The origins of the First Türk Empire, the Gökturk Khaganate, trace back to 546 when Bumin Qaghan makes a preemptive strike against the Tiele groups who are planning a revolt against their overlords, the Rouran.

He expects to be rewarded for this service with a Rouran princess, i.e., to marry into the royal family.

The Rouran khaghan, Anagui, sends an emissary to Bumin to rebuke him, however, saying, "You are my blacksmith slave. How dare you utter these words?”

As Anagui's "blacksmith slave" comment is recorded in Chinese chronicles, some claim that the Göktürks were indeed blacksmith servants for the Rouran elite, and that "blacksmith slavery" may indicate a form of vassalage within Rouran society.

This reference according to Denis Sinor indicates that the Türks specialized in metallurgy, although it is unclear if they were miners or, indeed, blacksmiths.

A disappointed Bumin allies with the Wei state against the Rouran, making the khaganate their common enemy.

The Ostrogoths capture city after city in Italy.

Pope Vigilius, who has fled Rome to the safety of Syracuse, sends a flotilla of grain ships to feed Rome, but Totila's navy intercepts them near the mouth of the Tiber and captures the fleet.

The imperial fleet, led by Belisarius, fails to relieve the city.

Areobindus is overthrown soon after and murdered in March 546 by Guntharic, the dux Numidiae, who had come into negotiations with the Moors and intends to set himself up as an independent king.

Guntharic himself is overthrown by loyal troops under the Armenian Artabanes in early May.

Artabanes is elevated to the office of magister militum Africae, but is soon recalled to Constantinople.

The man Justinian sends to replace him is the talented general John Troglita, whose exploits are celebrated in the epic poem Iohannis, written by Flavius Cresconius Corippus.

Troglita had already served in Africa under Belisarius and Solomon, and had had a distinguished career in the East, where he had been appointed dux Mesopotamiae.

Despite his numerically weak forces, he manages to win over several Moorish tribes.

Justinian attempts to maintain peace by paying the Persians a large annual subsidy following the armistice with Persia in 545.

Pope Vigilius arrives in Constantinople to meet with emperor Justinian I.

The future pope Pelagius is sent by Totila to negotiate with Justinian.

Pelagius comes from a Roman noble family; his father John seems to have been vicar of one of the two civil "dioceses", or districts, into which Italy is at this time divided.

When Pope Vigilius went to Constantinople on the orders of Emperor Justinian I, Pelagius had stayed in Rome as the pope's representative.

When Totila had begun to blockade the city.

Pelagius has poured out his own fortune for the benefit of the famine-stricken people, and tries in vain to induce the king to grant a truce.

Rome is forced to open its gates to the Goths, who have bribed the imperial garrison.

Pelagius induces Totila to spare the lives of the people.

The city is plundered, but Totila, who typically destroys the fortifications of every city he takes over, pauses in his destruction of Rome's walls and gates.

Totila sends Pelagius to Constantinople in order to arrange a peace with Justinian I, but the emperor sends him back to say that his general Belisarius is in command in Italy.

The Samaritans, having been quiet for two generations, revolt during the reign of Justinian.

Local Christians in 547 massacre Samaritans and …

…Jews.

The Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna, begun by Bishop Ecclesius in 526, when Ravenna was under the rule of the Ostrogoths, is completed by the twenty-seventh Bishop of Ravenna, Maximian.

The architect of the church is unknown.

Ravenna is at this time the capital of the Empire’s territories in Italy, and Maximianus's role may have included secular political functions.

Belisarius recaptures Rome from the Ostrogoths but his Italian campaign is unsuccessful, starved as it is of supplies and reinforcements from Constantinople.

John Troglitas decisively defeats Antalas and his allies in early 547 and drives them from Byzacena.

As Procopius recounts: And this John, immediately upon arriving in Libya, had an engagement with Antalas and the Moors in Byzacium, and conquering them in battle, slew many; and he wrested from these barbarians all the standards of Solomon, and sent them to the emperor—standards which they had previously secured as plunder, when Solomon had been taken from the world.

—Procopius, The Vandalic War II.XXVIII A few months later, however, the tribe of the Leuathae (Laguatan), in Tripolitania, rises up, and inflicts a severe defeat upon the imperial forces in the plain of Gallica.

John Troglita flees to …