On 8 June 793, Norse raiders in longships landed on Lindisfarne, the island monastery off the Northumbrian coast where Saint Cuthbert was buried, killing monks, seizing treasure and carrying off captives. The scholar Alcuin of York wrote that nothing like it had been seen in Britain for 350 years. It is usually seen as the start of the Viking Age, in which Scandinavians raided and settled across Europe, from Ireland and the Frankish coasts to Russia, and reached Iceland, Greenland and North America. Over the next three centuries Norse traders also founded Dublin, Normandy and Kyiv.
Before and after
- 780 CEBirth of Muḥammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi
- 786 CEConstruction of Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba
- 787 CESecond Council of Nicaea
- 8th centuryRise of Neo-Confucianism
- 8 June 793 CEVikings raid Lindisfarne
- from 794 CE to 1185Heian period
- 18 November 794 CEFounding of Kyoto
- from 800 CE to 1600Mississippian culture
- 8th centuryOrigins of Prague
More in Wars, politics & history
- 9th centuryHanbalism
- from 1147 to 1149Second Crusade
- from 1202 to 1204Fourth Crusade
- 1279Kublai Khan completes the conquest of China
- from 6 April 1453 to 29 May 1453Fall of Constantinople
- from 22 May 1455 to 16 June 1487Wars of the Roses
The era
This moment belongs to the Medieval world (500 CE to 1500 CE), kingdoms, faiths and trade routes. You can also browse everything in the 8th century.