbar overthrow Northumbrian overlordship in the battle of Manaw. The Arabs take Khiva in Central Asia, Vannadopolis/Kars in Armenia, Amorion and Angora in Anatolia, but fail in the siege of Nicaea. The Itzàs migrate into Yucatàn, founding Chichén Itzà

712 The Arabs subdue Khorezm and Transoxiana in Central Asia, tame the rebellious Samarkandans and raid distant Kashgar (eastern Turkestan); they also cross the Indus and overrun Punjab and Sind. Tiberius III reorganizes his southern Italian possessions in the Exarchate of Salerno, and raises the Venetic duchy to an Exarchate, centered in Metamaucus/Malamocco, with domain over Histria; Paulucius Anaphestus, ruling there since 697 as Duke, is the new Exarch. Helped by Tiberius III’s fleet, the North African Berbers of the Kahina retake Septem/Sefta/Ceuta from the Spanish Visigoths, ousting them from Africa. Anfus, the legitimate king of the Neustrian Lombards, reenters Lombardy with a Bavarian army, then defeats and kills Ariberto II on the Adda river, restoring the Gariboldingians on the throne of Pavia. Khan Tervel’s Bulgarians take advantage of Byzantine weakness to devastate Thrace. The Khazars give back Cherson/Sebastopol to the (Eastern) Byzantines in exchange for money and an alliance. The Arab fleet conquers Rhodes and Smyrna

712-717 The Western Gökturks temporarily subdue the Turgesh/T’u-Ch’ueh, who free themselves with Eastern Gökturk help

713 Tiberius III’s fleet gains the obedience of the Dalmatian towns; the Arab armies raid deep into Anatolia, reaching even Chalcedon (on the Asian side of the Bosphorus)

714 Tiberius III’s fleet sails towards Constantinople to reunify the empire, but the Eastern Byzantines prevail at Naxos; Philippicus Bardanes, the Armenian commander of the winner fleet, is hailed emperor by his seamen and heads back to Constantinople, which he puts under siege. The T’ang Chinese defeat the Western Gökturks at lake Issik-Kul and at Byshbalyk (Kirghizistan). The Arab wrest Derbent (Daghestan) from the Khazars and destroy the Zoroastrian kingdom of Sarir in the nearby Caucasian mountains

715 Philippicus Bardanes, with help from the Green “deme” (one of the factions of the hippodrome hooligans, the other major one being the Blues), enters Constantinople where he blinds and sends to a monastery Smaragdus; being himself too a fellow Monothelite, the religious policy remains the same. The Chinese score new impressive victories in eastern Turkestan and Central Asia against both Gökturkic confederations, the Tibetans and even the Arabs

716 The Arabs conquer Pergamum in Asia Minor and dominate over most of Anatolia; Byzantium pays tribute to the Bulgarian khan Tervel

716-719 Duke Radbod I leads a last, fierce heathen reaction in Frisia before dying

716-754 St. Boniface (the Anglo-Saxon Winfrid) evangelizes Germany

717 Strategos Leo the Isaurian, after successfully defending Nicaea from the Arabs, is hailed as basileus by his troops and marches on Constantinople, where an angry mob lynches Philippicus Bardanes

717-718 Constantinople is besieged by land and sea by the Arabs, led by Maslama, but resists succesfully: during the winter the Bulgarians, honoring the pacts, attack the Arabs under the walls of the city, slaying them in the thousands, while the Byzantine fleet proves agains invincible with its Greek Fire; the Arab defeat is made a disaster by the Byzantine theme armies attacking the Omayyad rearguards in Anatolia

717-719 After a last attempted breakaway of Austrasia with Chlotarius IV, the Frankish kingdom is eventually reunified under Chilperic III, but real power is held by the former Austrasian Mayor of Palace, Charles Martel (the Hammer), who defeated and replaced Chilperic’s Mayor of Palace Raginfrid

719 This year witnesses the first mention of the concept of “feudal homage” in Europe

719-720 Failed anti-Omayyad revolt led by Yazid ibn al-Muhallab in southern Iraq and Basra

720 The king of Lombard Austrasia, Romuald II, leads a successful expedition against Carantania/Koroška. The Turgesh/T’u-Chueh defeat the Chinese, preserving their freedom. The Byzantines free Smyrna and Rhodes from the Arabs

ca. 720 The Welsh kingdom of Dyfed/Pembrokeshire suffers a brief period of overlordship by its neighbour, Ceredigion/Cardigan, in turn a vassal of Gwynedd
 
