1000

The year '1000' of the Gregorian Calendar was the last year of the 10th century as well as the last year of the first millennium. AD 1000 was a leap year starting on Monday.

Contents

Overview

China

Europe

Islamic world

Events

By Place

Africa

Americas

Asia

Europe

By Topic

Religion

Science and Technology

World Population

Births

Deaths

See also

Further reading

References

Overview

China

In what is today China, the Song Dynasty remained the world's most populous empire and continued to thrive under Emperor Zhenzong of Song China. By the late 11th century, the Song Dynasty had a total population of some 100 million people, an average annual iron output of 125,000 tons produced a year, and bolstered its enormous economy with the world's first known paper-printed money.

Europe

Speculation that the world would end in the year 1000 was confined largely to Christian monks in France,^[1] as most clerks at the time used regnal years — i.e. the fourth year of the reign of Robert II of France, etc. The use of the Dionysian "anno domini" calendar era was confined to the Venerable Bede and other chroniclers of universal history.
Western Europe began to cross over from the Early Middle Ages into the High Middle Ages beginning around 1000, as marked by numerous distinct changes in Western European life: the rise of the medieval communes, the reawakening of widespread city life, the appearance of the burgher class, the revival of long-distance trade that reconnected Europe with the Mediterranean world, the founding of the first universities, the rediscovery of Roman law, and the beginnings of vernacular literature, to name a few. The papacy at this time remained firmly under the control of Holy Roman Emperor Otto III — the self-proclaimed "Emperor of the World".
In Eastern Europe, the Byzantine Empire continued to thrive during its Golden Age in what is today primarily Greece and Turkey. Constantinople, with a population of about 300,000, dwarfed the Western cities of Rome and Paris, which at this time had populations of about 35,000 and 20,000, respectively.
The Viking Age continued in eastern and western Europe much as it had for the previous two centuries, with Viking trade, raids, and culture influencing much of European life. It was in the year 1000 that Leif Ericsson landed in what is today Newfoundland, naming it Vinland.

Islamic world

The Islamic world continues to expand under the revived Ummayad Caliphate, including what is now Spain, North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia.
The scientific achievements of the Islamic civilization also reaches its zenith during this time, with the emergence of the first experimental scientists and the scientific method, which would form the basis of modern science.
Most of the leading scientists around the year 1000 were Muslim scientists, including Ibn al-Haytham (Alhacen), Abu Rayhan al-Biruni, Avicenna, Abu al-Qasim (Abulcasis), Ibn Yunus, Abu Sahl al-Quhi (Kuhi), Abu-Mahmud al-Khujandi, Abu Nasr Mansur, Abu al-Wafa, Ahmad ibn Fadlan, Al-Muqaddasi, Ali Ibn Isa, and al-Karaji (al-Karkhi), among others.
In particular, Ibn al-Haytham, Avicenna, Abu Rayhan al-Biruni, and Abu al-Qasim, who all flourished around the year 1000, are considered among the greatest scientists in history.

Events

By Place

Africa

★ The Hutu arrive in present-day Rwanda and Burundi, soon outnumbering the native Twa.

Americas

★ Leif Ericson lands in North America, calling it Vinland.

Asia

★ Dhaka, Bangladesh, is founded.

Europe

★ September 9 — Battle of Svolder, Notable naval battle of the Viking Age.

★ December 25 — The foundation of the Hungarian state, Hungary is established as a Christian kingdom by Stephen I of Hungary.

★ Stephen I becomes King of Hungary.

★ Sancho III of Navarre becomes King of Aragon, Navarre.

★ Sweyn I establishes Danish control over part of Norway.

★ Oslo, Norway is founded. (The exact year is debatable, but the 1000 year anniversary was held in year 2000.)

★ Emperor Otto III makes pilgrimage from Rome to Aachen and Gniezno (Gnesen), stopping at Regensburg, Meissen, Magdeburg, and Gniezno. Congress of Gniezno (with Boleslaw I Chrobry) was part of pilgrimage. In Rome, he builds the basilica of San Bartolomeo all'Isola, to host the relics of St. Bartholomew.

