The Toltecs were responsible for establishing a variety of the basics that the rest of their Central Mexicans would follow. However, the Toltecs could not establish the major cities and trading centers that people like the Teotihuacanos and the Aztecs would later establish.
The year 622 brought a new challenge to Christianity. Near Mecca, Saudi Arabia, a prophet named Muhammad claimed he received a revelation that became a cornerstone of the Islamic faith. The Koran, which Muhammad wrote in Arabic, identified Jesus Christ not as God but as a prophet. Islam spread throughout the Middle East and into Europe until 732.Soon thereafter, European Christians began the Crusades, a campaign of violence against Muslims to dominate the Holy Lands—an area that extended from modern-day Turkey in the north along the Mediterranean coast to the Sinai Peninsula—under Islamic control, partially in response to sustained Muslim control in Europe. The city of Jerusalem is a holy site for Jews, Christians, and Muslims; evidence exists that the three religions lived there in harmony for centuries. But in 1095, European Christians decided not only to reclaim the holy city from Muslim rulers but also to conquer the entire surrounding area.
Important dates [edit]1529: Alonso Álvarez de Pineda, a Spanish explorer, probably became the first European to map the Texas coast.1528-1535: Four survivors of Narváez's expedition, including Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and Estebanico, spent six and a half years in Texas as slaves and merchants among several native groups.February 18, 1685: La Salle established the Fort of San Luis in the bay of Matagorda, claiming in this way the Texan territory for France.1688: The French colony is massacred.1689: The French physical presence is abandoned, although the French would continue to assert their claims on Texas for the next seventy years.1762: The French abandon their claims on Texas and cede Louisiana to Spain for almost forty years (until 1801-1803).1801: Much of North Texas is returned to France and later sold to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.
