1250

Events

Europe

* April 30 - King Louis IX of France is released by his Egyptian captors, after paying a ransom of one million dinars and turning over the city of Damietta.
* October 12 - A great storm shifts the mouth of the River Rother 12 miles (20 km) to the west; a battering series of strong storms significantly alter other coastal geography as well ("see Romney Marsh").
* December 13 - Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, dies, beginning a 23-year-long interregnum known as the Great Interregnum. Frederick II is the last Holy Roman Emperor of the Hohenstaufen dynasty; after the interregnum, the empire passes to the Habsburgs.
* The Lombard League dissolves upon the death of its member states' nemesis, Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor.
* King Afonso III of Portugal captures the Algarve from the Moors, thus completing the expulsion of the Moors from Portugal.
* Valdemar I of Sweden, first Swedish king of the Folkung house, becomes King of Sweden.
* Albertus Magnus isolates the element arsenic. He also first uses the word oriole to describe a type of bird (most likely the golden oriole of Great Britain).
* The University of Valladolid is founded in Spain.
* The Rialto Bridge in Venice, Italy is converted from a pontoon bridge to a permanent, raised wooden structure.
* Vincent of Beauvais completes his proto-encyclopedic work, "The Greater Mirror".
* The Parlement law courts of "ancien régime" France are established.
* A plague breaks out in the city Naples (in present-day Italy), called the Naple's Plague.
* Villard de Honnecourt draws the first known image of a sawmill.

Asia

* A kurultai is called by Batu Khan in Siberia as part of maneuverings to eventually elect Möngke Khan as khan of the Mongol empire in 1251.
* Starting in this year and ending in 1275, the foreign-born Muslim Kuwabara serves as the Commissioner of Merchant Shipping for the Song Dynasty Chinese seaport at Quanzhou, where he writes a monograph on the Chinese shipping industry and maritime economy.

Africa

* July 3 - Battle of Fariskur: Louis IX of France is captured by Baibars' Mamluk army while he is in Egypt conducting the Seventh Crusade; he later has to ransom himself.
* The Bahri dynasty of Mamluks seize power in Egypt.
* The Welayta state is founded in present-day Ethiopia (see Rulers of Walayta).

Oceania

* Around this date, Samoa frees itself from Tongan rule. Beginning of the Malietoa dynasty in Samoa.

Births

* Pietro d'Abano, Italian physician, philosopher and astrologer (d. 1316)
* Guido Cavalcanti, Italian poet (d. 1300)
* Dmitri of Pereslavl, Grand-duke of Vladimir-Suzdal (d. 1294)
* Pierre Dubois, French publicist (approximate date; d. c. 1312)
* Moses de Leon, compiler of the Zohar (approximate date; d. 1305)
* Giovanni Pisano, Italian sculptor (approximate date; d. 1314)
* Asher ben Yehiel, Jewish Talmudist (approximate date; d. 1328)
* September 17 - Robert II of Artois

Deaths

* February 2 - King Eric XI of Sweden
* February 8 - Robert I of Artois, French Prince (b. 1216)
* February 8 - William II Longespee, English crusader
* April 6 - Guillaume de Sonnac, Grand Master of the Knights Templar
* June 18 - Teresa of Portugal
* August 9 - King Eric IV of Denmark (b. 1216)
* October 4 - Herman VI, Margrave of Baden
* December 13 - Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1194)
* Leonardo of Pisa, Italian mathematician
* Matej Ninoslav, Croatian ban

Eras and population estimates

The world population in 1250 is estimated at between 400 and 416 million individuals.

Being a round number, the year 1250 is used to demarcate the beginning or ending of various eras or epochs. These include:

* Judaism's acknowledged center of Jewish thought and learning:
* End of the "Geonim" era in Babylonia (from 650)
* Beginning of the "Rishonim" era (until 1550)
* Medieval music - end of the Notre Dame school of polyphony
* Leonardo Fibonacci