939

By place

Europe

• Hugh the Great, count of Paris, rebels against King Louis IV and gains support from William I, duke of Normandy. Hugh, along with Herbert II, count of Vermandois, Arnulf I, count of Flanders and William pay homage to King Otto I, and support him in his struggle against Louis.
• July 19 - Battle of Simancas: Caliph Abd-al-Rahman III of Córdoba claims a Jihad and raises an army of 100,000 men to end the Kingdom of León. He razes the cities of Medina del Campo, Ìscar and Alcazarén and finally, reaches the city of Simancas, where Christian forces under King Ramiro II wait for him. After three days, Ramiro defeats the Moorish army with an alliance of Castile and Navarre. Abd-al-Rahman orders a retreat along the Duero River, and is almost killed, due, most likely, to treason by Arab elements in the Moorish army.
• August 1 - Battle of Trans-la-Forêt: Bretons defeat Viking occupiers.
• August 5 - Battle of Alhandic: Abd-al-Rahman III defeats the garrison of those loyal to Ramiro II at Zamora, in the context of the Spanish Reconquista.
• October 2 - Battle of Andernach: Otto I crushes a rebellion against his rule, by a coalition of Eberhard III, duke of Franconia, and other Frankish dukes, in Andernach on the Rhine River. Otto prevails, with support from Odo of Wetterau. Eberhard is killed while Gilbert, duke of Lotharingia drowns when trying to escape.

  England

• October 27 - King Æthelstan dies at Gloucester after a 15-year reign. He is buried at Malmesbury Abbey and succeeded by his half-brother, Edmund I. After Æthelstan's death Olaf Guthfrithson a Viking leader who rules Dublin, is proclaimed king of York.

  Asia

• Taira no Masakado, a Japanese nobleman, leads one of the largest insurgent forces in the Heian period against the imperial court at Kyoto. Masakado has acquired enough power to govern the Kantō region and calls himself the 'new emperor'.
• Ngô Quyền, who the previous year defeated the Chinese at the Battle of Bạch Đằng thereby regaining Vietnamese independence after 1000 years, becomes king of Vietnam.

  By topic

Religion

• July 13 - Pope Leo VII dies at Rome after a 3½-year reign. He is succeeded by Stephen VIII as the 127th pope of the Catholic Church.
• The Major Occultation of Muhammad al-Mahdi occurs.