1024

By place

Byzantine Empire

• Emperor Basil II prepares a Byzantine expedition to invade Sicily. Governor Ahmed al-Akhal appeals to the Zirids of Ifriqiya for help. They dispatch a fleet, but these is caught up in a storm and destroyed near Pantelleria.
• Battle of Lemnos: Kievan Viking raiders sail through the straits at Abydos to the Aegean Sea. From there they made for the island of Lemnos, but are defeated by a Byzantine fleet of the Cibyrrhaeot Theme.

  Europe

• July 13 - Emperor Henry II dies in his imperial palace at Göttingen. He leaves no heirs, thereby ending the Ottonian Dynasty. The Salian Dynasty of the Holy Roman Empire is founded by Conrad II.
• September - Conrad II is elected and crowned as King of Germany in Mainz, while both he and his cousin Conrad the Younger are invested as joint dukes of Franconia.
• Roger I of Tosny, a Norman nobleman, leaves the battlefield of the Ebro Valley after terrorising the Saracens, and capturing several towns and castles during the Reconquista in the Iberian Peninsula.

  Asia

• The world's first paper-printed money, which later greatly benefits the economy of the Song Dynasty, originates in the Sichuan province of China.
• Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni sacks the Hindu religious center of Somnath, and takes away a booty of 20 million dinars.

  By topic

Religion

• April 9 - Pope Benedict VIII dies after a 12-year pontificate at Rome. He is succeeded by his brother John XIX as the 144th pope of the Catholic Church.