Among the first Christian states were Armenia (traditionally 301) and Aksum in Ethiopia (around 330).
Rome merely legalized Christianity in 313.
The events
- Armenia adopts Christianityc. 301 · Vagharshapat. King Tiridates III, converted by Gregory the Illuminator, made Christianity the state religion of Armenia. By the traditional date Armenia became the first Christian state, and the cathedral of Etchmiadzin was founded at Vagharshapat.
- Aksum adopts Christianityc. 330 · Aksum. King Ezana of Aksum, guided by his tutor Frumentius, converted to Christianity, and the cross replaced pagan symbols on his coins. Aksum, a trading power linking Rome, Arabia and India, became one of the world's first Christian states.
More amazing facts
- 105 · 751 China had paper by the early 2nd century, but according to tradition it reached the Islamic world only after the Battle of Talas in 751, via Chinese captives.
- 165 · 166 In 166, men claiming to be envoys of the ruler of Rome — probably Marcus Aurelius — reached China.
- 232 · 1280 The colossal Taupō eruption of around 232 struck a New Zealand with no people at all: Polynesians would arrive more than a thousand years later.
- 378 In January 378, a party from Teotihuacan arrived at the Maya city of Tikal, about 1,000 km away.
- 476 · 1453 The Eastern Roman Empire outlived the Western one by almost 1,000 years: Rome fell in 476, Constantinople only in 1453.
- 476 · 499 Twenty-three years after the Western Roman Empire fell, India's Aryabhata wrote that the sky only appears to move — it is the Earth that rotates.