1261

Years: 1258 1259 1260 – 1261 – 1262 1263 1264
Decades: 1230s 1240s 1250s – 1260s – 1270s 1280s 1290s
Centuries: 12th century – 13th century – 14th century

1261 by topic
Politics
State leaders – Sovereign states
Birth and death categories
Births – Deaths
Establishments and disestablishments categories
Establishments – Disestablishments
Art and literature
1261 in poetry

Hagia Sofia in Constantinople. The city was captured by the Empire of Nicaea on July 25, 1261, thus re-establishing the Byzantine Empire.

Events

January – Pope Alexander IV bans the Flagellants movement.
July 25 – The city of Constantinople is recaptured by Nicaean forces under the command of Alexios Strategopoulos, thus re-establishing the Byzantine Empire.
15 August – 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.
Bela 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.