The end of the Western Empire
The last emperor in Italy is deposed, and nobody bothers to replace him.
- When
- Known to
- ± 1 year
- Era
- Classical, Holocene
In 476 CE the Germanic commander Odoacer deposes the teenage Romulus Augustulus and sends the imperial regalia to Constantinople, declining to appoint a successor. The date is a convenience: authority in the West had been draining away for a century, and the eastern empire continues for another thousand years. What ends is not civilisation but a particular political structure — taxation, standing armies and long-distance trade contract sharply, and material life in the West gets measurably poorer.