The Nubian Kingdom of Kush, whose capital Meroë was famed for ironworking and pyramids, came to an end around the mid-4th century amid campaigns by Aksum.
Approximate date.
King Ezana of Aksum, in present-day Ethiopia and Eritrea, adopted Christianity under the influence of Frumentius, making Aksum one of the first Christian states.
The Soninke Ghana Empire (Wagadu) flourished in what is now Mauritania and Mali, growing rich from control of the trans-Saharan gold and salt trade.
The mathematician and philosopher Hypatia is murdered by a mob in Alexandria.
The Roman Empire nearly collapses under civil wars, invasions, plague and economic crisis until Diocletian's accession.
The first recorded pandemic of bubonic plague sweeps the Mediterranean, devastating the Byzantine Empire and killing vast numbers.
Claudius Ptolemy completes the Almagest, setting out a geocentric model of the cosmos that remains the standard work of astronomy for over a millennium.