1055
Tughril Beg enters Baghdad
The Seljuk sultan marched into the Abbasid capital ostensibly to protect Caliph al-Qa'im from the Shia Buyid dynasty. The caliph formally invested Tughril as sultan and gave him one of his own daughters as wife. The Abbasid caliph became a spiritual figurehead under a new Turkish military overlord. The arrangement established the template for Sunni political order that would persist until the Mongol sack of 1258.
Baphuon Temple-Mountain Rises at Angkor
Under King Udayadityavarman II, the Khmer empire raised the Baphuon, a three-tiered sandstone pyramid soaring fifty meters above the Angkor plain. Dedicated to Shiva and symbolizing Mount Meru, the temple's bas-reliefs depicted scenes from Hindu epics and daily Khmer life with equal finesse. A Chinese envoy later described it as a 'Tower of Bronze' - the kind of structure that made visitors recalibrate what stone and ambition could accomplish together.
Qarakhanid Khanate Splits Into Eastern and Western Halves
The Turkic Qarakhanid state, which had ruled Transoxiana and the Tarim Basin since conquering the Samanids, fractured along the line of the Tien Shan mountains. The Western Khanate held Samarkand and Bukhara; the Eastern kept Kashgar and Balasaghun. The split weakened both halves against the advancing Seljuks and ensured that Central Asia's Turkic dynasties would remain fragmented for the rest of the century.
Theodora sole empress of Byzantium
After the death of Constantine IX, the aged sister of Zoe returned to the throne and, despite her age and unmarried state, ruled competently for two years. At her death without heir the Macedonian dynasty that had ruled since 867 finally came to an end, and palace schemers took over.