Jotischky - The crusades : a beginners guide

1071 Seljuqs defeat Byzantine army at Manzikert

1087 Combined Italian naval force sacks Mahdiyya (Tunisia)

1095 Pope Urban II preaches crusade at Clermont

10969 First Crusade

1096 Crusaders at Constantinople

1097 Crusaders capture Nicaea and defeat Kilij Arslan at Dorylaeum

10978 Siege of Antioch

1099 Crusaders capture Jerusalem

1100 Baldwin I becomes first king of Jerusalem

1101 Defeat of crusader reinforcements

1118 Aragonese capture Zaragoza; death of Baldwin I

1119 Antiochenes defeated at Field of Blood

1123 First Lateran Council offers indulgence for crusaders in Spain

1129 Council of Troyes approves Templar Rule

1131 Fulk and Melisende assume joint rule in Jerusalem

1144 Zengi captures Edessa

11479 Second Crusade

1147 Capture of Lisbon

1148 Crusaders abandon siege of Damascus

11512 Civil war in Jerusalem between Melisende and Baldwin III

1154 Nur ad-Din takes Damascus

1162 Amalric I becomes king of Jerusalem

11679 Amalrics invasions of Egypt

1171 Saladin suppresses Fatimid caliphate in Egypt

1174 Baldwin IV becomes king of Jerusalem; death of Nur ad-Din

1180 Marriage of Guy of Lusignan and Sibylla

1185 Death of Baldwin IV

1186 Guy and Sibylla crowned king and queen of Jerusalem

1187 Saladin defeats kingdom of Jerusalem at Hattin

118992 Third Crusade

1191 Crusaders capture Acre

1192 Richard I agrees treaty with Saladin

1193 Death of Saladin

1194 [?] Teutonic Knights recognized by papacy

1197 Emperor Henry VI dies; his crusade collapses; Aimery of Lusignan becomes king of Jerusalem

1198 Innocent III becomes pope

12024 Fourth Crusade

1202 Crusaders capture Zara

1204 Crusaders capture Constantinople

120929 Albigensian Crusade

1215 Fourth Lateran Council

121721 Fifth Crusade

1219 Crusaders capture Damietta

1225 Emperor Frederick II marries Isabella II of Jerusalem

12279 Sixth Crusade

1229 Emperor Frederick IIs treaty with al-Kamil

1232 Emperor Fredericks invasion of Cyprus defeated

123941 Barons Crusade led by Thierry of Champagne and Richard of Cornwall

1244 Khwarazmians capture Jerusalem after victory at La Forbie

124850 Louis IX leads Seventh Crusade

1250 Louis IXs crusade held up at Mansurah

12504 Louis IXs sojourn in the Holy Land

1260 Baibars defeats Mongols at Ain Jalut

1268 Fall of Antioch

1270 Louis IX dies at Tunis; collapse of Eighth Crusade

1274 Second Council of Lyons

1291 Acre falls to al-Ashraf; the end of the kingdom of Jerusalem

1314 Pope Clement V suppresses Templars

1336 Philip VIs crusade held up; Franciscans granted custody of holy places

1365 Peter I of Cyprus captures Alexandria

1396 Crusade of Nicopolis defeated by Ottomans

1444 Crusade of Varna defeated by Ottomans

1453 Constantinople falls to Ottomans

1570 Cyprus falls to Ottomans

1571 Papal league defeats Ottomans at Lepanto

1639 Thomas Fullers Historie of the Holy Warre

18989 Kaiser Wilhelm II restores Saladins tomb at Damascus

Toward the end of the first decade of the twelfth century, a monk from northern France sat down to write an account of the First Crusade, which had captured Jerusalem from the Seljuq Turks in 1099. He was looking back over the events of ten years before, in which a force of perhaps 60,000 mostly French, Flemish, Normans, Germans and Italians, including fighting men and unarmed pilgrims, men and women, had travelled from western Europe across the Balkans and modern-day Turkey into Syria, and south to Jerusalem. Only a fraction of the original force survived the three-year odyssey, but the remnants, battered by the climate, the hazards of travel and shortages of food and fodder for their horses, seized the city of Jerusalem amid scenes of slaughter in July 1099. The monk, Robert of Rheims, struggled to find a similar phenomenon with which to compare the First Crusade. In the end, he decided that it was, simply, the most important event in human history since the birth of Jesus Christ.