1192
Yoritomo made Shogun
Minamoto no Yoritomo, having destroyed the Taira and sidelined the emperor in Kyoto, was formally appointed Sei-i Taishogun by the powerless court. From his capital at Kamakura he established a parallel warrior government that would rule Japan in the emperor's name for nearly seven centuries. The shogunate created a dual-government system unique in world history, with the emperor reigning but the shogun ruling.
Second Battle of Tarain
Muhammad of Ghor, smarting from his defeat the previous year, returned to the field near Delhi with twelve thousand mounted archers and routed Prithviraj Chauhan's Rajput confederacy. The battle ended independent Hindu power in northern India for six centuries and opened the gates of the Gangetic plain. The speed of the Ghurid conquest astonished contemporaries and left the Rajput kingdoms fragmented and demoralized.
Treaty of Jaffa
Exhausted, ill, and needing to return home, Richard I negotiated a three-year truce with Saladin. The Crusaders kept the coastal strip from Tyre to Jaffa; Jerusalem remained Muslim but unarmed Christian pilgrims could visit. Neither side considered it a permanent settlement. The treaty acknowledged a military stalemate that both commanders recognized but neither was willing to formalize as a lasting peace.
Richard captured by Leopold of Austria
Trying to return home overland in disguise, the Lionheart was recognized at an inn near Vienna and seized by Duke Leopold, whom he had publicly insulted at Acre. He would be held for well over a year, ransomed for a sum that nearly broke the English economy. The ransom of 150,000 marks required melting down church plate, taxing the wool crop, and pawning the crown jewels.
Qutb Minar begun at Delhi
Qutb al-Din Aibak, recently installed as governor of Delhi by Muhammad of Ghor, ordered construction of a victory tower of red sandstone beside the ruins of a Hindu temple his troops had demolished. At over two hundred feet, it would be the tallest minaret in the Islamic world when completed.
Assassination of Conrad of Montferrat
Days after being elected king of Jerusalem, Conrad was ambushed in a Tyre street by two Nizari Ismaili killers who had converted to Christianity and entered his service months earlier. The murder etched the word assassin into European languages and eliminated one of Richard's political rivals. Suspicion for the killing fell on Richard himself, on Saladin, and on the Old Man of the Mountain in roughly equal measure.
Al-Mansur builds the Giralda at Seville
The Almohad caliph commissioned a minaret of red brick for the new great mosque at Seville. Designed by Ahmad ibn Baso, the tower used a ramped interior so the muezzin could ride up on horseback. After the Reconquista it would become the bell tower of Seville Cathedral. The Giralda remains one of the finest examples of Almohad architecture, its geometric brickwork and sebka ornamentation influencing Iberian builders for centuries.