720-730

720-721 The Neustrian Lombards conquer Valtellina from the Romancians, who are bound to pay tribute; in response Charles Martel invades Piedmont and enforces Frankish suzerainty over Lombard Neustria, imposing the restitution of Valtellina to Romancia and the cession of Susa to the Franks. King Anfus of the Neustrian Lombards retires to a monastery on the lake of Como, his second son Grimoald II is enthroned as a Frankish vassal

721-740 The long Aquitanian Wars waged by Charles Martel subdue the Basques north of the Pyrenees and impose Aquitaine a reluctant obedience. Leo III the Isaurian struggles to expel the Arabs from Anatolia

722 The Arabs invade Daghestan ousting the Khazars

724-743 Arab raids devastate Gujarat and Broach (NW India)

ca. 725 Omayyad forces crush the Hindu uprising of Sindh, which ends up annexed

726 The Eastern Byzantine basileus Leo III the Isaurian issues decrees against the worship of sacred images, thus starting the iconoclastic controversy

727 The Western Byzantine emperor Tiberius III denounces iconoclasm and has this doctrine formally condemned by a synod held in Carthage; this opens a state of undeclared war between the two halves of the Byzantine empire. Abortive anti-Iconoclastic rebellion by one Cosmas in Thessalia and the Cyclades, promptly quelled by Leo III’s forces

728 An Arab invasion overthrows the Sabir khanate of Caucasia, formerly a vassal to Khazaria. The Eastern Byzantine fleet occupies Gallipoli and Otranto (Puglia), blockading the Adriatic Sea, then enforces obedience upon Dalmatia; Tiberius III visits Rome (causing some concern among the Spoletan Lombards) and is formally crowned by Pope Gregory II as Roman Emperor of the West

729 The Eastern Byzantines assault Ravenna but in the end are defeated, also thanks to Venetic support by the exarch Ursus Hypatus; having the Exarch of Ravenna Maurusian died in battle, Tiberius III unifies both the Venetic lagoons and Ravenna in a single Exarchate of Adria, de facto an independent ally of the Western Byzantine empire centered at Syracuse. Taking advantage of the Eastern Byzantine defeat, Dalmatia rebels and reverts to Syracusan rule

729-730 The Lezghians and Avars of Caucasus free themselves from Muslim domination with help from the Khazars and found in the Daghestan region the Khanate of Avaristan (a successor to defunct Sabir Caucasia). Tiberius III ousts Leo III’s forces from Puglia

730 The Arabs suffer a devastating defeat against the Khazars and Avaristanis in the battle of Ardabil (southern Azerbaigian). Basileus Leo III formally confirms it bend towards iconoclasm with new laws against icon-worship

ca. 730 The Thai prince P'i-Lo-Ko unifies large swathes of SW China (Yunnan) and northern Indochina, establishing there the kingdom of Nanzhao. The Omayyad Caliphal forces eventually break and scatter the Nezaks, White Hun/Hephtalite clans who had been domineering and raiding for over a century between Afghanistan and Punjab
 
730-740

731 The Omayyad Caliphal army stops and kills the Khazar Khagan Barjik at the battle of Mosul in northern Iraq. The Tomar Rajput ruler Anangpal I founds Lal Kot/Dhillika over the site of modern Delhi

732 When Grimoald II of Lombard Neustria dies leaving a 13 year old heir, Cleph, King Gisulf II of Lombard Austrasia invades the kingdom, but Charles Martel trounces and kills him at the battle of Sesto San Giovanni between Milan and Monza. The Celtic kingdom of Dumnonia/Devon is vassalized by Anglo-Saxon Wessex; Cornwall keeps its independence establishing an own separate kingdom. The Tartars make their fist appearance when migrating from the Kerulen river valley to the Amur taiga. The Hinduist kingdom of Mataram arises in central Java. A renewed Arab invasion of Ifrigia (*OTL Tunisia) is thwarted by Western Byzantine general Prodromos and allied Kahinid forces in the battle of Saltus Byzacensis

733-734 Leo III’s forces suddenly assault Syracuse with a fleet and a siege army, but the Sicilian stronghold resists and the Western Byzantine fleet led by Leontius II, son and co-emperor of Tiberius III, crushes the invaders off Capo Passero, forcing the surrender of the invaders. The Constantinopolitan general Artavasdes is captured, tortured and killed. Meantime Thrasamund, Duke of Spoleto, invades southern Italy

733-737 Repeated invasions by the Slovenians of Carantania/Koroška desolate Friul: Lombard Austrasia barely survives thanks to the regent Wimpold, who defends Zividal (*OTL Cividale) from two Slavic sieges

733-746 The Western Chalukya ruler Vikramaditya II thrice takes the Pallavan capital, Kanchi, sealing the enemy’s decline

