1088

Contents

Events

Europe

China

North Africa

Births

Deaths

Events

Europe

★ March 12 — Pope Urban II succeeds Pope Victor III as the 159th pope.

★ Work begins on the third and largest church at Cluny.

★ Rebellion of 1088 against William II of England lead by Odo of Bayeux.

★ Oldest extant university founded, University of Bologna.

China

★ The ''Dream Pool Essays'' is published in this year by the polymath Chinese scientist and statesman Shen Kuo. His book represents the earliest known writing about the magnetic compass, movable type printing, experimentation with camera obscura only decades after Ibn al-Haytham, and included many different fields of study in essay and encyclopedic form, including geology, astronomy, botany, zoology, mineralogy, anatomy, pharmacology, geography, optics, economics, military strategy, philosophy, etc. Some of Shen's most advanced theories included geomorphology and gradual climate change, while he improved Chinese astronomy by fixing the position of the pole star and correcting the lunar error by plotting its orbital course every night for a continuum of five years.

★ The Chinese polymath statesman and scientist Su Song has the successful pilot model for his astronomical clock tower in Kaifeng, China constructed. It features an escapement mechanism and the world's oldest known endless power-transmitting chain drive to operate the armillary sphere, opening doors, and mechanical-driven manikins that would rotate in shifts to announce the time on plaques.

North Africa

★ Mansur ibn Nasir succeeds Nasir ibn Alnas as ruler of the Hammadid dynasty.

Births

★

Deaths

★ January 6 — Berengar of Tours, French theologian

★ July 3 — Robert of Rhuddlan, Norman ruler of most of North Wales

★ Naser Khosrow, Persian theologian

★ William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey, Norman aristocrat