8th century

Centuries:	7th century - 8th century - 9th century
Decades:	700s 710s 720s 730s 740s 750s 760s 770s 780s 790s

The 8th century is the period from 701 - 800 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era.

Contents 1 Events 2 Significant persons 3 Inventions, discoveries, introductions 4 Decades and years

Events

• The Iberian peninsula is conquered by Arab and Berber Muslims, thus ending the Visigothic rule, and starting almost eight centuries of Muslim presence there.
• Sometime this century, Beowulf is probably composed.
• Borobodur, the famous Indonesian Buddhist structure, begins construction, probably as a non-Buddhist shrine.
• Buddhist Jataka stories are translated into Syriac and Arabic as Kalilag and Damnag.
• An account of Buddha's life is translated into Greek by Saint John of Damascus, and widely circulated to Christians as the story of Barlaam and Josaphat.
• The Nara period begins in Japan.
• The Moravian principality and Nitrian principality arise in central Europe (see Great Moravia)
• Many Volga Bulgarians convert to Islam.
• The very first Viking raid is carried out on the abbey of Lindisfarne in northern England in 793.
• Kanem-Bornu arises north of Lake Chad.

Significant persons

• Alcuin, English monk, scholar, and teacher
• Charlemagne, king of the Franks from 771 to 814
• Charles Martel
• The Venerable Bede, English scholar
• Pippin the Younger
• Harun al-Rashid, fifth Abbasid Caliph
• Li Po, Chinese poet
• Du Fu, Chinese poet
• Dae Jo Yeong, founder of ancient Korean state, Balhae

The content of this page is retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8th_century under GFDL