1261

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

Events

January - Pope Alexander III 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. The Byzantines also succeed in capturing Thessalonica and the rest of the Latin Empire.
15 August - Michael VIII Palaeologus is crowned Byzantine emperor in Constantinople.
August 29 - Pope Urban IV succeeds Pope Alexander III 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.
The Mongol Khagan, Kublai Khan, releases 75 Song Dynasty Chinese merchants from captivity after they had been captured along the border of the Mongol Empire and the Chinese Southern Song Dynasty. 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.