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Item: Re something this website has never heard of, from a documentary screened on SBS TV Australia on 11 June 2007. Ming dynasty period, China, re myth of a fifteenth century Chinese astrologer who launched himself into space. The ultimate flying fantasy?
1499 India: Budham, a Brahmin near Lucknow, executed by Muslims for preaching religious tolerance.
1498: Death in Avila of Tomas de Torqumeda, first Inquisitor-General of the Spanish Inquisition.
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1494: French invasions of Italy. (And in 1499).
1494: After earlier dissatisfaction, the "Pope's line" is fixed further west of earlier line for Portugal, Treaty of Tordesillas, and is only meant to be binding on Spain and Portugal, and later amended by the Treaty of Saragossa in 1529, and actually repealed in 1750 by the Treaty of Madrid. But its terms continued to have legal significance internationally, even as late as 1898 when Britain and Venezuela argued over the boundary of British Guiana and the Pope's line did not embrace seas, only lands, although states later interpreted it as having done this; so that Portugal later claimed the Indian Ocean and Spain the Pacific Ocean - none of which ever impressed British Imperialists, who did what they could. (McIntyre, Secret Discovery of Australia, pp 26, 30-31, 215-216.)
1493 and poste?: Syphilis not imported from the New World by Columbus' men after all?: New researched based in the UK port city, Hull, now tends to indicate that syphilis is a disease thousands of years old in Europe, and not newly-arising in Europe and the East due to Columbus' sailors from 1492 bringing infection back from the New World. Syphilis in its venereal/tertiary form was known in a Greek city in Italy about 600BC (Metaponto?), and also at Pompeii. The major clues used for research so far in the past are the uniquely grooved-teeth of the children of any mother with a case of syphilis. What is confusing is that the bacteria etc. causing syphilis only attack the human venereal system when they are threatened by an unhelpful environment - otherwise, syphilis can be an innocuous, non-lethal childhood skin-rash-problem which once contracted, also immunises the later adult against any form of venereal syphilis.
The new research on such problems has been prompted by
discoveries at Hull at the Magistrates Court Site, which presented
remains of a medieval friary managed by The Augustine Friars. This
was the first Augustine friary established in England, and was
destroyed in 1539. The friars provided some kinds of male nursing
care and social welfare provision.
Early examination of the friary site revealed a skeleton dated
circa 1216AD bearing bone lesions typical of those arising
from the tertiary stage of syphilis. Other cases were found, and it
seemed that some signs of syphilis were found on 60 per cent of
bodies examined at Hull. That is, the elite of Hull suffered
long-term from the disease, Hull also being a sophisticated port
with international contacts.
Meantime, the implication is that the Indians of the New World as
met by Columbus have been unfairly blamed for 500 years now for
giving syphilis to his sailors, so that they spread it through
Europe, an outbreak noticed with considerable alarm, disgust and
fear especially amongst Spanish soldiers at the 1495 siege of
Naples, where many men developed loathsome ulcers of the
genitals.
It is also now said that the theory that syphilis originated in the
New World was only ever based on observations of five skeletons -
while the new theory on the age of syphilis in the Old World is now
based on observations of hundreds of skeletons.
One researcher working on syphilis in the New World in pre-Columbus
days suggests that it extended as far north as the Mississippi
River. It is a disease which adapts to different climates and human
societies, and is basically transmitted non-venereally, from skin
to skin. Syphilis has been around for thousands of years in human
society, and only mutates into a "sexually-transmitted killer" when
itself under threat.
(This report based on a documentary screened in Australia on SBS TV
on 3 February 2002).
1493: The Travels of Syphilis: "Records exist of a Barcelona doctor who treated some of Columbus' men", including his pilot, returned from Haiti, evidently suffering syphilitic lesions, ("frightful and bizarre eruptions".) Syphilis was later found by 1495, when French troops captured Naples, by 1496 in England and Holland, in India by 1498 brought by Vasco de Gama's men and by 1505 at Canton, China. (R. Brasch, How Did Sex Begin?)