734 The Franks subdue and vassalize Frisia forcibly introducing Christianity into the country

735 The Patriarchate of Aquileia moves its see from Cormons to the safer Zividal (*OTL Cividale, Friuli). The Arabs invade Alania (NW Caucasus), defended by her king Itaz. Tiberius III’s Western Byzantine army clashes with the Spoletan Lombards at lake Matese (Campania), where Thrasamund is killed, then the emperor forces the Spoletans to cede northern Lazio to the Papacy

737 The Arabs advance through Avaristan/Daghestan up to the Volga mouths, overthrow Khazaria in the battle of Itil (the Khazar capital, near later Astrakhan) and force conversion to Islam upon the Khazars. The Onogurs of Taurida (*OTL Crimea) are thus freed from subservience to Khazaria

737-738 An attempted Visigothic invasion of Mauretania from Spain led by King Theodoric III ends in an epic disaster in the Ruel (*OTL Rif) mountains

737-743 The Mayor of Palace Charles Martel and his son Pepin the Short directly rule the Frankish kingdom after Theodoric IV’s death, afterwards Pepin and his brother Carloman choose Childeric III, a distant cousin of the dead Merovingian king, as puppet king

738 The Mayan king of Xukpi/Copàn 18 Rabbit is defeated and killed by his rival Cauac Sky of Quiriguà (Guatemala)

738-741 Wimpold usurps the Lombard Austrasian throne slaying the young legitimate heir Ansoald, then is overthrown and killed by Ansoald’s cousin Lupus

739 Sevar, the last khan of the Danubian Bulgarians from the Dulo clan, dies; he is succeeded by Kormisosh, of the Ukil clan

740 Leo III the Isaurian gains a most great victory over the Arabs at Akroinon, Anatolia. Zayd ibn Alì, grandson of Husayn and pretender to the title of Imam of the Shiites (at first against Muhammad al-Bakir, recognized by most Shiites as the legitimate Imam, then against Ja’far as-Sadiq), revolts at Kufa (Iraq) but is killed by Omayyad forces; his followers establish the Zaydi sect of Shi’a, which will prove paramount especially in Yemen and Oman. The Khazars rebel against Caliphal overlordship under Bulan Sabriel and rebuild their Khanate; the Arabs are chased beyond the Caucasus, having been ousted from Avaristan/Daghestan too. Having briefly experienced the forced imposition of Sunni Islam, and not wanting to depend in religious matters neither from Damascus nor from Constantinople, the Khazar court begins to seriously consider conversion to Judaism. Kutlug Bilgekul Khan founds the second Uygur khanate in Mongolia
 
740-750

740-742 A Kharijite rising shakes Lybia and Egypt and is only hardly repressed by the Caliphate

741 The Qarluq tribal compact, together with the Uygurs, overthrows Eastern Gökturk ascendancy. In Constantinople Leo II dies, succeeded by his son Constantine V, an ardent supporter of Iconoclasm

742 Tiberius III dies in Syracuse; his son Leontius II has to deal with the abortive usurpation led by drungarios (admiral) Mastanarius in Ifrigia (*OTL Tunisia). The Spoletan Lombards overrun the Pentapolis (northern Marche), wresting it from the Exarchate of Adria

743 Caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik dies after twenty years of strong rule: the Omayyad Caliphate plunges into civil war

744 The Uygurs destroy once and for all the Eastern Gökturk empire and impose their supremacy from the Asman Tau (*OTL Tien Shan) range to the Amur river, whilst the T’ang Chinese again vassalize the Turgesh/T’u-chueh khanate. In southern Mauretania/Mauria (*OTL Morocco), between the Atlas range and the ocean the Berghawata tribal confederation arises

744-756 Constantine V wages victoroius campaigns against the Caliphate up to northern Syria, Cyprus and Armenia. The Celtic kingdom of Strathclyde successfully resists the double pressure of the Picts (fresh vanquishers of the DalRiada Scots) from the north and the Northumbrian Anglo-Saxons from the south

745 A joint Franco-Bavarian-Austrasian Lombard expedition subdues the Slovenians of Koroška/Carantania and introduces Christianity among them. The Uygur extinguish the Western Gökturk empire too

746 The Tibetans again invade Eastern Turkestan and destroy the town of Lijien/Alexandria, where in 40 BC a small Roman military colony had been established (the legionaries, in Crassus’ army, were captured by the Parthians at Carrhae and sent in Central Asia, where they deserted to the local Xiongnu/Huns and eventually were taken by the Han Chinese)

