Sidon falls to the Crusaders

May 13, 1110

With a Norwegian fleet under King Sigurd the Jerusalem-Farer blockading the harbor, Baldwin I took the ancient Phoenician port. Sigurd would sail home a celebrity, the first European monarch to visit the Holy Sepulchre, trailing legends about jousting through Byzantine streets. Sidon's capture completed the Latin kingdom's control of the central Levantine coast, linking Acre to Beirut along a continuous strip of fortified ports.