1493: Spain was dissatisfied as there had been no mention of
India, and a second Bull later in 1493 took this complaint into
account, and in theory allowed for any of Columbus' ambitions
concerning Spanish influence in India. This adjustment in turn
annoyed Portugal, and so by the Treaty of Tordesillas, on 7
June 1494, further adjustment was made, and the line of demarcation
was fixed at 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands.
(Brazil then became Portuguese). (We here deliberately ignore
English maritime history, which cared little for Papal
announcements.)
So in 1493 a Papal Bull had divided the world into two, the west for Spain, the East for Portugal. As those two nations continued exploration, their areas overlapped. (Under the Tordesillas Capitulacion of 1494, the Moluccas (Spice Islands) were said to have been in Portuguese limits, and Spain abandoned its claim. (Magellan failed to clear this matter up.)
1493: Vilar is certain that Columbus was looking for gold, between October 1492 and January 1493 his diary mentions gold at least 65 times. (Pierre Vilar, A History of Gold and Money, 1450-1920. London, Verso, 1991., p. 63)
1493: India: Wars, revolts and successions in India, variously.
1492AD: Sikander Lodi, sultan of Delhi (1489-1517), annexes Bihar and moves his capital to Agra to facilitate conquest of Rajasthan.
1492: Sailing for the Spanish monarchs, Christopher
Columbus discovers the West Indies while actually seeking
India/China.
1492: Columbus founds the first European settlement in the New
World, on Hispaniola.
1492: India: Barid Shah Dynasty of the Deccan is founded.
1490: Dental history: dentures made from bone found in Switzerland c.1490AD.
1489: More to come
1488AD: First major Ikko-ikki, or Uprising of Ikko Buddhists, in Japan.
1488AD: Ming emperors order rebuilding of Great Wall to defend China from northern invaders.
1486: More to come
1480-1485: Italy: Leonardo da Vinci, or even an engineer working earlier than Leonardo, draws a man descending in a pyramid/conical-shaped parachute. (Source: James/Thorpe).
1483AD: Japan: Ashikaga Yoshimasa completes building of the Silver Pavilion Temple, or Ginkakuji, at Kyoto in Japan.
1483: More to come
1481: More to come
1480: More to come
1479: George, Duke of Clarence, brother of kings Edward IV and Richard III, "disappeared privately", in the Tower of London after being attainted of high treason (legend is that he disappeared by being drowned in a butt of malmsey wine).
1478: More to come
1476: More to come
1475: More to come
1449-1474AD: Japan: Rule of shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa in Japan.
1473: Born in Poland, the astronomer Copernicus.
1469: More to come
1468: More to come
On the Order of Christ in Portugal.
An early master (1420) of the Order of Christ was Henry the
Navigator (died 1460). Later, the heir of the King of Portugal,
John II Capet, The Perfect (died 1495) was his wife's brother, also
his cousin, Manuel Duke Beja, who was Master of the Order of
Christ at the time. The (otherwise unexplained ) revenues of
the Order of Christ at this time funded the Portuguese explorations
of Africa. The Portuguese from 1505 via the Order of Christ
explored the western coasts of Africa. At the same time, Almeida
went to Cochin (South India) to invade Moslem trading areas, after
earlier Portuguese voyages to the east of 1500.
1467-1477: Japan: Onin War in Japan, a civil war beginning as a conflict over shogunal succession, ends Ashikaga shogunate's authority.
1466: More to come
1465: More to come
1464: More to come
1463-1479AD: War between Ottoman Turks and Venetians; Turks eventually triumphant.
1462: Remainder of Balkans is annexed to the Ottoman Empire.
1461: More to come
1460: More to come
1458: Or earlier, First dental fillings: Italian dentist Giovanni Arcolani c1390-1458 uses goldleaf to fill a cavity more tightly.
1457: In Scotland, first recorded mention of the game of golf.
1456: Athens falls to the Turks.
1455: More to come
1455-1456: France, Rehabilitation of reputation of Joan of Arc.
C15th, London has a population of merely 40,000. European cities rarely had a population above 100,000 until the C17th.
1450AD: Circa: By C15th, Gold at Zimbabwe, which is capital of
great empire of Monomatapa, then its kings left Zimbabwe, and put a
new capital on northern edge of Rhodesian plateau, but Monomatapa
revived under new kings, the Rozvis, in C16th, and how has some of
its largest buildings, constructed by Rozvis, all survived till
ruined in C19th by Shaka Zulu. There is also an African kingdom of
the Great Lakes, eg, Uganda.
