Prince Andrey Bogolyubsky of Vladimir-Suzdal sacks Kiev and …

Boleslaw and Kol Sverkerson are contenders for to the Swedish throne, held by King Canute I (Knut Eriksson) of Sweden, head of the House of Eric.

The two, who are brothers, half-brothers or uncle and nephew, may never have controlled much more than the Province of Östergötland.

Boleslaw is believed either to have been murdered by King Canute's men, or to have fled to Poland sometime before 1173.

He was mentioned in at least one letter sent by the Pope to a Swedish king.

He was presumably named for his ancestor Bolesław III Wrymouth.

His brother Kol continues as king of Östergötland until 1173, in opposition to King Canute I of Sweden.

Following the death of Kol, King Canute extends his reign to also include Östergötland.

He is now unopposed as king of Sweden.

Welf Duke Henry the Lion advances German colonization into Holstein, Lauenburg, and Mecklenburg, and aids Lübeck’s rise as a commercial force in the Baltic.

Construction begins in 1173 on the city’s Romanesque cathedral, sponsored by Henry as a cathedral for the Bishop of Lübeck.

Boleslaw IV the Curly, who dies on January 5, 1173, is succeeded as High Duke of Poland by Mieszko III the Old, and ...

…as Duke of Sandomierz in Lesser Poland by Casimir II.

Ghurid forces under Muhammad of Ghor, who has honed his military skills in successful Ghurid wars for control of Khorasan, seize Ghazni to avenge the death of his ancestor Muhammad Suri at the hands of Mahmud of Ghazni.

The Ghurids expel the currently ruling Oghuz Turk nomads, and make it a subsidiary capital, using it as a launching pad for expansion into northern India.

The Nubians and Egyptians have long been engaged in a series of skirmishes along the border region of the two countries in Upper Egypt.

After the Fatimids were deposed, tensions had risen as Nubian raids against Egyptian border towns have grown bolder, ultimately leading in late 1172-early 1173 to the siege of the valuable city of Aswan by former sub-Saharan Fatimid soldiers.

The governor of Aswan, a former Fatimid loyalist, requests help from Saladin.

Saladin dispatches Turan-Shah with a force of Kurdish troops to relieve Aswan, but the Nubian soldiers had already departed.

Turan-Shah conquers the Nubian town of Ibrim nonetheless, and begins to conduct a series of raids against the Nubians.

His attacks appear to have been highly successful, resulting in the Nubian king based in Dongola requesting an armistice with Turan-Shah.

Apparently eager for conquest, he is unwilling to accept the offer until his own emissary had visited the King of Nubia and reported that the entire country was poor and not worth occupying.

The Ayyubids will be forced to take future actions against the Nubians, but Turan-Shah sets his sights on more lucrative territories.

He manages to acquire considerable wealth in Egypt after his campaign against Nubia, bringing back with him many enslaved Christian Nubians.

The First Crusade had drastically reduced Palestine's Jewish community, which in the eleventh century had already begun to diminish.

The situation had improved, however, as the Latin kingdom gradually settled into a routine of government.

Apparently, the later, more stable regime has made possible a not inconsiderable Jewish immigration, not, it seems, as in earlier times, from the neighboring lands of the Middle East, but from Europe.

The crusader states of Outremer, as the area of Latin settlement have came to be called, have by the 1170s developed well-established governments.

William aids the Venetians in an abortive action at Ancona in 1173.

The defeated Venetian fleet returns from Ancona with the dreaded plague.

In the resultant chaos, the doge is killed, Venice's government reorganized, and a deliberative assembly (the forerunner of the Great Council) established.