Alexander the Great and his Conquest

Attila the Hun and the Roman Empire

Elizabeth Bathory?

Marco Polo

The reign of the Pharaoh Hatshepsut.

The middle ages.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Martel

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tours

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03629a.htm

http://historymedren.about.com/library/who/blwwcharlesmartel.htm

http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0811480.html

Bottom line, after Mohammed died the Moslem Armies swarmed out of Arabia like hornets. The Byzantie Empire (what was left of the Eastern Roman Empire) had just finished a very bloody and expensive series of wars with Perisa (aka Iran). The Byzantines were too weak to stop the Moslems, and they lost territory to them…LOTS of territory. The Moslems started by conquering Syria, then Palestine, (modern Jordan and Israel) . Then the Moslem armies split up… one branch went east and conquered Iraq and Iran and made it all the way to India. The other branch went West, they grabbed Egypt, then all of North Africa, crossed into Europe and conquered Spain and Portugal.

Finally they crossed over the mountians into France. The only thing that stopped them was Charles Martel. He won the battle of Tours in 732, and pushed the Moslems back into Spain. (The Christians didn’t finally retake all of Spain till 1492.)

Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Lybia, Algeria, Tunisia were all Christian countires when the Moslems came… had been Christian for over 300 years. As you can see, they aren’t Christian countries anymore.

The only reason Christianity survived at all, was Charles Martel. If he had lost the Moslems would have kept going, into France, Itlay, Germany, Denmark…. who knows where, or if, they would have been stopped. If he hadn’t pulled it off, Paris and Berlin and Rome would be Arab cities just like Damascus, Alexandria, Cairo, Tripoli, and Gaza.

certainly the Greeks and the persians come to mind (but that’s 480 BC)

since they were pretty significant civilizations for so early a time, im sure they had effects on later civilizations – maybe early forms of religions, planned cities, astronomy/mathematical discoveries…

do some research 🙂

A wealth of information is found in the Bible, in the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

In fact Jesus birth was so important that our calender is set to that.