Aegon's Conquest

Aegon's Conquest was the war by which Aegon I Targaryen, called the Conqueror, and his sister-wives subdued six of the seven kingdoms of Westeros and forged them into a single realm under the Iron Throne. It began with Aegon's landing at the mouth of the Blackwater Rush, at the site where he would raise his capital of King's Landing, and is reckoned the beginning of the era known as After the Conquest, by which the years of the realm are afterward counted.

Aegon came from the island of Dragonstone, the westernmost outpost of the old Valyrian Freehold, with his sisters Visenya and Rhaenys, a small army, and the decisive weapon of the age: three living dragons -- Balerion the Black Dread, Vhagar, and Meraxes.

The Conquest

At the time of his landing, Westeros was divided among warring kings. Aegon and his sisters first secured the lands of the Blackwater, then turned against their enemies one by one. The dragons made open battle against them all but hopeless.

The decisive engagement was the Field of Fire, where the combined hosts of King Mern Gardener of the Reach and King Loren of the Westerlands -- the largest army ever assembled in Westeros -- met the Targaryens. Aegon loosed all three dragons at once, and the host was burned and broken. King Mern died with his line, ending House Gardener; King Loren fled and later knelt, keeping his life and his seat at Casterly Rock.

Harren the Black, who had just completed the vast castle of Harrenhal, defied Aegon from behind its mighty walls. Aegon answered with Balerion, and Harren and all his sons perished in the inferno -- proving that no stone wall could shelter men from dragonflame.

Outcome

One by one the kings of Westeros submitted. Torrhen Stark, King in the North, marched south but, seeing the fate of those who resisted, chose to kneel rather than see his men burned -- earning the name the King Who Knelt. Only Dorne held out: the Dornish refused open battle and could not be conquered, and Aegon at last abandoned the attempt.

Aegon was anointed and crowned by the Faith of the Seven, and from the swords surrendered by his fallen enemies he had the Iron Throne forged. He divided the conquered realms into the wardenships and Lord Paramountcies that endured for centuries.

Significance

Aegon's Conquest united Westeros under a single crown for the first time and founded the Targaryen dynasty that ruled for nearly three hundred years. It established the dominance of dragons, the supremacy of the Iron Throne, and the political order whose collapse, generations later, would touch off the War of the Five Kings.