1021 The Tale of Genji
Events
- The Chinese capital city of Kaifeng has some half a million residents by this year. Including all those present in the nine designated suburbs, the population is over a million people.
- Vikings known to be occupying L’Anse aux Meadows on Newfoundland (island)
- The Chinese military has one million registered soldiers during the Song Dynasty, an increase since the turn of the 11th century
- After the Council of Orléans, King Robert II of France burns thirteen heretics at Orléans. These are the first burning victims for heresy.
- Japanese Kampaku (Regent) Fujiwara no Yorimichi holds horse racing at his mansion; the emperor attends.
- Cnut the Great sails from England to Norway with a fleet of 50 ships. He defeats Olaf Haraldsson and is crowned king of Norway. Cnut becomes the sole ruler of England, Denmark and part of Sweden (known as the Danish North Sea Empire).
Inventions, discoveries, introductions
- 1020 – Ibn Samh of Al-Andalus builds a geared mechanical astrolabe.
- 1021 – Ibn al-Haytham (Alhacen) of Basra, Iraq writes his influential Book of Optics from 1011 to 1021 (while he was under house arrest in Egypt),
- 1024 – The world’s first paper-printed money can be traced back to the year 1024, in Sichuan province of Song dynasty China. The Chinese government would step in and overtake this trend, issuing the central government’s official banknote in the 1120s.
- 1025 – Avicenna of Persia publishes his influential treatise, The Canon of Medicine, which remains the most influential medical text in both Islamic and Christian lands for over six centuries, and The Book of Healing, a scientific encyclopedia.
- 1027 – The Chinese engineer Yan Su recreates the mechanical compass-vehicle of the south-pointing chariot, first invented by Ma Jun in the 3rd century.
- 1028–1087 – Abū Ishāq Ibrāhīm al-Zarqālī (Arzachel) builds the equatorium and universal latitude-independent astrolabe.
Literature
- 1020 – The Bamberg Apocalypse commissioned by Otto III is completed.
- 1021 – Lady Murasaki Shikibu writes her Japanese novel, The Tale of Genji.
- 1021 – The Book of Optics by Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen or Alhacen) is completed.
- 1025 – The Canon of Medicine by Avicenna (Ibn Sina) is completed.
- 1027 – The Book of Healing is published by Avicenna.
