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Gregory VII excommunicates Henry IV again
Three years after Canossa, the quarrel reopened when the pope declared Henry deposed a second time and recognized Rudolf of Swabia as the true German king. This time German princes largely ignored the papal sentence. Henry was determined to march on Rome itself and end the humiliation forever. Rudolf's death in battle at the Elster later that year removed the papal candidate entirely.
Seljuk Sultanate of Rum Established at Nicaea
Suleiman ibn Qutalmish, a Seljuk prince who had carved out a domain in the chaos following Manzikert, established his capital at Nicaea - within sight of Constantinople's Asian suburbs. The Sultanate of Rum gave Anatolia its first stable Turkic administration, layering Islamic governance onto a landscape still dotted with Greek churches and Byzantine ruins. The sultanate would endure for two centuries, its very name - Rum, 'Rome' - a claim on the land's imperial past.
Song China's Coal and Coke Fuel Revolution
In northern China's iron-producing districts, the shift from charcoal to coal and coke as smelting fuel reached maturity, solving the deforestation crisis that had threatened to choke off production. The innovation multiplied iron output while sparing forests - an ecological solution born of necessity rather than sentiment. Song China was burning fossil fuels at industrial scale seven centuries before Britain's Industrial Revolution, though the parallel would not be recognized for a thousand years.
Empire of Ghana at fatal weakness
Decades of desert drought and Almoravid pressure had hollowed out the ancient Soninke empire of Ghana. Its gold trade routes were being diverted; its tributary chiefdoms were defecting. The imperial core around Kumbi Saleh would stagger on for a century more, but the great West African power was finished. The trans-Saharan gold trade that had been Ghana's lifeblood was shifting eastward toward the rising Mali.
Death of Rudolf of Rheinfelden
At the Battle of the Elster, Henry IV's forces were defeated but the anti-king Rudolf was mortally wounded, losing his right hand to a sword cut. Dying, he held up the stump and wondered whether this was the hand with which he had sworn fealty to Henry. His cause collapsed with him.