Political Events

The grand prince of Kiev Jaroslav I (the Wise) dies February 2 at age 73 after a 35-year reign in which he has built Kiev's Golden Gate and Cathedral of St. Sophia while cementing alliances through the marriages of his daughters Elizabeth, Anna, and Anastasia to Norway's Harald III, France's Henri I, and Hungary's András I, respectively. Hoping to avoid a power struggle that would dismember his empire, he has left a will enjoining his four younger sons to obey his eldest, Izyaslav, but civil war begins as the five sons vie for control and Kiev will never again reach its predominance and splendor (see 1067).

Scotland's Macbeth meets with defeat at Dunsinane July 27 at the hands of Malcolm Canmore, son of the late king Duncan (see 1040). Malcolm enjoys the support of Siward the Strong, Danish earl of Northumbria, who has invaded Scotland to support his kinsman, but they do not succeed in deposing Macbeth (see 1057).

France's Henri I invades Normandy and is defeated at Mortemer.

Boniface of Canossa's widow, Beatrice, marries Godfrey, duke of Upper Lorraine, who opposes the Holy Roman Emperor Heinrich III (see 1052; 1055).

The Battle of Atapuerca in Castile September 1 ends in the death after a 19-year reign of Navarre's García III (or IV), who has resisted efforts by Castile's Ferdinand I to recover territories.

Science

A minor star in the constellation Taurus explodes July 5 in a supernova that is visible by daylight for 23 days and remains visible at night for another 633 days, an event recorded by pictographs in China and in the Western Hemisphere. Astronomers will call the irregular gas cloud created by the supernova the crab nebula.

Religion

Pope Leo IX gains release from Norman imprisonment at the end of March and is escorted as far as Capua, north of Naples, by Humphrey de Hauteville (see 1053). He dies at Rome April 19 at age 51 after a 5-year reign in which he has asserted papal primacy, and he leaves a bull excommunicating the patriarch of Constantinople Michael I Cerularius and his followers. The year 1054 will be cited in 1445 as the year the Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Roman) Churches broke irreparably apart, but they have only occasionally been united. The papal throne will be vacant until next year.

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