Novgorod, first mentioned in written chronicles dating from 859, is at this time a settlement on a major north-south inland water trade route—the Volkhov River, just north of Lake Ilmen, in northwest European Russia—and a center of crafts industry and commerce.

Ignatios continues to refuse abdication, and his supporters appeal to the new pope, Nicholas, when Photius begins to alter his predecessor's policies.

Imperial forces meanwhile continue to win victories over the Arabs, and in the campaign of 859, which reaches at least as far as the Euphrates River, Emperor Michael himself leads the troops.

The Banu Qasi leader Mūsā ibn Mūsā, following the death of Íñigo Arista, has pursued a policy of closer allegiance with Muhammad I of Córdoba, leaving García to look to Christian Asturias for an ally.

In 859, Mūsā ibn Mūsā allows a contingent of Vikings to pass through his lands and attack Navarre, resulting in the capture of García, who is forced to pay at least seventy thousand gold dinars in ransom.

Later the same year, Mūsā ibn Mūsā attacks the Pamplonese city of Albelda.

García and his new friend Ordoño I of Asturias together deal Mūsā a crushing blow, killing, it is said, ten thousand of his magnates in the Battle of Monte Laturce.

Yahya ibn Muhammad, a son of previous sultan Muhammad ibn Idris, had taken over the rule in Morocco after the death of his heirless uncle Ali I in 848.

During his rule, which sees no significant conflicts, he settles in Fés numerous immigrants from Al-Andalus and Ifriqiya, which had been expelled after revolting against the Umayyad and Aghlabids respectively.

Yahya also commissions several important buildings in the city, including, in 859, the mosque of Al-Karaouine and of al-Andalus.

The kingdom of Nekor becomes subject in 859 to a sixty-two-ship-strong group of Vikings, who defeat a Moorish force in Nekor that had attempted to interfere with their depredations of the area.

After staying for eight days in Morocco, the Vikings return to Spain and continue up the east coast.

Dorestad, at one time the personal possession of Charlemagne as Quentovic in France, had often been the subject of war between the Frisians and the Franks between 600 and 850.

Because of its success as a trading city, Dorestad has drawn the attention of Vikings, who in 834, 835, 844, and 857 have raided the city.

Historians think that approximately seven thousand Vikings were involved in the first raid in 834.

Rorik, or Hrörek, of Dorestad, a Jutish Viking konung born about 810/820 to Ali Anulo, ninth King of Haithabu, is mentioned by Frankish chroniclers as having received lands in Friesland from the Emperor Louis I.

This had not been enough for him, and he had started to plunder neighboring lands, taking Dorestad in 850 and making it the capital of a Viking kingdom.

Roerik in 859 loots Bremen.

Fan Chuo, a secretary serving a second tenure under the Jie-du (similar to the Eastern Roman thema) with headquarters located at Hanoi, is able to get his hands on the updated diplomatic and military documents of Tang China and Nanzhao, since the Hanoi thema is China’s frontier with Nanzhao, a Bai kingdom centered around present-day Yunnan in China.

He had also lived in Hanoi during his first tenure; therefore he has some firsthand information of the city, such as trades, deployments, population, etc.

As the Nanzhao army sacked the city for the first time, he had barely escaped capture by jumping into the Red River and swimming to the opposite bank.

Servimg subsequently under another Jie-du located at Guangzhou, he there compiled the first draft of Manchu (literally, barbarous document; roughly meaning the book on the southern tribes).

In 862, during a second tenure in Hanoi, he finishes the book, which is an invaluable source of Tang-Nanzhao relations and for anthropological research on the Hmong and Vietnamese during the later years of the T'ang Dynasty.

Kiev, located on the right bank of the Dnepr River, at the halfway point of its fourteen hundred-mile (two thousand two hundred and fifty-five -kilometer) route from northwest Russia to the Black Sea, is first mentioned in Russian chronicles in 860.

The eventual capital of Kievan Rus', its name supposedly derives from that of its legendary founder, Prince Kii.

Kiev’s location, above the Dnepr rapids where the open steppe meets with the belt of Slavic settlements in the forest-meadow region, endows the city with great strategic importance.

The legend of Kyi, Schek and Khoriv speaks of a founder-family consisting of a Slavic tribe leader Kyi, the eldest, his brothers Schek and Khoriv, and also their sister Lybid, who had founded the city.

Kyiv/Kiev is translated as "belonging to Kyi".

It is unclear when Kiev had fallen under the rule of the Khazar empire but, in an event attributed to the ninth century, the Primary Chronicle (a main source of information about the early history of the area) mentions Slavic Kievans telling Askold and Dir that they live without a local ruler and pay a tribute to Khazars.

At least during the eighth and ninth centuries Kiev functions as an outpost of the Khazar empire on its border with Levédia, an area settled by the Magyars in the ninth century, located in the territory of present-day eastern Ukraine.

They had moved to this area from Magna Hungaria situated on the western side of the Urals in the region today known as Bashkortostan.

A hill-fortress, called Sambat (Old Turkic for "High Place") is built to defend the area (although there is no evidence of an urban settlement on the site of Kiev prior to the 880s, and archaeological finds from the period in the vicinity of Kiev are almost nonexistent).

Norway in the Viking Age is divided into petty kingdoms ruled by chiefs who contend for land, maritime supremacy or political ascendance and seek alliances or control through marriage with other royal families, either voluntary or forced.

These circumstances produce the generally turbulent and heroic lives recorded in the Heimskringla.

Harald Fairhair, or Finehair, on the death in 860 of his father Halfdan the Black Gudrødsson, had succeeded to the sovereignty of several small and somewhat scattered kingdoms in Vestfold, which had come into his father's hands through conquest and inheritance, and lie chiefly in southeast Norway.

Harald in 866 makes the first of a series of conquests over the many petty kingdoms that will compose Norway, including Värmland in Sweden, and modern day southeastern Norway, which had sworn allegiance to the Swedish king Erik Eymundsson (Eric Anundsson).

Michael, on another campaign in 860, is forced to return to Constantinople, which has for the first time come under siege from Volga Rus' raiders.

The invaders, however, probably withdraw before the Emperor returns with his army.

Basil the Macedonian, a member of a peasant family, perhaps of Armenian origin, that had settled in Macedonia, had gained employment in influential official circles in Constantinople.

A handsome and physically powerful man, he had been fortunate enough to attract the imperial eye of the reigning emperor.

One story asserts that he had spent a part of his childhood in captivity in Bulgaria, where his family had, allegedly, been carried off as captives of the Khan Krum in 813.

Basil lived there until 836, when he and several others escaped to imperial territory in Thrace.

Basil was ultimately lucky enough to enter the service of Theophilitzes, a relative of the Caesar Bardas (the uncle of Emperor Michael III), as a groom.

While serving Theophilitzes, he had visited the city of Patras, where he had gained the favor of Danielis, a wealthy woman who had taken him into her household and endowed him with a fortune.

He had also earned the notice of Michael III by his abilities as a horse tamer and in winning a victory over a Bulgarian champion in a wrestling match; after rapid promotion, he had become the Emperor's companion, confidant, and bodyguard (parakoimomenos).

Michael falls increasingly under Basil’s influence.