The traditional date for the fall of the Western Roman Empire is September 4, 476, when the Germanic chieftain Odoacer deposed the teenage emperor Romulus Augustulus. Rome had been in decline for over a century, plagued by economic instability, political corruption, and pressure from migrating 'barbarian' tribes like the Goths and Vandals. While the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire) would survive for another thousand years, the collapse in the West led to the 'Middle Ages.' This event marked the end of classical antiquity and the beginning of a decentralized Europe where power shifted to localized Germanic kingdoms and the Catholic Church. It remains history's most studied example of the internal and external factors that lead to the collapse of a superpower.