AD 40

Events

By place

Roman Empire

• Emperor Caligula is consul without colleague.
• Caligula starts on a campaign to conquer Britain, which fails miserably. He declares himself victorious regardless.
• Noricum and Mauretania are incorporated into the Roman Empire.
• Caligula reforms the principatus into a Hellenistic Autocracy. He distributes honors carelessly, declares himself a god and orders that all the heads of the Greek deity statues be replaced by his. He also appoints his horse, Incitatus, a senator.
• Approximate date of start of construction on the Pont du Gard aqueduct in Gallia Narbonensis.

  Europe

• The Germanic Quadi tribe begin settling in present-day Moravia and Slovakia.

  Parthia

• Vardanes I becomes king of Parthia, opposed by his brother Gotarzes II.

  Vietnam

• The Vietnamese Trưng Sisters rebel against the rule of the Chinese Emperor Guang Wu of Han.

  By topic

Arts and sciences

• Philo teaches that all men are born free.

  Religion

• Christianity comes to Egypt as a church is founded in Alexandria. Mark the Evangelist founds the Church of Alexandria as the first Patriarch.
• An early Christian church is erected at Corinth.
• The traditional date of Saint James the Great meeting Our Lady of the Pillar in Spain

  Births

• June 13 - Gnaeus Julius Agricola, Roman governor
• Claudia Octavia, daughter of Claudius and Messalina
• Dio Chrysostom, Greek philosopher and historian
• Ma, Chinese empress of the Han Dynasty
• Pedanius Dioscorides, Greek physician and pharmacologist
• Sextus Julius Frontinus, Roman general and military author
• Titus Petronius Secundus, Roman prefect

  Deaths

• Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, husband of Agrippina the Younger
• Faustus Cornelius Sulla, Roman politician and suffect consul
• Ptolemy of Mauretania, Roman client king