Extinction of the elephant birds
Giants with the biggest eggs vanish as people burn the forests
Elephant birds, flightless giants up to 3 m tall that laid the largest eggs ever known, vanished between about 800 and 1050 according to the latest radiocarbon dates, along with Madagascar's hippos. Human burning of forest for pasture is blamed.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 10th century
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Europe
- c. 1000 Stephen I, first king of Hungary — same year
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 988 Christianization of Kievan Rus' — 12 years earlier
Middle East
- 1025 Avicenna's Canon of Medicine — 25 years later
Asia
- c. 1010 The Tale of Genji — 10 years later
Americas
- 1021 Norse in North America — 21 years later
Alive at the time
- Vladimir the Great (aged 40)
- Avicenna (Ibn Sina) (aged 20)
- Ferdowsi (aged 60)
- Æthelred the Unready (aged 34)
- Leif Erikson (aged 30)
- Murasaki Shikibu (aged 27)
- Yaroslav the Wise (aged 22)
- Cnut the Great (aged 5)
- Sei Shōnagon (aged 34)
- Robert II the Pious (aged 28)