In January 378, a party from Teotihuacan arrived at the Maya city of Tikal, about 1,000 km away.

378

Soon the city had a new ruler.

◍ Show on the globe

The event

• Teotihuacan intervention at Tikal378 · Tikal. In January 378 the warlord Siyaj K'ak', linked to Teotihuacan, arrived at the great Maya city of Tikal; the same day its king died. A new ruler was installed, and Tikal went on to dominate the Maya lowlands for centuries.

4th century

More amazing facts

• 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.
• 301 · 313 · 330 Among the first Christian states were Armenia (traditionally 301) and Aksum in Ethiopia (around 330).
• 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.
• 536 · 541 536 is called one of the worst years to be alive: volcanic haze dimmed the sun across the Northern Hemisphere, and five years later the Plague of Justinian began.

All amazing facts (126) →