1000s (decade)

Events and trends

Sweyn I of Denmark invades England.
1000 - Leif Ericson lands in North America, calling it Vinland.
1001 — Stephen I becomes the first king of Hungary.
1001-1008 - Japanese Lady Murasaki Shikibu writes the first novel, The Tale of Genji
1008 — Olof, king of Sweden, is baptized.
1009 — The Ly dynasty, Vietnam's first independent dynasty, is proclaimed.

Science and technology

The scientific achievements of the Islamic civilization reaches its zenith, with the emergence of the first experimental scientists and the scientific method, which would form the basis of modern science.
Iraqi Muslim polymath and scientist, Ibn al-Haytham (Alhacen), who is considered the father of optics, the pioneer of the scientific method, and the "first scientist", moves to Egypt, where he invents the camera obscura, and writes his influential Book of Optics, which introduces the scientific method, and drastically transforms the understanding of light, optics, vision, and science in general
Arab Andalusian Muslim physician, Abu al-Qasim (Abulcasis), the "father of modern surgery", publishes his influential 30-volume medical encyclopedia, the Al-Tasrif, which remains a standard textbook in the Islamic world and medieval Europe for centuries
Persian Muslim polymath and physician, Avicenna publishes his influential encyclopedias, The Book of Healing and The Canon of Medicine, which remain standard textbooks in the Islamic world and medieval Europe for centuries
Persian Muslim polymath and scientist, Abu Rayhan al-Biruni, who is considered the father of geodesy and the "first anthropologist", writes books on many different topics, and rejects all theories which cannot be verified through experimentation.
Arab Egyptian Muslim mathematician and astronomer, Ibn Yunus, publishes his astronomical treatise Al-Zij al-Hakimi al-Kabir, and invents the pendulum.
Persian Muslim physicist and mathematician, Abu Sahl al-Quhi (Kuhi), discovers that the heaviness of bodies vary with their distance from the center of the Earth, and solves equations higher than the second degree.
Persian Muslim astronomer and mathematician, Abu-Mahmud al-Khujandi, invents the astronomical sextant and first states a special case of Fermat's last theorem.
Law of sines is discovered by Muslim mathematicians, but it is uncertain who discovers it first between Abu-Mahmud al-Khujandi, Abu Nasr Mansur, and Abu al-Wafa.
Bell foundry is founded in Italy.
Gunpowder is invented in China.

Significant people