Important Dates (dates CE unless otherwise indicated)
Unit One
- between 6 BCE and 6 CE: birth of Jesus
- c. 30: crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus
- 70: destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans
- c. 100: final split between Jews and Christians in Palestine (earlier elsewhere)
- 303: start of Great Persecution of Diocletian
- 313: Edict of Milan, making Christianity legal in the Roman Empire
- 325: Council of Nicaea I
- 330: Emperor Constantine moves his capital to Constantinople
- 381: Council of Constantinople I
- 431: Council of Ephesus
- 451: Council of Chalcedon
- 476: fall of the Western Roman Empire to Odoacer
Unit Two
- 800: Charlemagne crowned emperor on Christmas Day, the first Western emperor since 476
- 1054: Great Schism, resulting in permanent division of Eastern and Western branches of the Church
- 1096: start of the First Crusade
- c. 1450: invention of the printing press by Gutenberg
- 1453: Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks
- 1492: fall of Granada and end of the Reconquista, expulsion of Jews from Spain, Columbus's "discovery" of America
- 1517: start of the Protestant Reformation
- 1619: first enslaved Africans brought to Virginia
- 1648: Peace of Westphalia
- 1776: U.S. Declaration of Independence
- 1789: start of French Revolution
- 1948: founding of the World Council of Churches
- 2013: election of first Roman Catholic pope from the Americas, Pope Francis