★ Château de Goulaine vineyard founded in France.

By Topic

Religion

★ Islamic world expands.

★ Scandinavia and Hungary Christianized.

★ The Diocese of Kolobrzeg is founded.

★ The archdiocese in Gniezno is founded; the first archibishop is Gaudentius, from Slavník's dynasty.

Science and Technology

★ Scientific achievements in the Islamic civilization reaches its zenith, with the emergence of the first experimental scientists and the scientific method, which would form the basis of modern science.

★ Iraqi Muslim polymath and scientist, Ibn al-Haytham (Alhacen), who is considered the father of optics, the pioneer of the scientific method, and the "first scientist", moves to Egypt, where he invents the camera obscura, and writes his influential ''Book of Optics'', which introduces the scientific method, and drastically transforms the understanding of light, optics, vision, and science in general.

★ Persian Muslim polymath and scientist, Abu Rayhan al-Biruni, who is considered the father of geodesy and the "first anthropologist", writes books on many different topics, and rejects many theories which cannot be verified through experimentation.

★ Persian Muslim scientist and physician, Avicenna, who is considered the father of momentum, publishes ''The Canon of Medicine'', an influential book which maintains that medicine should be known through either experimentation or reasoning. He also publishes ''The Book of Healing'', where he hypothesizes two causes of mountains: "Either they are the effects of upheavals of the crust of the earth, or they are the effect of water, which, cutting itself a new route, has denuded the valleys."

★ Arab Andalusian Muslim physician, Abu al-Qasim (Abulcasis), the "father of modern surgery", publishes his influential 30-volume medical encyclopedia, the ''Al-Tasrif'', which remains a standard textbook in the Islamic world and medieval Europe for centuries.

★ Arab Egyptian Muslim mathematician and astronomer, Ibn Yunus, publishes his astronomical treatise ''Al-Zij al-Hakimi al-Kabir'', and invents the pendulum.

★ Persian Muslim physicist and mathematician, Abu Sahl al-Quhi (Kuhi), discovers that the heaviness of bodies vary with their distance from the center of the Earth, and solves equations higher than the second degree.

★ Persian Muslim astronomer and mathematician, Abu-Mahmud al-Khujandi, invents the sextant and first states a special case of Fermat's last theorem.

★ Law of sines is discovered by Muslim mathematicians, but it is uncertain who discovers it first between Abu-Mahmud al-Khujandi, Abu Nasr Mansur, and Abu al-Wafa.

★ Bell foundry is founded in Italy by Fonderia Pontificia Marinelli

★ Gunpowder is invented in China.

World Population

★ World population: 310,000,000.

Births

★ Adalbert, Duke of Lorraine (d. 1048)

★ Qawam al-Daula, ruler of Kerman (d. 1028)

★ Ibn Rashiq, Arab rhetorician (d. 1070 ?)

Deaths

★ September 9 — Olaf I of Norway, killed at the Battle of Svold (b. 969)

★ Abu-Mahmud al-Khujandi, Persian astronomer and mathematician

★ Abu Sahl al-Quhi (Kuhi), Persian physicist, mathematician and astronomer

★ Ahmad ibn Fadlan, Arab writer and traveller

★ Al-Muqaddasi, Arab geographer and social scientist

★ Elfrida, second wife of Edgar of England

★ Garcia IV of Pamplona

★ Tlilcoatzin, Toltec ruler (approximate date)

★ David III of Tao, murdered by his nobles

★ Huyan Zan, Chinese general

See also

★ Millenarianism

★ List of state leaders in 1000

Further reading

★ Robert Lacey and Danny Danziger ''The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium'' (1999) ISBN 0-316-55840-0

★ John Man ''Atlas of the Year 1000'' (1999) ISBN 0-14-051419-8

References

1. Cantor, 1993 ''Europe in 1050'' p. 235.