Kingdom of Italy

State · 587–1946 CE · at its largest around 1943 CE

Cliopatria's long-running entity for the Italian kingdom, from the Lombard realm through the medieval Regnum Italicum under Frankish and German rulers to the Savoy kingdom of 1861.

Its battles, in Battle View

Battle of Adwa (1896 CE)

On its lands while it lasted

Silk Road (c. 130 BCE – c. 1450 CE): A network of overland caravan routes linking China with Central Asia, Persia and the Mediterranean, along which silk, spices, horses, religions, technologies and diseases travelled for more than 1,500 years.
Battle of Talas (751 CE): Abbasid forces defeated a Tang Chinese army near the Talas River, ending Tang expansion westward into Central Asia.
Coronation of Charlemagne (800 CE): Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne emperor in St Peter's Basilica on Christmas Day, reviving the imperial title in the West.
Marco Polo’s journey to China (1271–1275 CE): The Venetian merchant Marco Polo, with his father and uncle, travelled from Acre across Persia, the Pamirs and the Tarim Basin to the court of Kublai Khan. His book of travels shaped European ideas of Asia for centuries.
Founding of the Ottoman state (c. 1299 CE): Osman I, leader of a Turkish principality in northwestern Anatolia, founded the dynasty whose state grew into the Ottoman Empire, which lasted until 1922.
Timur (1336 CE – 1405 CE): Turco-Mongol conqueror born near Kesh (Shahrisabz) who built an empire from Anatolia to India, sacked Delhi in 1398 and made Samarkand his capital.
Black Death (1346–1353 CE): Bubonic plague pandemic that reached Europe through Mediterranean ports such as Messina in 1347 and killed an estimated third to half of Europe's population.
Forbidden City (1420 CE): Imperial palace complex in Beijing, completed in 1420; home of Ming and Qing emperors and now the Palace Museum.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452 CE – 1519 CE): Italian Renaissance polymath born in Vinci, painter of the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, whose notebooks record studies in anatomy, engineering and flight.
Fall of Constantinople (1453 CE): Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II captured Constantinople, ending the Byzantine Empire; the city became the Ottoman capital.
Michelangelo (1475 CE – 1564 CE): Florentine sculptor, painter and architect of the High Renaissance. He carved the Pietà and David, painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling and the Last Judgement, and designed the dome of St Peter's.
Mona Lisa (c. 1503 CE): Leonardo da Vinci began this portrait of Lisa Gherardini in Florence around 1503 and kept working on it for years. It hangs in the Louvre and is among the most famous paintings in the world.
Galileo Galilei (1564 CE – 1642 CE): Italian astronomer and physicist born in Pisa who pioneered experimental science and telescopic astronomy. Condemned by the Inquisition in 1633, he spent his last years under house arrest near Florence.
Mao Zedong (1893 CE – 1976 CE): Communist revolutionary who founded the People's Republic of China and led it until his death.
Einstein's special relativity (1905 CE): In 1905, while working at the patent office in Bern, Albert Einstein published his theory of special relativity and, in a follow-up paper, E = mc². It transformed ideas of space and time.