1021

Year 1021 (MXXI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar.

Events

By place

Europe

• November – Emperor Henry II conducts his fourth Italian military campaign. He crosses the Brenner Pass with a 60,000-strong army, and reaches Verona, where he receives Lombard levies. Henry proceeds to Mantua and then into Ravenna, to spend Christmas there.
• Abd al-Aziz al-Mansur, a grandson of the prominent Andalusian figure Almanzor begins his rule in Taifa of Valencia, a Moorish kingdom in Al-Andalus (modern Spain), ushering in a period of relative stability and prosperity that will last until 1061. Taifa of Valencia gained its independence from the Caliphate of Córdoba in 1010.

Africa

• February 13 – On one of his habitual night rides in the outskirts of Cairo, the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah disappears, most likely assassinated by disaffected palace factions, apparently involving his sister, Sitt al-Mulk.
• March 26 – On the feast of Eid al-Adha, the death of al-Hakim, kept secret for six weeks, is announced, along with the succession of his son, al-Zahir li-i'zaz Din Allah. On the same day, al-Hakim's designated heir, Abd al-Rahim ibn Ilyas, is arrested in Damascus and brought to Egypt.
• The last evidence of indigenous Christian and non-Arabophone culture in Tripolitania (modern Libya) is seen.[vague]

Asia

• Senekerim-Hovhannes Artsruni, Armenian king of Vaspurakan, surrenders his kingdom to the Byzantine Empire. In return, he receives Sebasteia and becomes governor of Cappadocia.
• Battle of Shirimni, the Byzantine Empire under Basil II defeats the Kingdom of Georgia under Giorgi I at Shirimni, at the Lake Palakazio, modern Lake Çıldır, Turkey
• Hovhannes-Smbat III, King of the Armenian kingdom of Ani, is attacked by his younger brother Ashot IV, and loses much power to him, becoming concurrent king of outlying territories.
• Emperor Rajendra Chola I extends his influence of the Chola Empire to the banks of the Ganges River (North India) and invades Bengal.
• Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni appoints Malik Ayaz to the throne, making Lahore (modern Pakistan) the capital of the Ghaznavid Empire.
• The Chinese capital city of Kaifeng has some half a million residents by this year. Including all those present in the nine designated suburbs, the population is over a million people.

North America

• Vikings known to be residing L'Anse aux Meadows on Newfoundland (island).

Births

• December 8 – Wang Anshi, Chinese chancellor (d. 1086)
• Eudokia Makrembolitissa, Byzantine empress (d. 1096)
• Fujiwara no Kanshi, Japanese empress consort (d. 1102)
• Wugunai, Chinese chieftain of the Wanyan tribe (d. 1074)

Deaths

• February 13 – Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, Fatimid caliph (b. 985)
• March 5 – Arnulf, French archbishop and illegitimate son of Lothair III
• March 16 – Heribert, archbishop of Cologne (b. c. 970)
• July 7 – Fujiwara no Akimitsu, Japanese bureaucrat (b. 944)
• August 17 – Erkanbald, German abbot and archbishop
• August 29 – Minamoto no Yorimitsu, Japanese nobleman (b. 948)
• Fujiwara no Yoshikane, Japanese nobleman (b. 957)
• Hamid al-Din al-Kirmani, Fatimid scholar and philosopher
• Hamza ibn 'Ali ibn-Ahmad, founding leader of the Druze
• Liu Mei, Chinese official and general (approximate date)
• Mac Cú Ceanain, king of Uí Díarmata (Ireland)
• Shams al-Dawla, Buyid emir of Hamadan (Iran)
• Trilochanapala, king of the Kabul Shani dynasty