First Era
From TESWiki, The Elder Scrolls wiki.
We begin counting time forward at the founding of the Camoran Dynasty in Valenwood. It is perhaps an arbitrary starting date, but the Dynasty and King Eplear himself were visionaries of the civilizations to come. In the center of Tamriel, the Ayleids were creating an empire of their own with Imperial slaves, while to the north, the Nords began to unite into a common whole that was to be called Skyrim.
The Nordic influence on their southern cousins was equally dramatic inspiring the Imperials to revolt against their Ayleid masters, under the banner of Alessia, former slave turned Queen. The Alessian Empire of Cyrodiil was born in 1E 243. The expansionist Nord also harried the kingdoms of the Dwemer and Chimer in Resdayn, which is today called Morrowind. Eventaully, in response, the embattled clans formed their own alliance with the Dwemer King Dumac and Chimer King Nerevar ruling jointly in 1E 416.
In a few hundred years, however, the alliance between Dwemer and Chimer disintegrated into bloody battle, the War of the First Council. The aftermath of the war is legendary, the Dwemer were vanquished into extinction, and the Chimer were transformed into the red eyed dark skinned Dunmer.
Together with the Nords, the Alessians turned their eyes west to the fertile lands of High Rock, ruled by the hated Elves. For much of the First Era, the west was disputed land, until the Bretons rose as the empires, too extended fell back.
The Ra Gada, or Warrior Wave, from Yokuda arrived in Volenfell to the west in 1E 808, conquering the land and renaming it Hammerfell. Once settled, the Ra Gada, or Redguards, joined with the Breton kingdoms in destroying an empire in its infancy, the Orcish homeland of Orsinium.
As the various Tamrielic cultures battled one another, there were threats beyond its shores. The Thrassian Plague from the Sloads washed over the land, decimating the population from coast to coast. The Tsaesci of Akavir preferred a more straightfoward attack, invading Tamriel in 1E 2703, only to be defeated by the Cyrodilic Emperor Reman I.
The death of the Emperor Reman III in 1E 2920 left the Cyrodilic Empire with no heirs. The reigns of power were ably taken up by Reman's Akaviri chancellor, whose ancestors had entered Imperial service after their defeat by Reman I. Thus began the line of Akaviri Potentates at the opening of the Second Era, who continued to rule the Cyrodilic Empire until its demise more than four centuries later.