See Reader's Digest, History of Man: The Last Two Million
Years. Sydney, The Reader's Digest Association, 1973-1974., p.
209.
1450AD: (From a website on climate change): The Little Ice Age: Beginning about 1450AD is a marked return to colder conditions, often called The Little Ice Age, a term used to describe an epoch of renewed glacial advance. Although many regions of the world experience cooling during the period 1450 to 1890 A.D., its use has been criticised because it could not conclusively be considered an event of global significance (Bradley & Jones, 1992). But some scientific evidence arises with use of "proxy reconstructions", evidence from tree rings, ice cores, periglacial features. (There is considerable evidence that the Little Ice Age consisted of two main cold stages of about a century's length (Bradley & Jones, 1992). These occurred in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, with relative warmth arising in the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. Glaciers advanced in Europe, Asia and North America, whilst sea ice in the North Atlantic expanded with detrimental effects for the colonies of Greenland and Iceland (Lamb, 1982).)
1450: To 1870: Period of "Little Ice Age": Climate
conditions change in Northern Hemisphere, leading to widespread
misery, say some, but also inspired famous literature. Villagers
saw glaciers crush their houses. Fisheries collapsed as oceans iced
over. Severe land winters brought famine and conflict. Snowy hard
winters in London may have inspired some of Charles Dickens'
presentations of Christmas scenes? Clime conditions changed
abruptly in 1860-1870.
(Little is known of reactions here in the Southern Hemisphere
except for some recent research on Eastern Australia's Great
Barrier Reef corals - See an issue of Science recent by 23
February, 2002, on work by Australian National University
Researcher Erica Hendy, associated with workers from Australian
Institute of Marine Science).
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1450AD: Approx: Khmer kings of Cambodia have abandoned their capital, Angkor, retreating to the Mekong delta area of South Vietnam.
1450AD: Polynesia: Approx: New Zealand: Food problems around the 15th C. - cooling climate, increased population. Fish & shellfish major food items. Numerous references to cannibalism, but not how regular / normal it was, or whether due to nutrition or ritual. On the Coromandel Peninsula (east coast, North Island), is a beach called Kikowhakarere = "the flesh thrown away" or "left behind" - suggested as recording a cannibal feast interrupted by an enemy attack.
1450: Gutenberg sets up a printing workshop at Mainz.
1448: Break-up of Scandinavia after death of Christopher of Bavaria, King of Denmark, Norway and Sweden.
1449: Corrupt eunuch powerlord of China, Wang Zhen, leads 500,000 troops to subdue the Mongols of the northwestern frontier. Some 1000 wagons carried his personal baggage. Less than 20,000 Mongol horsemen cut off the emperor from his other forces. Wang was killed in other battles. The Mongols installed the young emperor's brother in power. When he held court, the Confucians successfully attacked the network of eunuchs in power. But a year later, the Mongols re-installed the older brother as emperor, Zhu Qizhen. Eunuchs however continued in international trade. The imperial response was to further limit boat size and civilian participation in overseas trade. By the C16th, Chinese shipwrights had virtually lost the art of building the large treasure ships, while in weaponry matters, the Chinese also fell behind European advances. China's tax base also declined. The 1448 flood on the Yangtze River had been a disaster. Threats from the uniting eastern and western Mongols under Altan Khan posed military, not naval threats. The Ming dynasty finally fell in 1644. In 1477 however was one last attempt to revive Chinese foreign trade, made by a powerful eunuch named Wang Zhi, head of Imperial secret police. He called for the logs of Zheng He's ships. But an official at the Ministry of War, Lui Daxia, took the logs and either hid or burned them. The Confucian view won the day, China had no need of anything foreign - the more expression of a need was viewed as a sign of weakness. China withdrew from her former interests in South East Asia. (Levathes, When China Ruled The Seas) (For a non-detailed debunking of Menzies' 1421 by an Australian, see article, '1421: The Year China Didn't Discover Terribly Much', by Peter Barrett, (vice-president of Canberra Skeptics), The Skeptic, Vol. 25, No. 3, Spring 2005., pp. 48-51.)