747 The decisive Abbasid revolution against the Omayyads starts in Khorasan when Ibrahim ibn Muhammad, from a collateral branch of the Hashemite clan, rises in revolt; upon his death in battle his brother Abu Al-Abbas as-Saffah (the Bloody) takes the leadership among the rebels, who gain wide support in Persia and Iraq. The T’ang general Gao Xianzhi invades Tibet. The Uygurs defeat the Tartars along the Selenga river (Mongolia). Carloman retires to monastic life, leaving his brother Pepin the Short as the only Mayor of Palace and de facto ruler of all Franks

750 The Abbasids decisively defeat the Omayyad Caliph Marwan II at the Great Zab river in northern Iraq, forcing him to flee to Egypt, then they conquers Damascus and exterminate most of the Omayyad clan; the Abbasid (or Second) Caliphate is thus established. Abu al-Abbas al-Saffah takes the Caliphal title for himself, despite hopes by the Shiites, strong Abbasid supporters during the revolution, for an appointment of their Imam (spiritual leader) Ja’afar Sadiq. Though being Arab, the new Caliph crushes former absolute Arab predominance in favor of Persians and other non-Arab Muslims and moves the capital from Damascus to Kufa in southern Iraq. A Chinese invasion of Nanzhao/Yunnan ends in defeat. Gao Xianzhi leads a T’ang Chinese army through Pamir up to the upper Hindukush, threatening the newborn Abbasid Caliphate’s positions in both Central Asia and Afghanistan

ca. 750 During their enterprising voyages in search of uninhabited lands for hermitage, Irish monks reach Hesperia (*OTL America) and notice Iceland: the fact, largely ignored at the time and only proved by archaelogical evidence centuries later, will be hazily recorded in the Navigatio Sancti Brendani. The Maoris (Polynesians) colonize New Zealand/Aotearoa. Nagabhata I defeats the Muslim invaders in NW India, thus imposing the Gurjara dynasty of the Pratiharas of Ujjain as the ruling power in that region. Foundation of the Buddhist Pala kingdom in Bengal. The Serbian principality of Raška (later Kosovo) is founded by the great zupan (grand prince) Viseslav Vlastimirović. The Zapotec civilization of Monte Albàn (Oaxaca, Mexico) reaches its apogee
 
750-760

Summary: Pepin becomes the Holy Roman emperor, the Omayyads save their asses in Egypt, Chinese power shattered in Central Asia, Western Byzantium prey to a succession war; failed Eastern Byzantine "rentrée" in Italy

751 The Egyptian Omayyad forces rallied by Marwan II and led by his distant relative Abd ar-Rahman defeat the Abbasid army at Aqabade ad Aqaba and retake the holy cities of Jerusalem, Mecca and Medina. The T’ang Chinese army led by Gao Xianzhi conquers Chach/Tashkent and kills the local Qarluq ruler, Baghatur Tudun; thereafter the Chinese suffer a crushing and decisive defeat against Abbasid forces and rising Qarluqs at the Talas river (on that occasion, captured Chinese soldiers spread the knowledge of paper into the Muslim world). Western Göktürks, Turgesh/T’u-ch’ueh and Tibetans take advantage to rise in rebellion and attack the Chinese rearguards; Khagan Bayanchur’s Uygur replace the Chinese as overklords of the Tarim basin (eastern Turkestan). Pepin the Short dethrones Childeric III, the last weak Merovingian king of the Franks, and is hailed as the new king; his accession to the throne marks the beginning of the use of having the sovereign anointed with blessed oil at the hands of high prelates. This year is the date for the most ancient printed book known in the world, a Korean copy of a Buddhist “sutra”

752 Marwan II adopts Abd ar-Rahman as his heir and successor despite his defeat at Quneitra against the Abassids; Abbasid forces take over Oman by killing Al-Julanda, the local Ibadi-Zaydi imam, but the interior of the country remains firmly in the hands of the Shiite rebels. Premature death of the Western Roman/Byzantine emperor Leontius II in Syracuse; empress Theodota acts as regent for the infant Maurice II. The Spoletan Lombards, led by Duke Anspert, take advantage to invade southern Italy, seizing parts of Puglia and Campania and reclaiming back upper Lazio from the Papacy

753 King Dantidurga Rashtrakuta of Kannada overthrows the ruling Western Chalukyas of Vatapi/Badami, establishing the Rashtrakutas as the new regional power. After a lengthy siege the Austrasian Lombards conquer Ravenna from the Exarchate of Adria, then their king Lupus dies from malaria. After vainly trying to appease the Spoletan Lombards, marauding southern Italy and threatening Rome itself, Pope Stephen II departs to France to call Pepin the Short for help. Then Constantine V of Byzantium plunges in Puglia with a strong fleet, taking Taranto, Gallipoli, Brindisi and defeats the Spoletan Lombards at Murgia Basilica (*not existing OTL, inner central Puglia). The Abbasid general Abu Muslim retakes Hijaz with Mecca and Medina from the Omayyads

