1220

Events 
 Middle Ages in Europe
 Fifth Crusade (1217-1221)
 Battle of Lihula in Estonia between Estonians and Swedes.
 Mongols first invade Abbasid caliphate – Bukhara and Samarkand taken
 End of the Kara-Khitan Khanate, destroyed by Genghis Khan's Mongolian cavalry
 Dominican Order approved by Pope Honorius III
 Frederick II crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Honorius III
 Conrad of Masovia drives out the heathen Prussians from a Masovian territory of Chelmno Land
 Trial by ordeal abolished in England
 The German Hohenstaufen dynasty which had ruled Sicily since 1194, adopts Palermo as its principal seat
 Dordrecht receives city rights, making it the oldest city in the present-day Netherlands
 Ljubljana receives its town rights
 The Islamic lands of Central Asia are overrun by the armies of the Mongol invader Genghis Khan (ca. 1155-1227), who laid waste to many civilizations and created an empire that stretched from China to the Caspian Sea. However, he failed to destroy the strength of Islam in Central Asia.

 Architecture 
 Gothic architecture in Europe
 Rebuilding of the Cathedral of Chartres, which had been destroyed by a fire in 1194, is completed
 Rebuilding of the York Minster begins
 Building of the Salisbury Cathedral begins

 Births 
 April 1 – Emperor Go-Saga of Japan (died 1272)
 November 11 – Alphonse of Toulouse, son of Louis VIII of France (died 1271)
 Thomas Ercildoun, Scottish minstrel (died 1297)
 Alexander Nevsky, Grand Prince of Novgorod and Vladimir
 Przemysł I of Poland (died 1257)
 Yaroslav of Russia, Grand Duke of Vladimir
 Walter de Burgh, 1st Earl of Ulster (died 1271)

 Deaths 
 February 17 – Theobald I, Duke of Lorraine
 April 15 – Adolf of Altena, Archbishop of Cologne
 Michael Choniates, Byzantine writer and ecclesiastic
 Farid od-Din Mohammad ebn Ebrahim 'Attar, Persian mystical poet
 Saxo Grammaticus, Danish historian (born 1150)
 Henry de Bohun, 1st Earl of Hereford (born 1176)
 Mestwin I of Pomerania
 Queen Urraca of Portugal spouse of King Afonso II of Portugal (born 1186)

 Office holders 
 List of state leaders in 1220
 List of religious leaders in 1220