1448-1488AD: Thailand expands under King Trailok, who brings about major administrative and legal reforms.
1447: More to come
1446: More to come
1440s: Hungary: Turks have occupied large areas of the northern Balkans. Ladislas V of Hungary (Wladislaw VI of Poland) is defeated and killed at the battle of Varna, in an ill-fated crusade against them. However, his successor Janos Hunyadi kept Hungary free from Turkish rule.
1444: More to come
1443: More to come
1442: Mapmaking in 1442 or earlier?: Fresh dispute has broken out about the production date of The Vinland Map which is said to have been made 50 years before Christopher Columbus set sail for the New World. A new study of the inks used for the map might suggest that that some chemicals evident are of twentieth century vintage. The Vinland Map depicts the north Atlantic Coast of North America and includes text in medieval Latin. A legend to the map says that a Norseman, Lief Eriksson, found "Vinland" about 1000AD. The map dates roughly from 1440, and speculation has been that Columbus used it. US researchers have now used carbon-14 dating methods to find the map was made about 1434. The map was given to Yale University in the 1960s by philanthropist Paul Mellon. Tests in the 1970s by Walter McCrone found the ink used had contained anatase, a form of titanium oxide often used in inks after 1920, evident as crystals. The current arguments hinge on the shape of anatase crystals - which are now excessively regular - found in "old ink". The new US examination team has been led Jacqueline Olin, a retired researcher from the US' Smithsonian Institute. Olin says the ink contains aluminium, copper and zinc, all used in the medieval ink-manufacturing process. She says anatase because of the manufacturing process ended up in the map's ink but its crystal-shapes could changed over time. Her results have been published in the December 2003 issue of journal Analytical Chemistry. (Reported in Australia 29-30 November 2003 in weekend newspapers from a recent issue of journal Nature)
1441: More to come
1440: Buenos Aires: THE MUMMY of a child sacrificed to local gods has been found on an icy mountain top in Argentina by the archaeologists who discovered the famous Jaunita mummy in Peru.
The body was found two weeks ago on top of Nevada de Querhuar, 1600km west of Buenos Aires, according to the head of Cultural Heritage Dept., Northern Province of Salta, Mario Lazarovich.
A 10-12 year-old child, sex not yet determined, had been
sacrificed by Incas circa 1440, long before the arrival of
Spanish conquerors in 1535. The child's head is missing, possibly
taken by site desecrators in the early 1980s. An expedition had
been headed by US archaeologists Johan Reinhard and Peruvian Jose
Chaves, who in 1995 discovered "Juanita" in the Peruvian Andres.
The latest mummy find was wrapped in blankets of what seems to be
llama wool.
(Reported in Australia, 5 March 1999)
1440: More to come
1439: More to come
1438: More to come
21 February 1437: Scotland: James I, King Scotland, is assassinated by conspirators led by Walter of Atholl after his efforts to break the power of the Scottish nobility.
1436: Capture of Paris by Charles VII.
1435: First use of a dredger called "the Scraper", as built at Middleburg, Holland. In France in 1435, Charles VII wins support of the Duke of Burgundy. Ile-de-France returns to French hands.
1430sAD: Collapse of Khmer empire in southeast Asia; Angkor Wat is abandoned after being sacked by Thai army in 1431.
1434: More to come
1431: France, English imprison, interrogate, burn at the stake, Joan of Arc. In Paris, coronation of Henry VI as King.
By 1430, the Dutch printer Laurens Janszoon used wooden type with hand-carved letters. (On Crete, at some time, in a palace at Phaistos, is found a disk with 45 letters, or, syllabic signs. The language is a form of Greek that predates Homer.)
1430: Peak of a period of colder, worsening climate, which begins in the later Middle Ages, with special effects on the Scandinavian world. (View of H. R. Lyon, Vikings in Britain, p. 20.)
1430: Joan of Arc fails to take Compiegne, and is captured by English.
1430: Possible high point of severity of a cold climatic change occurring in recent centuries. (H. R. Lyon, The Vikings in Britain, p. 20).
