A disgraced Japanese minister became the god of learning.
Sugawara no Michizane was exiled in 901; after his death disasters struck the capital, and he was deified as Tenjin — to whom students now pray before exams.
More amazing facts
- 897 In 897 a pope put his predecessor's corpse on trial.
- 900 Japan's oldest surviving tale is about a girl from the Moon.
- 905 'Born in the purple' was literal.
- 911 Legend says that when the Viking Rollo received Normandy in 911, he refused to kiss the French king's foot and sent one of his men instead.
- 916 The Russian word for China, Kitai, comes from a people who were not Chinese: the nomadic Khitans, who founded the Liao empire in northern China in 916.
- 918 The name Korea comes from Goryeo, the kingdom founded in 918 that united the peninsula for almost five centuries and under whose name the country became known abroad.