1271

By place

Europe

• July 2 - Kings Otakar II of Bohemia and Stephen V of Hungary sign the first Peace of Pressburg, settling territorial claims, following the failed invasion of Hungary by Otakar II.
• September 1 - Pope Gregory X succeeds Pope Clement IV as the 184th pope, as the compromise candidate between French and Italian cardinals, ending a three-year conclave, the longest ever.
• The County of Toulouse is returned to the crown of France.
• Marco Polo departs from Venice with his father and uncle, on his famous journey to Kublai Khan's China.
• The construction of Caerphilly Castle, the largest in Wales, is completed.
• Construction of the Belaya Vezha in Belarus is begun.

  North Africa and the Middle East

• April 8 - Mamluk sultan Baibars continues his territorial expansion, capturing the strategically important castle Krak des Chevaliers from the Knights Hospitaller in present-day Syria.
• Mamluk sultan Baibars conducts an unsuccessful siege of the city of Tripoli, and also fails in an attempted naval invasion of Cyprus.
• Edward I of England and Charles of Anjou arrive in Acre, starting the Ninth Crusade against Baibars; however, they are unable to capture any territory, and a peace is quickly negotiated.

  Asia

• September 12 - Nichiren is nearly beheaded. This incident, known as Hosshaku Kempon or "casting off the transient and revealing the true," is regarded as a turning point of Nichiren’s teachings within the various schools known as Nichiren Buddhism.
• December 18 - Kublai Khan renames his empire "Yuan", officially marking the start of the Yuan Dynasty of China.
• The Nakhi Kingdom, of the northern Himalayan foothills, is annexed by the Yuan Dynasty.