1067
Norman castles rising across England
William the Conqueror's captains began throwing up motte-and-bailey fortifications to dominate the landscape; London's White Tower would begin within months. The rapid castle-building, unprecedented in Anglo-Saxon England, enabled a few thousand Normans to hold down a country of two million in a single generation. By the time of William's death in 1087, over five hundred castles had been raised across the conquered kingdom.
Shenzong takes Song throne
The young Song emperor inherited a fiscally strained empire with rising military pressure on its frontiers. Within two years Shenzong would summon the reformer Wang Anshi to the capital and launch the most ambitious program of state intervention in pre-modern Chinese history, splitting the literati class permanently into camps. The emperor's personal commitment to reform gave Wang Anshi the political cover he needed to push through radical changes.
Pagan Kingdom Sends Embassy to Song China
King Anawrahta dispatched envoys from Pagan to the Song court at Kaifeng, establishing diplomatic ties that would yield both trade advantages and cultural exchange. The embassy carried gifts of precious stones and aromatic woods; it returned with Chinese ceramics and the prestige of recognition by the world's wealthiest empire. Pagan was announcing itself on the international stage - no longer a backwater but a kingdom worth knowing.
Bayeux Tapestry Embroidery Likely Begins
In an English workshop - possibly at Canterbury - skilled needleworkers began embroidering the extraordinary linen strip that would immortalize the Norman Conquest. Using worsted wool in ten colors on a band nearly seventy meters long, they stitched more than seventy scenes from Edward the Confessor's death to Hastings and beyond. The work was likely commissioned by Bishop Odo of Bayeux, William's half-brother, and may have been completed in time for Bayeux Cathedral's dedication in 1077.