Battle of Kleidion
Basil II blinds 15,000 Bulgarian captives
Byzantine Emperor Basil II crushed the army of the First Bulgarian Empire. Chroniclers say he blinded thousands of captives, leaving every hundredth man one eye to lead the rest home; Tsar Samuel died at the sight. Bulgaria soon became part of Byzantium, and Basil was called the Bulgar-Slayer.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 11th century
Did you know
While Basil II was finishing off Bulgaria at Kleidion (1014), Rus' was getting its first law code, the Russkaya Pravda (1016).
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Eastern Europe & Russia
- c. 1037 Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev — 23 years later
Middle East
- 1025 Avicenna's Canon of Medicine — 11 years later
Africa
- c. 1000 Extinction of the elephant birds — 14 years earlier
- 1006 Supernova SN 1006 — 8 years earlier
Asia
- c. 1010 The Tale of Genji — 4 years earlier
Americas
- 1021 Norse in North America — 7 years later
Alive at the time
- Vladimir the Great (aged 54)
- Avicenna (Ibn Sina) (aged 34)
- Ferdowsi (aged 74)
- Æthelred the Unready (aged 48)
- Leif Erikson (aged 44)
- Murasaki Shikibu (aged 41)
- Yaroslav the Wise (aged 36)
- Cnut the Great (aged 19)
- Edward the Confessor (aged 11)
- Sei Shōnagon (aged 48)