753-775 Open, harsh struggle between basileus Constantine V and the “idolatric” Byzantine monks adverse to iconoclasm

754 Also the second Chinese invasion of Nanzhao/Yunnan fares very badly. Young Maurice II dies in Syracuse, thus extinguishing the Leontidian dynasty; a long civil war for the imperial crown of the West ensues, because whilst in Syracuse empress Theodota rules, outside no less then seven pretenders spring up with one thing in mind: forcibly marry her and reign. (Eastern) Byzantium takes further advantage of the chaos imposing anew its rule in Dalmatia and conquering almost all of southern Italy save Naples, held by Duke Totilian, a pretender to to the Syracusan crown; Constantine V also subjects the church of southern Italy to the Patriarchate of Constantinople, enforcing unpopular Iconoclasm. Pepin the Shot meantime enters Italy, trounces the Spoletans at Pistoia with Neustrian Lombard help and enters Rome with Pope Stephen II; Tuscany reverts to Neustrian Lombardy, the Papacy has back its land in Lazio and gains the Perugia strip in western Umbria under Frankish protection. The archbishop of Mainz, The Anglo-Saxon Boniface, after evangelizing Germany for decades is martyred by hetahen Frisians at Dokkum; despite this setback, the Frisian archbishopric of Utrecht is to become a strong center of ecclesiatic power. The T’ang Chinese lose Kashgar at the hands of the Uygurs

754-756 Constantine V has Iconoclasm reaffirmed and confirmed as Byzantium’s state confession, despite heavy and often violent opposition from the clergy and people, especially in Europe

755 The Abbasid Caliph al-Mansur order the murder of Abu Muslim, one of the paramount leaders of the Abbasid revolution from their beginnings in Khorasan. Constantine V’s Byzantines and Peipn the Shorts Franco-Lombards clash in the epic battle of Tuscolo, south of Rome, where the Byzantines are narrowly defeated; thereafter the basileus abandons Italy for Constantinople, leaving his generals there to deal with the Frankish menace

755-756 Khorasan again hosts an uprising, this time a Zoroastrian one led by a Sindbad. General John Vivariotes conquers Syracuse after a long siege and forcibly maries empress Theodota, having himself styled Roman Emperor of the West, but gaining no recognition by both his rivals and the Papacy; he cannot even rule over western Sicily, where the pretender Jannakes has his own strongholds

755-763 General An Lushan rises in rebellion in the T’ang Chinese empire; despite his violent death in 757, his revolt triggers mass uprisings and upsets the empire

756 Abd Ar-Rahman I succeeds Marwan II as Caliph in al-Fustat (Egypt); the division of the Muslim world in two rival Caliphates is confirmed. The strategos (governor) of Byzacena (eastern central Ifrigia, *OTL Tunisia) and pretender to the Syracusan throne Marcianus Bulla crushes the Kharijite Arabs of Lybia (paying lip service to Omayyad Egypt) and his local rival Facundus in the battle of Midnatha; the Arabs, however, are able to retake the island of Djirva (*OTL Djerba) and stage devastating pirate raids in the Mediterranean. Pepin the Short, while reducing Byzantine strongholds in Puglia, hurries back to northern Italy to confront the Austrasian Lombard invasion led by king Anscarius, who is decisively defeated and killed at Brescello on the Po river with help from the Venetic fleet of the Exarch of Adria, Galla (who falls in battle); Ravenna is thereafter reverted to the Exarchate, while Lombard Austrasia becomes another Frankish client, thus completing Frankish overlordship upon the Lombard states. The North African Berbers of the Kahinid Exarchate invade Visigothic Spain but are completely routed by King Reccared III at the Rio Grande (*OTL Guadalquivir)

757 The first official feudal oath in Europa is taken by Duke Tassilo of Bavaria, who swears loyalty to king Pepin the Short. Pope Stephen II then invites Pepin in Rome and crowns him as Holy Roman Catholic Emperor of the West, a precise choice against the Western Byzantine still locked in endless civil war. Constantine V takes Melitene (*OTL Malatya) and Theodosiopolis (*OTL Erzurum) from the Abbasids. The defeated Western Chalukyas, now vassals to the Rashtrakutas of SW India, move their capital from Badami/Vatapi to Pattadakal

758 An Abbasid fleet sacks Canton/Guangzhou, China, after a bewildering trip following the monsoon from the Persian Gulf to the Southern China Sea. Costantine V deports the Slavs from Thrace to Anatolia as soldier-peasants. Arabs and local Islamicized Berbers, led by Abu-l-Khattab Abd al-A'la ibn Assamh al-Ma'afiri, found a theocratic Kharijite state in the Djebel Nefusah, south of Tripoli (Lybia). The Slavic Duchy of Pannonia is established between the Danube and Drava rivers after a successful Franco-Lombard expedition against the Avars led by emperor Pepin; a reduced Avar Khaganate is confined east of the Danube