1429: Meeting of Joan of Arc and Dauphin Charles at Chinon. Capture of Orleans and coronation of Charles at Rheims.
1429: Siege of Orleans ends when French troops storm the English forts in the Hundred Years War.
1428: France: Attempted English advance southwards, siege of Orleans.
1427: More to come
1426: Egyptians gain control over Cyprus.
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12 April 1422: China: Ming emperor Zhu Di himself leads his army from Beijing against the Uritangqad Mongols to the north, who are assisting Arughtai, who has fled to Outer Mongolia. Zhu Di anyway dies on 12 August 1424.
1422: Accession of Henry VI, with his uncle, John, Duke of Bedford, as regent. Charles VII also claims the French throne.
1400: 1425: 1425: The Hussite Wars, and a drawing of the period shows a diver (with gunpowder mines?) wearing a suit with flippers - underwater warfare! A German military expert, Konrad Keyser had ideas of divers fighting underwater by 1400. (Source: James/Thorpe).
December 1421: The Ottomans surrounding Byzantium cut off the great Silk Road leading from China across central Asia to the Middle East. By 6 December, 1421, the Mameluke Sultan Barsbey seizes power in Egypt and nationalizes the spice trade. This ruins merchants in the spice trade, seals Egypt's borders and severs the sea route through the Bosphorus to the western end of the Silk Route. The canal once linking the Red Sea and the Nile (completed in C10th), is also by now unusable. All land and sea routes for Europeans to the East are now closed.
Late 1421: Menzies writes, by coincidence, as the Chinese
treasure fleets arrive to Calicut, the Indian city is visited by
young Venetian, Niccolo da Conti, (c1395-1469). He is a young
trader who in 1414 left Venice for Alexandria. He converted to
Islam and took a Muslim wife. Christians were not then permitted
south of Cairo, as the Islamic world had decided to keep the Indian
Ocean as "an Islamic lake". Da Conti travels as a Muslim merchant,
to the Euphrates delta, then Calicut. Years later he is required by
Pope Eugenius IV to relate his stories of his travels to papal
secretary Poggio Bracciolini, who later had them published. At
Calicut, da Conti had gone aboard at least one Chinese junk.
Menzies thinks da Conti also met Chinese diarist of the voyage, Ma
Huan, as their reports on Calicut are quite similar. Ma Huan went
off the treasure fleet ships at Calicut and presumably later
returned to China. Menzies believes that da Conti's stories later
influenced European map makers. So Menzies feels da Conti spoke to
more Chinese years later, when their geographical knowledge had
improved. (Item from Gavin Menzies, 1421, The Year China
Discovered the World. 2002., p. 85. - hardcover edition)
At this point, chronological data drawn from Gavin Menzies' book on
the Chinese Treasure Fleets, 1421, will be curtailed due to
fear of abridging copyright. Readers are recommended to read the
entire book - Ed) (For a non-detailed debunking of Menzies'
1421 by an Australian, see article, '1421: The Year China
Didn't Discover Terribly Much', by Peter Barrett,
(vice-president of Canberra Skeptics), The Skeptic, Vol. 25,
No. 3, Spring 2005., pp. 48-51.)
Contra to Gavin Menzies' 1421 is P. Rivers, (Capt.), �1421� Voyages: Fact and Fantasy. [monograph No 11.] 2004. Malaysia, first edition. ISBN 9834 055641. (Rebutting Menzies on three fronts: documents, nautical and geographical aspects, and general lacks of evidence).
1421: Item: Following is part of a review of Gavin Menzies' book 1421 by Jeffrey Mellefont, a researcher at Australian National Maritime Museum in magazine, Signals... "Menzies writes well, bringing vividly to life the Ming court with all its intrigues, and what's known of actual Chinese voyaging. It's a shame that he didn't present his theory as fiction. It would have made a great tale, of airport novel size. But presenting his ideas as scholarship requires that they be judged accordingly and too often, by these standards, they fail. One is left wondering, too, at the integrity of the publisher who leaped into print with a work that is supported widely by neither Western nor Chinese scholars, yet has been promoted as though it were."
