Middle Ages
Pagan Kingdom (1044): Anawrahta and the Rise of Burma
Anawrahta made Pagan the dominant power of the Irrawaddy valley, laying the foundations of the first Burmese kingdom and of its Theravada Buddhist culture.
Era · c. 500 – 1500
Middle Ages
Kingdoms, crusades and plagues: the medieval world from the end of the Western Roman Empire to the fall of Constantinople.
Middle Ages
Iron Pagoda of Kaifeng (1049): The Song Glazed-Brick Tower
A brick pagoda clad in brown glazed tiles replaced an earlier wooden tower and has survived nearly a thousand years of floods, earthquakes and war.
Middle Ages
Cahokia: The Great Mississippian City by the Mississippi
Cahokia grew into a city of perhaps 10,000 to 20,000 people, spread Mississippian culture across the Midwest and South, and was largely abandoned by about 1350.
Middle Ages
Kyiv Pechersk Lavra (1051): The Monastery of the Caves
A small cave community grew into the most influential monastery of Rus and a centre of learning, pilgrimage and printing.
Middle Ages
Byodo-in Phoenix Hall (1053): Fujiwara Splendour in Uji
The Fujiwara regent's Amida hall became the finest surviving building of the Heian period and an enduring symbol of Japanese Pure Land Buddhism.
Middle Ages
Great Schism of 1054: The Split Between East and West Churches
Mutual excommunications between Rome's legates and the Patriarch of Constantinople became the symbolic date of the division between Catholic and Orthodox Christianity.
Middle Ages
Awdaghust and the Almoravid Sack of 1054: A Saharan Trade Town
Almoravid forces stormed and plundered Awdaghust, ending Ghana's control of a key Saharan trading town.
Middle Ages
Seljuk Capture of Baghdad (1055): Tughril Beg as Sultan
The Seljuks replaced the Buyids as masters of Baghdad and the Abbasid caliph, creating the partnership of caliph and sultan.
Middle Ages
Eight Deer Jaguar Claw: The Mixtec Conqueror of Tilantongo
Eight Deer unified much of the Mixteca under Tilantongo through conquest and alliance, but was captured and sacrificed in 1115; his realm soon divided again.
Middle Ages
Nizam al-Mulk and the Nizamiyya Madrasas of the Seljuks
Nizam al-Mulk built a Persian-run administration for the Seljuks and a network of endowed madrasas that spread across the Islamic world.
Middle Ages
Battle of Hastings (1066): The Norman Conquest of England
Norman victory; Harold II was killed and William was crowned King of England on Christmas Day 1066.
Middle Ages
Battle of Fulford (1066): Harald Hardrada Wins Outside York
Norwegian victory; the northern English army was broken and York submitted to Harald Hardrada.