We solved the Landau-Lifshitz equations numerically to examine the time development of a system of magnetic particles. Constant or periodical external magnetic field has been applied. First, the system has been studied without dissipation. Local energy excitations (breathers) and chaotic transients have been found. The behaviour of the system and the final configurations can strongly depend on the initial conditions, and the strength of the external field at an earlier time. We observed some sudden switching between two remarkably different states. Series of bifurcations have been found. When a weak Gilbert-damping has been taken into account, interesting behaviour has been found even in the case of one particle as well: bifurcation series and period multiplication leading to chaos. For a system of antiferromagnetically coupled particles, highly nontrivial hysteresis loops have been produced. The dynamics of the magnetization reversal has been investigated and the characteristic time-scale of the reversal has been estimated. For more particles, the energy spectrum and the magnetization of the system exhibits fractal characteristics for increasing system size. Finally, energy have been pumped into the system in addition to the dissipation. For constant field, complicated phase diagrams have been produced. For microwave field, it has been found that the chaotic behaviour crucially depends on the parity of the number of the particles.