9 May 1421: Beijing, Violent storm breaks over Forbidden City, the beginning of the end of Zhu Di's reign. In particular, the treasury is burned. Many are killed. The Mandarins later reassert their power and end this experiment in expansionism. This also coincides with a two-year period of epidemic in the south which kills around 174,000 people in Fujian province alone. Zhu Di's health begins to fail, he ends issuing orders to halt any future voyages of treasure fleets and forbids foreign travel. Sensing China's weakness now, Mongol leader Arughtai refuses to pay tribute to China. The finance minister complains it is impossible to fund the military revenge Zhu Di wants to send against the Mongols. By 1424, Arughtai has simply disappeared into the vastness of the Asiatic steppes. Minister of War Fang Bin suicides rather than meet the bother of handling an emperor wanting a new war. Meantime, epidemics in some provinces have killed 253,000 people, and North Vietnam has rebelled with guerrilla warfare. (Item from Gavin Menzies, 1421, The Year China Discovered the World. 2002., p. 47. - hardcover edition)
1421: The rise of Beijing, and now the imperial court is ready to move from Nanjing. The new capital is to be inaugurated on New Year's Day, 2 February 1421. (Only a few weeks later, Henry V marries Catherine of Valois.) 1421, China has also been trading with Ceylon, Persia, India, Chinese Turkestan is called Kotan which produces jade, ambergris from the Pacific, myrrh from Arabia, sandalwood from Spice Islands.
1421: Great storms wrack Europe. In 1421, 1446, and 1570, gales
killed 100,000 or more as a result of coastal flooding off the
North Sea. Mortality from the 16th century tempest was about
400,000! The winters of 1407-1408 and 1422-1423 were so cold that
the Baltic froze, permitting traffic across the sea and allowing
wolves to pass from Norway to Denmark. Disease, particularly but
not solely the Black Death, stalked Europe. The average life
expectancy fell by 10 years during the 14th century. Farms,
villages, and entire regions were abandoned.
(From a website reviewing book on climate change by H. H. Lamb,
Climate History and the Modern World.)
1421: An official brothel is opened in Venice, "to combat sexual perversion and marital infidelity". (R. Brasch, How Did Sex Begin?)
1420-1421AD: Chinese Ming capital moves from Nanjing to Beijing.
1420: There are still Danish men who can recall colonies on Greenland, or Baffin Island. The Danes have a theory that there is a north-west passage beyond Baffin Island to China. (McIntyre, Secret Discovery of Australia, pp. 28-29)
1420: Pope appoints Prince Henry (The Navigator) Grand Master of the Order of Christ.
1420: France: Treaty of Troyes.
1419-1450AD: Korea prospers under King Sejong who introduces an official Korean script.
1417 March: Beijing is almost ready to become new capital of China. In 1420 the Temple of Heaven is finished.
1416: France: John the Fearless, Duke Burgundy, recognizes Henry V as King of France.
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1414-1418: Council of Constance puts an end to the Great Schism of Christianity.
1412: China's emperor Zhu Di out of filial piety begins to build what is in the C18th and C19th regarded as one of the great wonders of the world, an octagonal pagoda made of porcelain, to venerate Empress Ma. It is nine stories high, or more than 240 feet. Some 152 porcelain bells chimed in the wind. Around it are placed beautiful gardens and exotic trees. The cost is offset by profits from Zheng He's treasure fleet voyages. All is destroyed in the Taiping Rebellion of 1856. (Levathes, When China Ruled The Seas)
1411-1142AD: India: Reign of Indian sultan Ahmad Shah of Gujarat, who builds splendid capital city of Ahmadabad.
1411: Chinese emperor Zhu Di sends an envoy to southern Manchuria to ask if they would convey messages to the Jurchen chieftains of northern Manchuria at Nurkal, a remote northern spot. A success, the mission results in the Jurchen visiting the Chinese capital to pay tribute, etc. There are more Chinese missions to Northern Manchuria in 1413 and 1432.
1411: 9 July: It is hard to know if this is fact or legend, but the story is that the Chinese have taken from Ceylon a sacred tooth of Buddha, and take it to the Chinese capital, Nanjing, to a Buddhist temple, where the emperor orders making of a diamond and jewelled case for it. (Levathes, When China Ruled The Seas)
1410: More to come
Circa 1403-1409AD: Encyclopedia of over 20,000 chapters, the Yongle Dadian, is compiled in China.
