The inhabitants of Messenia revolt against Spartan rule and are reduced, in retaliation, to the status of serfs or helots

An earthquake in Sparta leads to an uprising by the helots, who take up a defensive position on Mount Ithome

Forces of the Delian League assist the Egyptians in a successful revolt against their Persian rulers

The Jewish leader Judas the Maccabee captures Jerusalem and cleanses the Temple

The Roman general Sulla takes the unprecedented step of marching upon Rome with a Roman army, to restore his own faction to power

Sulla takes Rome for the second time, after a battle at the Colline Gate, and then publishes his lethal 'proscriptions'

A rebellion by Spartacus and other slaves from a gladiators' training camp at Capua lasts for two years before it is suppressed

Boudicca launches a devastating attack on Roman soldiers and settlers, destroying their headquarters at Colchester

The Zealots play a prominent part in the uprising which expels the Romans from Jerusalem

A rebellion in Spain prompts such chaos that Rome has four emperors within a year, after the suicide of Nero in 68

The last of the Jewish insurgents are besieged in the stronghold of Masada, eventually killing each other to end their ordeal

Hadrian, visiting Jerusalem, decides to rebuild it as a Roman city - an act which provokes the final Jewish uprising

Simon Bar-Cochba drives the Romans out of Jerusalem and holds it for three years, until a large Roman army recovers the city

Theodora shows her mettle, as empress, in her response to the anarchy and terror unleashed in Constantinople by the Nika revolt

The leader of a peasant uprising captures and kills the Chinese emperor, bringing to an end the T'ang dynasty

The inhabitants of Damascus surrender their city to Nur ed-Din, helping him greatly in his campaign against the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem

Simon de Montfort, leading the barons in rebellion, captures Henry III and his son Edward at Lewes

Prince Edward, escaping from captivity, defeats and kills Simon de Montfort at Evesham

An incident in a church service sparks the uprising known as the Sicilian Vespers, in which 2000 French are killed overnight in Sicily

William Tell, a figure of legend, epitomizes the struggle of the Swiss farmers against their feudal overlords, the Habsburgs

A poll tax imposed in England provokes widespread unrest, which flares up in the Peasants' Revolt

Wat Tyler, leader of the Kentish rebels, meets Richard II at Smithfield - before being struck and wounded by the Lord Mayor of London

Richard II banishes Thomas de Mowbray for life and Henry of Bolingbroke for ten years

A dangerous feud develops between two of England's most powerful barons, Henry of Bolingbroke (son of John of Gaunt) and Thomas de Mowbray

John of Gaunt dies and Richard II denies Henry of Bolingbroke his Lancastrian inheritance, declaring Gaunt's vast estates forfeit to the crown