Byzantine Empire (476-1453)

Teodora (500-548), wife of Emperor Justinian I (483-565)

Gothic kingdom falls to famous Byzantine General Belisarius (under Emperor Justinian, 527-565)

Crusaders need the help of the treacherous Emperor Alexius I Comnenus (reigned 1081-1118) to get to Jerusalem 1096-1099 in the First Crusade

1453, siege of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks ending the Byzantine Empire