Staraya Ladoga and Baghdad are near-contemporaries and trading partners.
Ladoga's oldest buildings date to 753, Baghdad was founded in 762, and by the end of the 8th century Arab silver coins were reaching the Volkhov.
The events
- Founding of Staraya Ladogac. 753 · Ladoga, lower Volkhov. Tree-ring dating places the oldest buildings of Ladoga on the Volkhov in 753. Scandinavians, Slavs and Finns lived here, and Arab silver and northern furs passed through. According to the Hypatian Chronicle, Ladoga was where Rurik first settled after being invited to rule.
- Founding of Baghdad762 · Baghdad. Abbasid caliph al-Mansur founded a new capital on the Tigris: the Round City, named Madinat al-Salam, the City of Peace. Baghdad quickly grew into one of the world's largest cities and a centre of Islamic science, trade and culture.
More amazing facts
- 762 Legend says the great Chinese poet Li Bai drowned trying to embrace the moon, leaning drunkenly from his boat towards its reflection in the Yangtze.
- 763 In 763 a Tibetan army captured Chang'an, capital of Tang China and one of the world's largest cities, and installed a puppet emperor.
- 774 An 8th-century English king minted a coin bearing the Islamic declaration of faith.
- 793 · 1876 Vikings did not wear horned helmets.
- 793 · 794 The Viking Age and Japan's Heian period began a year apart: Vikings sacked the monastery of Lindisfarne in June 793, and in 794 the Japanese court moved to its new capital, the future Kyoto.
- 794 · 1868 Kyoto (Heian-kyō) was Japan's capital for more than 1,000 years — from 794 until the emperor moved to Tokyo after the Meiji Restoration.