When Charlemagne was crowned emperor in 800, Borobudur — the world's largest Buddhist temple — was being built on Java.

800

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The events

• Construction of Borobudurc. 800 · Java. Under the Shailendra dynasty, Borobudur, the world's largest Buddhist temple, was raised in central Java. Its terraces carry more than 2,600 relief panels that lead the pilgrim along the path to enlightenment.
• Coronation of Charlemagne800 · Rome. On Christmas Day 800, Pope Leo III crowned the Frankish king Charlemagne emperor in St Peter's Basilica. The revival of a Western empire sealed the alliance of the papacy with the Franks and sharpened rivalry with Byzantium.

8th century

More amazing facts

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• 859 · 1096 Al-Qarawiyyin in Fez, the world's oldest operating place of learning, was founded by a woman, Fatima al-Fihri, 237 years before teaching began at Oxford.
• 862 · 863 According to the chronicle, the Varangians were invited to Rus' in 862, and in 863 Cyril and Methodius set out for Moravia with a Slavic alphabet.
• 868 · 1450 The oldest dated printed book, China's Diamond Sutra of 868, is almost 600 years older than the Gutenberg Bible.
• 987 · 988 Rus was baptised in 988, a year after Hugh Capet became King of France.
• 988 · 1021 Thirty-three years after the Christianization of Rus', Vikings were cutting wood in Newfoundland — tree rings date it precisely to 1021.

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