August 23: Today's date is the anniversary of the proclamation of Odoacer as "Rex Italiae" (King of Italy), by his troops, after the barbarian invasion that he led to capture Rome, in 476.

Romulus Augustus resigns the Crown (from a 19th-century illustration).

The year 476 is a milestone because it marks the end of the Western Roman Empire and the starting of Early Middle Ages.

Romulus Augustus was the last Roman emperor of the West, after the barbarian Germanic tribes invaded Rome, under the command of the barbarian Odoacer. The Romans believed that whoever was from outside the Empire, was a "barbarian!

It is important to remember that with the fall of the Western Roman Empire (based in Rome), half a century later, Justinian inherited the military Byzantine wars from his uncle, against the Sassanian Empire (second Persian Empire, today Iran).

The Germanic migrations of the 5th century were triggered by the destruction of the Gothic kingdoms by the Huns in 372–375. The city of Rome was captured and looted by the Visigoths in 410 followed by the Vandals in 455 Germanic tribes      Angles, Saxons      Franks      Goths      Visigoths     Ostrogoths      Huns      Vandals   Roman Empire      Western Empire      Eastern Empire

Justinian formed the second "Roman Empire", based in Constantinople (now Istanbul) in the hope of recovering all the territories of the old "Roman world" that he missed.

Map of the Roman empire and contemporary indigenous Europe in AD 125, showing the location of the Heruli on the Danish islands.

Odoacer was the King of the Heruli, a Germanic tribe from Scandinavia, and expelled from there and joined the Goths (another Germanic tribe) who were all called "barbarians", by Romans.

Odoacer ruled Italy between 476 and 493 when the Ostrogoths, led by Theodoric "the Great", took over the Italian peninsula, and made Ravenna, their capital.

Odoacer wanted to counter the Ostorogoths by politicking with the Pope and his entourage.

Polities in southeastern Europe c.520 AD before the Lombard destruction of the Herulian 'kingdom'