/year

The 580s

198 sourced entries across 10 years, inside the 6th century. Each year below opens its own page; the lines under it are that year’s highest-ranked entries.

580 CE31 entries

  • Siege of Sirmium: The Avars march to the right bank of the River Sava, and besiege the Byzantine stronghold of Sirmium (Pannonia).
  • The Chinese city of Ye (Henan) is razed to the ground by Yang Jian, future founder of the Sui dynasty, who defeats a resistance force under Yuchi Jiong.
  • The Northern Zhou dynasty, strategically based in the basin of the Wei River, is supreme in Northern China. In the south only the Chen dynasty remains a rival.

581 CE18 entries

  • Ishbara Qaghan, grandson of Bumin Qaghan, becomes the new ruler (khagan) of the Turkic Khaganate (Central Asia).
  • Byzantine–Sasanian War: A Byzantine army commanded by Maurice, and supported by Ghassanid forces under King Al-Mundhir III, fails to capture the Persian capital, Ctesiphon, along the Euphrates.
  • Second Council of Mâcon: In a council of Christian bishops in Mâcon (Burgundy), Jews are prohibited from serving as judges or customs officers.

582 CE18 entries

  • April 11 – John Nesteutes becomes the 33rd bishop or patriarch of Constantinople.
  • August 14 – Emperor Tiberius II Constantine, age 47, dies (possibly from deliberately poisoned food) at Constantinople, after a 4-year reign during which Thrace and Greece have been inundated by the Slavs. He is succeeded by his son-in-law Maurice, former notary who has commanded the Byzantine army in the war against the Persian Empire.
  • Gundoald, illegitimate son of Clotaire I, arrives with the financial support of Constantinople in southern Gaul. He claims as usurper king the cities Poitiers and Toulouse, part of the Frankish Kingdom (approximate date).

583 CE13 entries

  • Eboric (also called Euric) succeeds his father Miro as king of the Suevi (Hispania Gallaecia).
  • Emperor Maurice decides to end the annual tribute to the Avars, a mounted people who have swept across Russia and threatened the Balkan Peninsula. They capture the cities of Singidunum (modern Belgrade) and Viminacium (Moesia).
  • Muhammad, age 12, accompanies his uncle Abu Talib during trading journeys to Syria.

584 CE18 entries

  • September – King Chilperic I is stabbed to death while returning from a hunt near Chelles, after a 23-year reign over a territory extending from Aquitaine, to the northern seacoast of what later will be France. His wife Fredegund, who has paid for his assassination, seizes his wealth, flees to Paris with her son Chlothar II, and persuades the nobles to accept him as legitimate heir while she serves as regent, continuing her power struggles with Guntram, king of Burgundy, and her sister Brunhilda, queen mother of Austrasia.
  • The Slavs push south on the Balkan Peninsula – partly in conjunction with the Avars under their ruler (khagan) Bayan I – ravaging the cities Athens and Corinth, and threatening the Long Walls of Constantinople.
  • The Exarchate of Ravenna is founded, and organised into a group of duchies, mainly coastal cities on the Italian Peninsula. The civil and military head of these Byzantine territories is the exarch (governor) in Ravenna.

585 CE26 entries

  • July – Gundoald, Merovingian usurper king, and his followers are defeated during the siege of Saint-Bertrand. He is executed and Guntram stages a triumphal entry into Orléans.
  • September 15 – Emperor Bidatsu, age 47, dies of smallpox after a 13-year reign, and is succeeded by his brother Yōmei as the 31st emperor of Japan.
  • The Visigoths under King Liuvigild devastate the Suevic Kingdom in Gallaecia (northwest Spain).

586 CE18 entries

  • Battle of Solachon: A Byzantine army under command of Philippicus defeats the Sassanid Persians, near Dara.
  • The Page with the Crucifixion, from the "Rabbula Gospels", at the Monastery of St. John in Beth Zagba (Syria), is completed. It is now kept at the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence, Italy.
  • The Avars besiege Thessalonica (Central Macedonia), the second city of the Byzantine Empire.

587 CE20 entries

  • November 28 – Treaty of Andelot: Guntram recognizes King Childebert II of Austrasia as heir. He signs a treaty with Queen Brunhilda at Andelot-Blancheville.
  • Comentiolus, Byzantine general (magister militum), assembles an army of 10,000 men at Anchialus (modern Bulgaria). He prepares an ambush for the Avars in the Haemus Mountains.
  • The filioque clause is first used in the Nicene Creed, against the Arians in Visigothic Spain (approximate date).

588 CE16 entries

  • First Perso-Turkic War: A Persian army (12,000 men) under Bahrām Chobin, supported by Cataphracts (heavy cavalry), ambush the invading Turks, and win a great victory at the Battle of the Hyrcanian Rock.
  • Summer – Guaram I of Iberia, Georgian prince in exile, is sent by Emperor Maurice to the city of Mtskheta (Georgia). He restores the monarchy and is bestowed with the Byzantine court title of curopalates.
  • Byzantine-Sassanid War: Unpaid Byzantine troops mutiny against Priscus (magister militum per Orientem). King Hormizd IV begins a Persian offensive, but is defeated at Martyropolis (modern Turkey).

589 CE20 entries

  • May 15 – King Authari marries Theodelinda, daughter of the Bavarian duke Garibald I. A Catholic, she has great influence at court and among the Lombard nobility.
  • October 17 – Breach at Cucca. The Adige River overflows its banks, flooding the church of St. Zeno and damaging the walls of Verona.
  • The Chinese Empire is reunited under the leadership of Emperor Wéndi (Sui dynasty), who defeats the Chen forces at Jiankang (modern Nanjing), ending the Chen dynasty (the last of the Southern dynasties) that has ruled since 557.