1142

Events 
 By area 
 Africa 
 When it was unable to feed its population during a famine, the emir of the great commercial center of Mahdia has to recognize the de facto protectorate of Roger II of Sicily.
 Failed Norman raid against the city of Tripoli.

 Asia 
 Emperor Konoe succeeds Emperor Sutoku on the throne of Japan.

 Europe 
 Henry the Lion becomes Duke of Saxony.
 The Empress Maud grants Oakley, Buckinghamshire Church, with its chapels of Brill, Boarstall and Addingrove, to the monks of St. Frideswide's Priory, in Oxford.

 Births 
 Farid od-Din Mohammad ebn Ebrahim 'Attar, Persian mystical poet (d. 1220)
 Hugh III, Duke of Burgundy (d. 1192)

 Deaths 
 January 27 – Yue Fei, Chinese military leader (b. 1103)
 April 21 – Pierre Abélard, French scholastic philosopher (b. 1079)
 Orderic Vitalis, English chronicler (b. 1075)

 References