11th century

1001 – 1100 · 27 events

What happened around the world

1014 Battle of Kleidion — Basil II blinds 15,000 Bulgarian captives
1066 Battle of Hastings — The Normans remake England's elite and its language
1066 Halley's Comet over England — An omen for King Harold, stitched into the Bayeux Tapestry
1077 Walk to Canossa — An emperor waits three days in the snow for papal pardon
c. 1088 University of Bologna — Students hire law teachers — and the university is born
c. 1096 Teaching begins at Oxford — Oldest university in the English-speaking world

c. 1016 Russkaya Pravda of Yaroslav the Wise — Fines replace blood feuds in Rus' first written law code
c. 1037 Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev — Yaroslav builds Rus' chief church on the model of Constantinople
c. 1050 Birch bark letters — Novgorodians write each other notes on birch bark
1057 The Ostromir Gospels — The oldest precisely dated East Slavic book
1097 Council of Liubech — Princes make peace but lock Rus' into hereditary fiefs

1025 Avicenna's Canon of Medicine — The textbook European doctors used for six centuries
1054 East–West Schism — Mutual excommunications split Christianity in two
1071 Battle of Manzikert — A Byzantine defeat opens Anatolia to the Turks
1099 Crusaders capture Jerusalem — The First Crusade ends with a new kingdom in the Levant

1006 Supernova SN 1006 — A star brighter than Venus, bright enough to read by
1068 Al-Bakri describes the Ghana Empire — An Andalusian geographer portrays a realm of gold and salt
c. 1070 The Almoravids found Marrakesh — Warriors from the Sahara build the city that named Morocco
c. 1075–1220 The Kingdom of Mapungubwe — Southern Africa's first state and its golden rhinoceros

c. 1010 The Tale of Genji — Murasaki Shikibu writes what may be the world's first novel
1024 First government-issued paper money — Merchant IOUs become the empire's own currency
1025 Chola invasion of Srivijaya — An Indian fleet weakens a maritime empire on Sumatra
1044 First gunpowder formulas in the Wujing Zongyao — China writes down the formula that will transform warfare
1044 Anawrahta unites Burma — Pagan joins the Irrawaddy valley under Theravada Buddhism
1054 Supernova SN 1054 — Seen in daylight for 23 days, it leaves behind the Crab Nebula

1021 Norse in North America — Vikings reach America nearly 500 years before Columbus
c. 1050 Rise of Cahokia — A Mississippi city grows to 10,000–20,000 people

Rus and Russia: Vladimir the Great 978 – 1015, Sviatopolk the Accursed 1015 – 1019, Yaroslav the Wise 1019 – 1054, Iziaslav I 1054 – 1078, Vsevolod I 1078 – 1093, Sviatopolk II 1093 – 1113
England and Britain: Æthelred the Unready 978 – 1013, Cnut the Great 1016 – 1035, Edward the Confessor 1042 – 1066, William the Conqueror 1066 – 1087, William II Rufus 1087 – 1100, Henry I Beauclerc 1100 – 1135
Franks and France: Robert II the Pious 996 – 1031, Henry I 1031 – 1060, Philip I 1060 – 1108
Holy Roman Empire & Austria: Otto III 983 – 1002, Henry II 1002 – 1024, Conrad II 1024 – 1039, Henry III 1039 – 1056, Henry IV 1056 – 1105
China: dynasties: Song 960 – 1279
Japan: shoguns & emperors: Heian period (emperors and Fujiwara regents) 806 – 1185
Rome and Byzantium: Macedonian dynasty 867 – 1056, Komnenoi 1081 – 1185