1042
Edward the Confessor crowned king of England
With Cnut's Danish line extinguished, the surviving Anglo-Saxon claimant was recalled from thirty years of Norman exile. Edward's piety was admired, his political skill uneven. His reign ended the Danish interlude and led, through a complicated tangle of promises and heirs, toward 1066. The decades he spent at the Norman court left him surrounded by French-speaking favorites who angered the powerful Godwin family at every turn.
Ly Thai Tong defeats Champa and captures its king
The Vietnamese emperor launched a devastating campaign against the Cham kingdom to the south, sacking the Cham capital and capturing its king. The victory asserted Ly dynasty dominance over the central Vietnamese coastline and inaugurated a centuries-long process of Vietnamese expansion southward that would eventually absorb the entire Cham civilization.
Song court debates reform amid military defeats
Following costly losses to the Western Xia, the reformer Fan Zhongyan presented his Ten-Point Memorial proposing sweeping changes to the civil service, military recruitment, and agricultural policy. The conservative establishment at court rallied against him, and his reforms were shelved within a year. But his ideas seeded the ground for Wang Anshi's far more radical transformation a generation later.
Harald Hardrada returns to Scandinavia
After a decade of serving as commander of the Varangian Guard at Constantinople, earning a fortune fighting Sicilian Arabs and Bulgarian rebels, the Norwegian exile sailed home to claim half of Norway from his nephew. His violent career would culminate at Stamford Bridge a quarter century later. The gold he brought back from Byzantium funded an army that made him the most feared king in the North.
Zoe and Theodora briefly rule Byzantium
After a violent popular revolt drove out the upstart emperor Michael V, the two aged sisters of the Macedonian dynasty shared the throne for two months, ceremonially reviewing petitions and issuing edicts. Zoe then married Constantine IX Monomachos, and court intrigue resumed its usual patterns inside the palace. Their brief joint reign was the first time two women had ruled the Roman Empire together.