Jayavarman VII embarks on a massive program of construction and public works.

Rajavihara ("monastery of the king"), today known as Ta Prohm ("ancestor Brahma"), is one of the first temples founded pursuant to this program.

The stele commemorating the foundation gives a date of 1186.

The Nara temples of Todaiji and Kofukuji, destroyed by fire in 1180, are rebuilt under the new Minamoto government.

The Todaiji restoration is funded partly by contributions from the new rulers and mainly by the popular fundraising campaign of priest Chogen.

The project includes recasting of the enormous bronze Great Buddha, under the direction of technicians from Song China, and reconstructing the Great Buddha Hall and the Great South Gate in a new Song Chinese-inspired style known as Tenjikuyo.

Leopold V of Austria negotiates the Georgenberg Pact with Ottokar IV of Styria on August 17, 1186, by which Styria and the central part of Upper Austria are to be amalgamated into the Duchy of Austria after 1192.

This is the first step towards the creation of modern Austria.

Béla had planned to marry Theodora Komnene, one of Emperor Manuel I's nieces, after his first wife's death, but the Orthodox Church had prohibited their marriage.

Thus, Béla marries Marguerite of France, the sister of King Philip II of France and widow of Henry the Young King, the eldest son of King Henry II of England in 1186.

The Greeks have ruled harshly over Bulgaria for nearly two centuries, using taxes and the political power of the church to crush opposition.

The first and second Crusades had passed through Bulgaria in this period, devastating the land.

In 1186, after a violent dispute with the new Greek emperor, Asen and Peter, descendants of Vlach landowners and boyars from Turnovo, whose family name is Belgun, lead a popular rising of Vlachs and Bulgarians and proclaim their independence from Constantinople.

Asen is crowned tsar as Ivan Asen I at Turnovo, and …

…Peter becomes ruler of the eastern half of the kingdom, with his residence at Preslav (now Veliki Preslav).

Kilij had made peace with Emperor Isaac in 1185, but the next year he transfers power to his nine sons, who immediately fight each other for control.

Humphrey's stepfather Raynald attempts, after the child king dies in 1186, possibly poisoned by Guy of Lusignan, to persuade him to claim the throne in right of Isabella, whom her mother Dowager Queen Maria Komnena and the Ibelin faction want to crown as soon as possible.

Humphrey, who is at this time about twenty, chooses instead to support Guy, husband of Isabella's half-sister Sibylla, to whom Humphrey has sworn fealty.

Reluctantly, Raynald and the other nobles follow his support, as do the Ibelins, even though Guy, who had arrived in Outremer after 1177, had previously been deprived of the regency by his dying brother-in-law Baldwin IV due to his conduct at the 1183 siege of Kerak.

The court party, supported by Raynald, outmaneuvers the other barons and, disregarding succession arrangements that had been formally drawn up, hastily crowns Sibyl.

Announcing her intention to choose the most worthy noble to be her husband and king, Sybil divorces Guy, only to choose him again as king and husband.

Uberto Crivelli had been made cardinal and Archbishop of Milan by Pope Lucius III, whom he had succeeded on November 25, 1185.

He vigorously takes up his predecessor's quarrels with Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, including the standing dispute about the disposal of the territories of the countess Matilda of Tuscany.

Even after his elevation to the papacy, Urban continues to hold the archbishopric of Milan, and in this capacity refuses to crown as King of Italy Frederick I's son Prince Henry, who had married Constance of Sicily, the heiress of the kingdom of Sicily.

Prevented by his enemies from entering Rome, the new pope remains in Verona.

The Lombard League had split into rival factions after 1183.

Disputes in Lombardy and Tuscany had instigated Emperor Frederick’s sixth Italian expedition, from 1184 to 1186, which results in the establishment of firm imperial political control in Milan and parts of central Italy.