994

By place

Byzantine Empire

• September 15 - Battle of the Orontes: Fatimid forces, under Turkish general Manjutakin, besiege Apamea. Emperor Basil II sends a Byzantine expeditionary army, led by Dux Michael Bourtzes, to relieve the city in alliance with the Hamdanid Dynasty. Manjutakin defeats with his forces the Hamdanids, and attacks the Byzantine force in the rear. The Byzantine army panics and flees, losing some 5,000 men in the process.

  Europe

• June 23 - Viking Age: Danish Viking raiders, under King Sweyn Forkbeard, plunder the city of Stade. Count Lothair Udo I is captured and killed, during the battle with the pirates.
• September - King Otto III, now 14 years old, receives at an assembly of the Imperial Diet in Solingen the regalia to rule the Kingdom of Germany. Otto appoints Heribert of Cologne as chancellor of Italy.

  England

• A Danish Viking fleet, under Olaf Tryggvason, sails up the Thames Estuary, and besieges London. King Æthelred II pays Olaf 16,000 lbs of silver.
• Olaf Tryggvason, already a baptised Christian, is confirmed as Christian in a ceremony at Andover. After receiving gifts from Æthelred II, Olaf leaves for Norway.

  By topic

Astronomy

• An increase in carbon-14 concentration, recorded in tree rings, suggests that a strong solar storm may have hit the Earth in either 993 or 994.