Africa The Eighth Crusade • Before
August – King
Louis IX of France launches the
Eighth Crusade, in an attempt to recapture the
Crusader States from the
Mamluk sultan
Baibars; the opening engagement is a siege of
Tunis. •
August 25 – King Louis IX of France dies while besieging the city of Tunis, possibly due to poor quality drinking water. •
October 30 – The siege of Tunis and the Eighth Crusade end, through an agreement between
Charles I of Sicily (Louis IX's brother) and
Muhammad I al-Mustansir, Khalif of
Tunis.
Other events •
August 10 (10 Nehasé 1262) –
Yekuno Amlak overthrows the
Ethiopian
Zagwe dynasty, claims the imperial throne and establishes the
Solomonic Dynasty, which will last until
1974.
Asia • In Korea, the
Sambyeolcho Rebellion begins against the
Goryeo dynasty, a
vassal state of the
Yuan dynasty. • The ancient city of
Ascalon is captured from the
Crusader States, and utterly destroyed by the
Mamluk sultan
Baibars, who goes so far as to fill in its important
harbor, leaving the site desolate, and the city never to be rebuilt. • The city of
Tabriz, in present-day
Iran, is made capital of the
Mongol Ilkhanate Empire (approximate date). • The independent state of
Kutch is founded, in present-day
India. • A census of the Chinese city of
Hangzhou establishes that some 186,330 families reside within it, not including visitors and soldiers (Historian Jacques Gernet argues that this means a population of over 1 million inhabitants, making Hangzhou the most populous city in the world). •
December 15 – The
Nizari Ismaili garrison of
Gerdkuh, Persia surrender after 17 years to the
Mongols.
Europe •
February 16 –
Livonian Crusade -
Battle of Karuse: The
Grand Duchy of Lithuania defeats the
Livonian Order decisively, on the frozen surface of the
Baltic Sea. •
September 1 – King
Stephen V of Hungary writes his walk to the
antiquum castellum near
Miholjanec, where the
Sword of Attila has been recently discovered. •
December – Crucial aspects of the philosophy of
Averroism (itself based on
Aristotle's works) are banned by the
Roman Catholic Church, in a
condemnation enacted by
papal authority at the
University of Paris. • The
Summa Theologica, a work by
Thomas Aquinas that is considered within the Roman Catholic Church to be the paramount expression of its
theology, is completed (year uncertain). •
Witelo translates
Alhazen's 200-year-old treatise on
optics,
Kitab al-Manazir, from
Arabic into
Latin, bringing the work to European academic circles for the first time. • The
Sanskrit fables known as the
Panchatantra, dating from as early as 200
BCE, are translated into Latin, from a
Hebrew version by
John of Capua. • Construction of the
Old New Synagogue in
Prague is completed. • The
cathedral on the
Rock of Cashel in
Ireland is completed. •
Edmund, 2nd Earl of Cornwall, donates to the Cistercian
Hailes Abbey in England (his father's foundation) a phial held to contain the
Blood of Christ, acquired in the
Holy Roman Empire; this becomes such a magnet for
pilgrimage that within 7 years the monks are able to rebuild their abbey on a magnificent scale. • The
Chronicle of Melrose is ended. == Births ==