The 11th century

In 1001, Mahmud of Ghazni began the raids into northern India that would recur for a quarter of a century (South Asia).

In 1002, the St Brice's Day massacre of Danish settlers was ordered, provoking decades of retaliation (England).

In 1003, Sweyn Forkbeard began the campaign of retaliation that ended in the Danish conquest of England (England).

In 1005, the Treaty of Chanyuan settled the war between Song China and the Liao, fixing an annual tribute and holding for over a century (China).

In 1006, the brightest supernova in recorded history appeared, described by observers in China, Egypt, Iraq, Japan and Europe.

In 1007, a large Danegeld was paid to buy off the Danish fleet, one of a series that drove English taxation (England).

In 1009, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was destroyed on the order of the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim, a grievance later invoked for the crusades (Jerusalem).

In 1010, Ferdowsi completed the Shahnameh, the Persian national epic of some fifty thousand couplets (Persia).

In 1012, Archbishop Alfheah was killed by a Danish army at Greenwich after refusing to be ransomed (England).

In 1013, Sweyn Forkbeard completed the Danish conquest of England (England).

In 1014, Brian Boru's forces won at Clontarf and Brian himself was killed (Ireland).

In 1015, Cnut invaded England and campaigned through the winter against Edmund Ironside (England).

In 1016, Cnut became king of England, joining it to a North Sea empire (England).

In 1017, Cnut divided England into four earldoms, and the term earl entered English administration (England).

In 1018, Byzantine forces completed the conquest of Bulgaria (Balkans).

In 1019, Cnut inherited Denmark, joining it to England under one crown (Northern Europe).

In 1020, Cnut founded the abbey at Assandun on the site of his victory over Edmund Ironside (England).

In 1022, the first executions for heresy in medieval western Europe took place at Orleans (France).

In 1024, the Salian dynasty took the German throne on the extinction of the Ottonian line (Central Europe).

In 1025, Rajendra Chola launched a naval expedition across the Bay of Bengal against Srivijaya (Southeast Asia).

In 1027, Conrad II was crowned emperor in Rome (Central Europe).

In 1028, Cnut took the Norwegian throne, briefly ruling England, Denmark and Norway together (Northern Europe).

In 1030, Olaf Haraldsson was killed at Stiklestad, and his cult made him Norway's patron saint (Norway).

In 1031, the Caliphate of Cordoba dissolved into the taifa kingdoms (Iberia).

In 1033, the millennium of the Passion drew large pilgrimages, and chroniclers record widespread expectation of judgement (Europe).

In 1035, Cnut died and his North Sea empire broke apart within seven years (Northern Europe).

In 1036, Alfred Aetheling was blinded and killed on returning to England, a killing that shadowed the succession for a generation (England).

In 1037, Avicenna died, leaving the Canon of Medicine as a standard text in Europe and the Islamic world for six centuries (Persia).

In 1038, the Byzantine reconquest of Sicily began under George Maniakes, with Norse and Norman mercenaries in the army (Italy).

In 1039, Henry III became king of Germany and pressed the reform of the papacy (Central Europe).

In 1040, Bi Sheng developed movable type in baked clay, four centuries before Gutenberg (China).

In 1041, Norman mercenaries defeated Byzantine forces at Montemaggiore, beginning their conquest of Apulia (Italy).

In 1042, Edward the Confessor took the English throne, restoring the West Saxon line (England).

In 1043, Edward the Confessor was crowned at Winchester (England).

In 1044, the Wujing Zongyao recorded the first known written formulas for gunpowder (China).

In 1045, Bi Sheng's movable type is described by Shen Kuo as in use around this time, using baked clay characters set in an iron frame (China).

In 1046, the Synod of Sutri deposed three rival claimants to the papacy at once (Italy).

In 1047, William of Normandy secured his duchy at Val-es-Dunes at about nineteen (Normandy).

In 1048, Damasus II's twenty-three-day pontificate was one of several short reigns that prompted reform of papal elections (Europe).

In 1049, Leo IX became pope and began the reform movement that reshaped the medieval church (Europe).

In 1050, Berengar of Tours was condemned over the eucharist, opening a debate that ran for two centuries (Europe).

In 1051, Godwin and his sons were exiled from England after a confrontation with Edward the Confessor (England).

In 1052, work began on Edward the Confessor's Westminster Abbey (England).

In 1053, Norman forces defeated a papal army at Civitate, securing their hold on southern Italy (Italy).

In 1054, the mutual excommunications between Rome and Constantinople opened the schism between the Latin and Greek churches (Europe).