758-759 A new Eastern Byzantine offensive in southern Italy conquers Lucania/Basilicata and Calabria; Duke Stephen II of Naples is able to hold his own in Campania

759 Emperor Pepin Magnus (the Great) ousts the Visigoths from Septimania (the region around Narbonne), then tames the rebellious northern Basques, reaching the Pyrenees. Costantine V defeats the Bulgarians at Markellai (Thrace)

760 The T’ang Chinese, who are suffering most grave internal disturbances, are completely ousted from Eastern Turkestan

ca. 760 Tat-Ugek’s White Onoguro-Bulgars, vassals to Khazaria, migrate from their lands in the Don river region onto the middle Volga, where they establish a strong khanate under only nominal Khazar suzerainty; their arrival finally separates the Finnic peoples from the Ugric ones; the latter, the Magyars, dwelling across the Uralic range, clash and intermingle with the Onoguro-Bulgars starting a migration towards the Ukraine.
 
You presume correctly, apart from minor adjustments in the 4th century northern China, with no real consequences (I made 'em only to simplfy things).
 
760-770

Summary: Western Byzantium finds its strongman, the Papacy proves a bunch of liars and turncoats, Constantine V covers himself with both glory and infamy, the Franks suffer a harsh civil war

761 In Rome the Papal Chancery writes the “Donation of Constantine”, a forgery to “prove” Papal rights over Rome and central Italy since a long time; it will take up to the 15th century to prove it a fake. In Bulgaria Teletz murder his predecessor Vinekh and his family, usurping the Khanate. Marcianus Bulla gathers his forces and lands in western Sicily, where he crushes Jannakes’ army in the battle of Monreale. Eastern Byzantine forces take Salerno

762 The Abbasid Caliphate and Omayyad Egypt (where Abd ar-Rahman I has gained the strong support of the Kharijite movement) have to recognize the status quo after the huge and inconclusive battle of Gaza; however Egypt has to cede Jerusalem and Palestine. The Abbasid Caliph Al-Mansur founds Baghdad, soon to become one of the most fabled capitals in the world. The second Uygur khanate accepts Manichaeism and Nestorian Christianity as state religions. Marcianus Bulla kills John Vivariotes in the battle of Lentini and enforces his rule as co-emperor of the widow empress Theodota (Marcianus already has a wife, Alexandra); he rules from Syracuse as the sole Western Byzantine emperor, but Papal recognition is already on the more reliable Frankish Carolingian (from Charles Martel, Pepin the Great’s father) Empire. Pope Paul I excommunicates the Eastern Byzantine basileus Constantine V on the Iconoclastic issue. Khazars ed Alans invade Transcaucasia (the lands south of the Caucasus range). The Vikings, pirates coming from Norway and Denmark and already infamous for their isolated but fierce assaults from Alba (*OTL Scottish Highlands) to Ireland and Celtic Gallastria (*Spanish Galicia), for the first time appear in the Mediterranean with the horrible sack of the Maurian (*OTL Moroccan) town of Temsamana near the Ruel (*OTL Rif)

762-763 The Shiites, disappointed at their hopes of having their Imam installed as the new Caliph, stage a new unsuccessful revolt in Arabia and Iraq under Muhammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyya (the Pure Soul) ibn Abdallah and his brother Ibrahim. Luoyang is sacked by Chinese rebels and by a Tibetan invading army, thereafter ousted by the Uygurs, intervened to help the T’ang rulers of China

763 The Tibetans conquer the Tarim basin (Eastern Turkestan), inflict hash defeats upon the Turgesh/T’u-Ch’ueh and sack the Chinese capital,
Ch’ang-an/Xian. Constantine V routes the Bulgarians in the great battle of Ankialos; Khan Teletz is deposed and killed by his own men after this defeat. The Uygur Khagan, Bögü Eltekin, converts to Manichaeism

763-775 Basileus Constantine V of Byzantium repeatedly routes the Bulgarians; the Iconoclastic controversy reaches its climax

764 The Khazars wrest for a while Tbilisi (Iberia/Georgia) from the Abassid Caliphate and free the esatern Georgian region of Khakheti from Baghdad’s rule

764-766 Marcianus Bulla, with Berber Kahinid reinforcements, smashes Eastern Byzantine positions in southern Italy, ousting Constantinopolitan forces from the peninsula; Sisinnios, the appointed Constantinopolitan strategos of the Apulia and Calabria theme (Puglia), is beheaded after capture in Otranto. The Duke of Naples, Stephen III, submits and is appointed as the Exarch of Salerno; Marcianus also carves another Exarchate in Taranto for his son and heir Maximus

