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Hagia Sofia in Constantinople. The city is captured by the Empire of Nicaea on July 25, thus re-establishing the Byzantine Empire.

Year 1261 (MCCLXI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.

Events[edit]

• January – Pope Alexander IV probibits the Flagellants.
• June 12 – King Henry III of England obtains a papal bull releasing him from his oath to maintain the Provisions of Oxford, setting the stage for the Second Barons' War (1263–1267).^[1]
• July 23 – At the Battle of Callann, the Normans, under John FitzGerald, 1st Baron Desmond, are defeated by the Gaelic forces of Fínghin Mac Carthaigh, King of Desmond.^[2]
• July 25 – The city of Constantinople is recaptured by Nicaean forces under the command of Alexios Strategopoulos, thus re-establishing the Byzantine Empire.
• August 15 – Michael VIII Palaeologus is crowned Byzantine emperor in Constantinople.
• August 29 – Pope Urban IV succeeds Pope Alexander IV as the 182nd pope, the last man to do so without being a cardinal first.
• The population of Greenland accepts the overlordship of the King of Norway.
• The Japanese Bun'ō era ends, and the Kōchō era begins.
• The Convent of Wurmsbach is established in Switzerland.
• Baibars establishes a puppet caliphate in Cairo.
• Béla IV of Hungary repels a Tatar invasion.
• Kublai Khan, who became a Khagan claimant in the previously year, releases 75 Song Dynasty Chinese merchants from captivity after they had been captured along the border of his Empire and the Southern Song Dynasty of China. This is an act to increase his reputation amongst the Chinese, shore up his legitimacy as a just ruler, and to gain more defectors from the Southern Song Dynasty.
• The earliest extant Chinese illustration of 'Pascal's triangle' is from Yang Hui's book Xiangjie Jiuzhang Suanfa, published in this year, although knowledge of Pascal's Triangle existed in China by at least 1100.

Births[edit]

• February 1 – Walter de Stapledon, English bishop (d. 1326)
• February 11 – Otto III, Duke of Bavaria (d. 1312)
• October 9 – King Denis of Portugal (d. 1325)
• date unknown
  • Bohemond VII, Count of Tripoli, prince of Antioch (d. 1287)
  • Prince Daniel of Moscow, son of Alexander Nevsky (d. 1303)
  • Konoe Iemoto, Japanese kugyō (d. 1296)
  • Albertino Mussato, statesman and writer (d. 1329)
  • Władysław I the Elbow-high, King of Poland (d. 1333)
  • Constantine Palaiologos, Byzantine prince and general (d. 1306)

Deaths[edit]

• February 28 – Henry III, Duke of Brabant
• May 25 – Pope Alexander IV
• July 8 – Adolf IV of Holstein, Count of Schauenburg
• September – Plaisance of Antioch, queen of Cyprus
• September 18 – Konrad von Hochstaden, Archbishop of Cologne
• November 9 – Sanchia of Provence, queen consort of Germany
• An-Nasir Dawud, Ayyubid sultan of Damascus and Emir of Kerak
• Philip Berruyer, archbishop of Bourges
• Bettisia Gozzadini, scholar (b. 1209)
• Qin Jiushao, Chinese mathematician of the Song Dynasty (b. 1202)

References[edit]