1044

By place

Europe

• July 6 - Battle of Ménfő: German troops under King Henry III defeat the Hungarian army led by King Samuel Aba who flees the field, but is captured and killed. Peter Orseolo becomes king of Hungary and a vassal of the Holy Roman Empire.
• Summer - Geoffrey II, count of Anjou, captures the city of Tours and takes control of the county of Touraine.

  Asia

• The Chinese military treatise of the Wujing Zongyao is written and compiled by scholars Zeng Gongliang, Ding Du, and Yang Weide, during the Song Dynasty. It is the first book in history to include formulas for gunpowder, and its use for various bombs. It also describes the double-piston pump flamethrower and a thermoremanence compass, a few decades before Shen Kuo wrote of the first known magnetic mariner's compass. Although emphasizing the importance of many weapons, it reserves high respect for the crossbow, and the ability of crossbowmen to fell charging units of nomadic cavalrymen.
• August 11 - King Anawrahta seizes the throne of the Pagan Empire at Bagan in Burma.

  By topic

Religion

• September - A second Roman uprising forces Pope Benedict IX out of Rome. He is succeeded by the new elected -Pope Sylvester III.

  Births

• Abelard of Hauteville, Italo-Norman nobleman
• Trahaearn ap Caradog, king of Gwynedd
• Władysław I Herman, duke of Poland

  Deaths

• January 14 - Adelaide I, abbess of Quedlinburg
• April 19 - Gothelo I, duke of Lorraine
• July 6 - Samuel Aba, palatine and king of Hungary
• August 11 - Sokkate, king of the Pagan Empire
• November 14 - Thietmar of Hildesheim, German bishop
• Abu'l-Husayn al-Basri, Mu'tazilite faqih and theologian
• Rajendra Chola I, emperor of the Chola Dynasty
• Sharif al-Murtaza, Buyid Shia scholar
• Zhao Yuanyan, prince of the Song Dynasty