765 A new rift opens in the Shi’a community about the succession of Ja’afar as Sadiq, the sixth Imam, between the majoritary supporters of his son Musa al-Kazim and those of his other sob Isma’il, who’ll be known as the Ismailis. In Constantinople Constantine V’s struggle against the power of monasteries and moks reaches its climax when the basileus has Stepehen the Younger from Mt. Auxentios abbey, a staunch Iconophile, tortured to death

766 Emperor Pepin I the Great dies suddenly in Lucca while on his route to Rome to keep an eye on Marcianus Bulla’s intentions. He divides the Holy Roman Catholic Western Empire (from now onwards: HRCWE) between his two sons, Charles and Carloman, who eye each other with great suspicion: Charles gets Burgundy, Provence, Frankish Germany and the imperial title and capital in Aquisgrana/Aachen, Carloman most of France as co-emperor with his capital at Orléans. Incessant Muslim raiding finally disrupts the Maitraka kingdom of Gujarat: the region is taken over by the Hindu kingdom of Zabulistan/Kabul, a vassal to the Abbasid Caliphate. The Turkic-Uygur tribal compact of the Qarluqs finally destroys the Turgesh/T’u-Ch’ueh Khanate and creates an own State between Kazakhstan and Zungaria; the defeated Turgesh/T’u-Ch’ueh migrate to the Western Kazakh steppe, where they’ll take the name of Oghuz/Ouzoi

767 Charles narrowly manages to escape from Italy with his life when the Neustrian Lombard king Cleph is killed by his cousin Charispert, who rises in rebellion against Frankish overlordship; Marcianus Bulla takes advantage to enter Rome unopposed (the Spoletan Lombards turn a blind eye) and forcibly enthrone as a successor to Pope Paul I the Sicilian candidate Stephen IV, who crowns him in St. Peter as the “only and perpetual Roman Catholic emperor of the West”. Afterward his wife Alexandra has fomer empress Theodota strangled and thrown in the sea in Syracuse. Mauretania (*OTL Marocco) secedes from the Kahinid Exarchate under Samuel I the Ulilite (from his placebirth and capital, Ulili [*OTL Volubilis, not abandoned in TTL]), a Christian scion of a Jewish family expelled from Spain by the Visigoths; the secession is supported by the Berghawata army. Lazica (Nw Iberia/Georgia) frees from Abassid rule; the kingdom of Abasgia/Abkhasia is establihed as an Eastern Byzantine protectorate

767-770 Harsh civil war in the Frankish Empire, Bavaria and the Lombards take advantage to claim back independence

768 Emperor Charles stages a successful defence against Saxons and Frisians, called upon for help by his brother Carloman. Marcianus Bulla crushes ruthlessly the rebellious Idalskans in Sicily, then, back in Africa, campaigns against the marauding Djebel Nefusah Kharijite Arabs, wresting back Djirva (*OTL Djerba) from them. The DalRiada Scots regain independence from the Picts

769 Carloman advances into Burgundy, then is roued by Charles’s forces at Saverne (Alsace) and withdraws. A new Synod held in Carthage issues another firm condemnation of Iconoclasm and launches anathema against basileus Constantine V of Byzantium. Slavic pirates from the Peloponnese and Macedonia plunder Lesbos

770 After a last stand ends in disaster in the battle of Melun, Carloman flees to safety in Brittany, then in Cornwall, where he’ll die the following year; Charles thus reunifies the Frankish empire. In the kingdom of Khotan (Eastern Turkestan) a new Vijaya (Buddhist) dynasty takes over replacing the Sinicized Wei-Ch’ih rulers

ca. 770 Emperor Charles begins to set the rules of feudalism, a system who’ll dominate Europe for a millennium, appointing military commanders and powerful abbeys to rule on provinces and fortresses in exchang for a loyal service to the person of the sovereign
 
770-780

Summary: Charles is back!

