General
Population: Between 190 and 230 million*
- Disease: Smallpox spreads from India through China and to Asia Minor in southern Europe
- Entertainment: Lyric poetry develops in T'ang dynasty – promotes common Chinese language
Bishop Isidore of Seville collects Greek and Roman writings
Coptic art in Egypt starts
- Fashion: Gold jewelry develops in Frankish-Merovingian era
- Religion: Pope Gregory strives for peaceful conversion of Jews, creates picture book of Bible stories, writes manual for duties of clergy
Pope Gregory founds cantor school in Rome - Development of the Gregorian Chant
- Technology: Book printing begins in China
First use of windmills in Persia
Mayan books preserved in ceramic vessels
- Deaths: Christian poet and bishop of Poitiers Fortunatus Venantius, Arab poet Antara ibn Shaddad
Africa
- Coptic art in Egypt starts
- Nubians become Christian
Americas
- Height of Maya civilization - Mayan civilization freed from Teotihuacán influence
Mayan books preserved in ceramic vessels
Start of Mayan Late Classic Period
- 50,000 people inhabit Tiahuanaco (Tiahyanaco) in Bolivia starting civilization
- South America: Rise of Huari in Peru
Asia
- China: Book printing begins
Emergence of Nan Chao state
Spread of Chan (Zen) and Pure Land Buddhism in China
- India: Yoga Buddha figures created in Bihar (n India)
Beginning of the Bakhti revival of Hinduism
- Korea: Chan (Zen) Buddhism established in Silla-Korea
- Japan: Chinese and Korean artists settle in Japan
- Tibet: Tibet begins to develop as a state
Europe
- General: Barbarian invasions halt in Western Europe
- Eastern Europe: Czechs and Slovaks settle in Bohemia and Moravia, Yugoslavs in Serbia
Khazars form empire between Don and Volga rivers
Decline of the kingdom of Egrisi (Georgia) also known as Lazica
- England: Saxons rule England
- Franco-German States: Arles cathedral started
Starvation to 604
- Ireland: Beginning of important period of art and literature in Ireland
- Italian States: Money system in Italy replaced by barter system
Lombards – Scandanavians settle in the German/Italian region - see 568
- Spanish States: Bishop Isidore of Seville collects Greek and Roman writings
Middle East
- Eastern Roman Empire: Byzantine Empire (Turkey) under attack
- Persia: First use of windmills in Persia