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The 5th century is the period from 401 - 500 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era.
The Western Roman Empire is ruled by a succession of weak emperors, and true power falls increasingly into the hands of powerful generals. Internal instability and pressing military problems caused by foreign invaders finally result in the sacking of Rome by a Visigoth army in 410. Some recovery is made in the following decades, but the Western Empire recieves a serious blow when another barbarian group, the Vandals occupy Carthage, capital of the extremely important province of Africa. Attempts to retake the province are interrupted by the invasions of the Huns under Atilla. After Atilla's final defeat and death both Eastern and Western empires join forces for a final assault on Vandal North Africa, but is is a spectacular failure. In 476 the last Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustus (nicknamed Augustulus "Little Augustus") is deposed by a Visgothic warlord. The Eastern Roman Empire ceases trying to prop up it's hopeless Western twin, who's former lands are then divided into numerous barbarian kingdoms.
The year 476 is widely understood as the point at which the Roman Empire came to an end. Roman power continued in the east however, under the rulers of Constantinople. Scholars normally refer to their empire as the Byzantine Empire, however its inhabitants considered themsleves Roman throughout. Recognizable Roman culture continued to exist in the east for another 200 years before the Arab invasions of the 7th Century set off a chain of events that forever changed the face of the Eastern Roman Empire, and the entity that emerged in the next few centuries is what one might refer to as the true Medieval Byzantine Empire.
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