771 The Visigothic king of Spain Fafila massacres and expels the Jews, who flee in the dozens of thousands to Mauria and to Frankish Septimania; in the latter they’ll prove such a loyal border guard that emperor Charles will entrust them of the local rule

772 A dynastical marriage brings about the unification of Khazaria and Alania (northern Caucasus). Foundation of the Berber Jewish kingdom of Sijilmasa (SW Mauria), holding sway over the western Zenete Desert (*OTL Sahara) and Mauretania Ultima (*OTL Mauritania). Emperor Charles subdues rebellious Aquitaine gaining recognition from duke Lupus II

773 Constantine V gains a new great victory over the Bulgarians at Lithosoria; the Bulgarian Khan Toktu, who usurped the throne eliminated his predecessor Umor, is captured and slain by the Byzantines

773-774 In two swift campaigns emperor Charles I crushes and annexes Bavaria and defeats the ever rebellious and stubbornly heathen Saxons. Duke Tassilo III of Bavaria, a first cousin of Charles, is quartered for treason in Mainz, extinguishing the Bavarian Agilolfingian dynasty. Marcianus Bulla’s Western Byzantines occupy Dalmatia, in revolt against the imposition of Iconoclasm; they also enforce formal recognition from the Venetic Adria Exarchate

775 The Eastern Byzantine basileus Constantine V dies from fever during one of his incessant campaigns against the Bulgarians, succeeded by his elder son, Leo IV nicknamed the Khazar (actually his mother was a Khazar princess, daughter of the Khagan). Liupert, a nephew of the usurper of Lombard Neustria Charispert, flees to Charles’s court in Aquisgrana/Aachen. Extinction of the “Arthurian” dynasty of Celtic Gallastria (Galicia and Asturias) with Alan V; the Visigoths, taking advantage of the succession struggles, overrun the country, which will prove a most rebellious area. The surviving western Chalukyas of the Deccan repel Rashtrakuta aggression and set up a new reduced kingdom in Kalyani (Mysore). The Itzà Confederation is established in the Yucatàn

ca. 775 The Welsh kingdom of Ceredigion/Cardigan rejects Gwynedd’s supremacy under king Seisyll, who’ll give a new name to the kingdom (Seisyllwg)

Ca. 775-844 The Judeo-Christian Duchy of Septimania (Maritime Languedoc, around Narbonne), under Frankish suzerainty. The Septimanian Jews, a majority after their mass escape from the rabid Visigothic persecution, elect as Duke with the name of Theodoric I Makhir Natrionai ben Habibi, the former Resh Galuta (Exiliarch of the Jews in Baghdad, one the foremost figures of the Jewry), exiled after being ousted by a cousin from his high appointment in the Abbasid capital. He took refuge first in Omayyad Egypt, then in Numidia and finally in the new Jewish “homeland” of Septimania

776 The Frankish emperor Charles plunges in Italy through Bavaria and the Alps: Lombard Austrasia is crushed in the battle of the Berici Hills (Veneto), while Charispert of Neustria, badly defeated at Brescia, flees to Romancia (*OTL eastern Switzerland and Valtellina), whose Duke Ursicinus trades his corpse to Charles in sign of friendship. Liutpert is enthroned in Pavia as the ruler of all Lombards in northern Italy, but the local Lombard dukes are mostly replaced with Franks and Alamanni. Then Charles heads south through the Apennines, receiving the immediate submission of Duke Adelchis of Spoleto, and enters Rome, well received by Pope Adrian I. The decisive clash with Western Byzantine forces happens at Campo Imperatore on the Gran Sasso massif, where the Exarch of Taranto Maximus Bulla, Marcianus’ elder son and heir, is defeated and killed; afterwards Pope Adrian I crowns Charles as the Holy Roman Catholic emperor of the West

776-779 Khorasan erupts in the great equalitarian revolution led by Hashim ibn Hakim al-Muqanna, the Veiled Prophet, whose teachings trace back to the Mazdakist creed: he gains a wide following among both Muslims and Zoroastrians and military support from the heathen Oghuz Turks, but in the end is defeated and commits suicide

778 The Franks are defeated by the Basques of the Sobrarbre kingdom at Roncesvalles; Roland, a nephew and Paladin (personal ward) of emperor Charles, is killed in the battle, and his valor will be remembered in the Chanson de Roland, the first milestone of French popular literature. The Byzantines defeat the Abbasids at Germanicea and wipe them from Anatolia. Groups of Lazes/Lesghians converted to Islam secede from Avaristan under Shahbaal ibn Abdallah, founding the Ghazi-Ghumuq kingdom (inner Daghestan)

780 The HRCEW Charles moves against the Bretons, vassalizing them and deposing Duke Arecstan; he also disinherits his first son, Pepin the Hunchback, in favor of the children born from his new marriage, Charles, Theodoric/Pepin, Lothar and Chlovis/Louis. In Constantinople Leo IV dies prematurely, leaving empress Irene (an Iconophile from Athens) as regent for the infant Constantine VI; a plot by Caesar Nicephorus, Constantine’s uncle, is crushed and the people involved forcibly tonsured and made monks (thus not eligible for state charges). An era of growing turmoil in Korea, marked by uprisings and banditry, culminates in the murder of king Hyegong of Silla, whose State begins to decline
 
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