In 1055, Seljuk forces under Tughril entered Baghdad, taking effective power from the Abbasid caliphs (Iraq).

In 1056, Henry III died leaving a six-year-old heir, and imperial authority weakened during the minority (Central Europe).

In 1057, Macbeth was killed in battle, ending a seventeen-year reign (Scotland).

In 1058, Ferdinand I of Leon began exacting tribute from the taifa kingdoms, reversing the balance in Iberia (Iberia).

In 1059, a papal decree restricted election of the pope to the cardinals, removing it from imperial and Roman control (Europe).

In 1060, Philip I began a reign of forty-eight years, among the longest in French history (France).

In 1061, the Norman conquest of Sicily began, ending two centuries of Muslim rule over the island (Sicily).

In 1062, the Almoravids founded Marrakesh as the capital of their movement (North Africa).

In 1063, building began on the cathedral at Pisa, funded by spoils from a raid on Palermo (Italy).

In 1064, Coimbra was taken by Ferdinand I, extending the Christian frontier to the Mondego (Iberia).

In 1065, Westminster Abbey was consecrated days before Edward the Confessor's death (England).

In 1066, William of Normandy defeated Harold at Hastings and took the English throne, the last successful invasion of England (England).

In 1067, castle building began across England on a scale that reshaped the landscape (England).

In 1068, the northern rebellion against Norman rule was suppressed and York was fortified (England).

In 1069, the Harrying of the North devastated Yorkshire, a depopulation still visible in the Domesday survey (England).

In 1070, Lanfranc became Archbishop of Canterbury and reorganised the English church (England).

In 1071, the Byzantine defeat at Manzikert opened Anatolia to Turkish settlement (Anatolia).

In 1072, the primacy of Canterbury over York was settled at the Accord of Winchester (England).

In 1073, Gregory VII became pope and asserted papal authority over the appointment of bishops (Europe).

In 1074, Gregory VII's synod at Rome legislated against simony and clerical marriage (Europe).

In 1075, the Dictatus Papae asserted the pope's right to depose emperors, opening the Investiture Controversy (Europe).

In 1076, Henry IV was excommunicated and his subjects released from allegiance (Central Europe).

In 1077, Emperor Henry IV waited three days at Canossa for absolution, an image of imperial submission that outlasted the quarrel (Italy).

In 1078, construction of the White Tower at the Tower of London began (England).

In 1079, building began on Winchester Cathedral, which has the longest nave of any Gothic cathedral in Europe (England).

In 1080, Rudolf of Rheinfelden, the anti-king, was killed and the German civil war turned Henry IV's way (Central Europe).

In 1081, Alexios I Komnenos seized the Byzantine throne and began the recovery that made the crusades possible (Constantinople).

In 1082, Alexios I granted Venice trading privileges in return for naval help, the foundation of Venetian commercial power (Constantinople and Venice).

In 1083, Henry IV captured Rome and installed an antipope (Italy).

In 1084, Bruno of Cologne founded the Grande Chartreuse, beginning the Carthusian order (France).

In 1085, Alfonso VI captured Toledo, whose libraries became the route by which Greek and Arabic learning reached Latin Europe (Iberia).

In 1086, the Domesday Book recorded the landholding and resources of most of England in a single survey (England).

In 1087, William the Conqueror died and his lands were divided between his sons (England).

In 1088, the University of Bologna traces its foundation to this year, the oldest in continuous operation (Italy).

In 1089, an earthquake was recorded across England, unusual enough that chroniclers noted it in several places (England).

In 1090, Bernard of Clairvaux was born, and under him the Cistercian order grew from five houses to several hundred (France).

In 1091, the Norman conquest of Sicily was completed with the fall of Noto (Sicily).

In 1092, Su Song completed an astronomical clock tower driven by an escapement, the earliest known mechanism of its kind (China).

In 1093, building began on Durham Cathedral, the first large structure vaulted throughout in stone ribs (England).

In 1094, Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, El Cid, took Valencia and held it until his death (Iberia).

In 1095, Urban II called the First Crusade at Clermont (Europe).

In 1096, the armies of the First Crusade set out for the eastern Mediterranean (Europe and the Levant).

In 1097, the crusader army took Nicaea and won at Dorylaeum, opening the road across Anatolia (Anatolia).

In 1098, the abbey of Citeaux was founded, beginning the Cistercian order and its reshaping of European agriculture (France).

In 1099, crusader forces captured Jerusalem after a five-week siege (Jerusalem).

In 1100, Henry I issued the Charter of Liberties, a written limit on royal power that Magna Carta later drew on (England).