Kingdom of Portugal

State · 1147–1911 CE · at its largest around 1895 CE

Western Iberian kingdom proclaimed by Afonso Henriques and recognised in 1143, which later built a global maritime empire and became a republic in 1910.

On its lands while it lasted

Ghana Empire (c. 300–1200 CE): Soninke empire of the western Sahel, known to Arab writers as a land of gold, which grew rich by controlling trans-Saharan trade; its capital is usually identified with Koumbi Saleh.
Trans-Saharan trade (c. 700–1600 CE): Camel caravans crossed the Sahara between Morocco and the Niger bend, exchanging North African goods and Saharan salt from mines such as Taghaza for West African gold, enriching the empires of Ghana, Mali and Songhai.
Reconquista (718–1492 CE): Centuries-long series of campaigns by Christian kingdoms to take the Iberian Peninsula from Muslim rule, ending with the fall of Granada in 1492.
Great Zimbabwe (c. 1100–1450 CE): Stone-walled capital of a Shona kingdom that controlled gold trade with the Indian Ocean coast; its Great Enclosure is the largest ancient structure south of the Sahara.
Knights Templar (c. 1119–1312 CE): Hugues de Payens and fellow knights founded this military order in Jerusalem around 1119 to protect pilgrims, with headquarters on the Temple Mount. It grew rich and powerful until Pope Clement V dissolved it in 1312 under pressure from Philip IV of France.
Saladin (c. 1137 CE – 1193 CE): Kurdish founder of the Ayyubid dynasty who became sultan of Egypt and Syria, defeated the crusaders at Hattin and retook Jerusalem in 1187.
Rock-hewn churches of Lalibela (c. 1200 CE): Eleven monolithic churches carved out of rock around the late 12th and early 13th centuries under King Gebre Mesqel Lalibela of the Zagwe dynasty.
Sack of Constantinople (1204) (1204 CE): Armies of the Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople and set up a Latin Empire, permanently weakening Byzantium.
Thomas Aquinas (1225 CE – 1274 CE): Dominican friar and theologian whose Summa Theologica synthesised Aristotelian philosophy with Christian doctrine.
Mansa Musa (c. 1280 CE – 1337 CE): Ruler of the Mali Empire whose lavish pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324–25, carrying vast quantities of gold through Cairo, made Mali famous across the Mediterranean world.
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.
Ibn Battuta’s travels: Maghreb, Arabia and East Africa (1325–1332 CE): The Moroccan scholar Ibn Battuta left Tangier on the hajj in 1325, visited Egypt, Syria, Mecca and Iraq, then sailed down the East African coast to Kilwa and back via Oman and the Persian Gulf. His Rihla records some 30 years of travel.
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.
Fall of Constantinople (1453 CE): Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II captured Constantinople, ending the Byzantine Empire; the city became the Ottoman capital.
Scramble for Africa (1881–1914 CE): Invasion, occupation and partition of almost all of Africa by European powers between the 1880s and 1914, formalised in part at the Berlin Conference of 1884–85.