1409: Chinese emperor Zhu Di sends an envoy to the northwest and eastern Mongols who are closer on the borders of China. The envoy meets with the new Oirat chief, Arughtai, but is summarily executed. Zhu Di responds be sending an army and drives the Oirat back about one hundred miles, the first of four such campaigns. Eventually, Arughtai paid tribute to China. (Levathes, When China Ruled The Seas)
1406: The use in Western Europe of the chastity belt for upper-class women. The custom of using them probably began during the Crusades. By 1406 the belts were especially known in Florence, Italy. By 1406, Francesco II, "the tyrant of Padua", had one applied to a woman. (Venetians strangled Francesco in 1406). In 1889 the body of a C15th woman was exhumed in an Austrian Church - she wore a chastity belt. (R. Brasch, How Did Sex Begin?)
1405-1433AD: Chinese Muslim mariner/admiral, Zheng He, makes
seven voyages westwards to collect tribute for Ming emperor Zhu Di.
Levathes, in When China Ruled The Seas, points out that Zhu
Di's father had been a poor soldier who rose to power, but remained
fearful of foreigners and outside influences (paranoia). Zhu Di
however, as Yongle emperor, was educated and trained to rule, and
sought to play out the role of China on the world stage, as no
Chinese emperor had ever thought to do before. The treasure ship
voyages were just part of almost 50 emissarial missions sent during
Zhu Di's 24-year reign. Just one mission was to sort out the role
of Tibet (here the concern was the fifth karmapa ("master of karma,
master of action"), Bebshin Shegpa (born 1384), who controlled
southeastern Tibet. ) The karmapa was known in China as "Halima",
and lived at a religious centre, Tshurphu, forty miles from Lhasa.
The karmapa accepted an invitation to visit Nanjing and arrived
there on 10 April 1407, where Zhi Di made him head of all Buddhist
monks in China. Miracles were said to occur. But Zhu Di had sent
troops to the border to invade Tibet, to suppress rival Buddhist
sects, which the karmapa said was unnecessary and not beneficial.
So Zhu Di withdrew the troops. The karmapa died shortly later of
smallpox, aged 32, credited with saving Tibet from Chinese
invasion.
Another mission went to the Mongols on China's north, the
Uriyangqad Mongols about Beijing, which ended leaving large parts
of Inner Mongolia to the Mongols. Zhu Di also tried to "normalize"
relations with the Jurchen in Manchuria. Northern Manchuria however
remained a problem, the home of "wild Jurchen", tribal herdsmen and
various Siberian people who eluded Chinese influences. (Levathes,
When China Ruled The Seas)
1440s: Jurchens of Manchuria and the western Mongols of Outer Mongolia, (Oirats) attack China.
January 1405, Tamerlane leaves Samarkand to try to take China. But he dies on 18 February, and his army breaks into factions and disperses. Zhu Di (his third son is Zhu Gaozhi) is having trouble feeding his people being shifted to Beijing, resolves that the Grand Canal needs repair to be able to handle grain shipments north. (Item from Gavin Menzies, 1421, The Year China Discovered the World. 2002 - hardcover edition)
1405AD: Descendants of Tamerlane, Tatar (Tartar) chieftain, rule Iran till 1499.
1401: More to come
October 1400: Chaucer murdered?: Monty Python comedian Terry Jones, who enjoys medieval studies, has developed a theory that courtier to Richard II, and author of The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer, was murdered after Henry IV came to power in 1399. Jones has developed the theory with Alan Fletcher, a lecturer in Medieval Studies at University College, Dublin. Their book is entitled, Who Murdered Chaucer? (2003) When Chaucer died, no official record was kept and there are no records of a will or any elaborate funeral. (Reported 18 August 2003)
1400: Increasing use of hand-held firearms in Europe.
1400-1419: Hunting for the grave of Richard II: DNA tests are to be conducted on remains of a man who might be Richard II, "the last undisputed king of the house of Plantagenet". Associated may be re-examination of his father's remains, The Black Prince, buried at Canterbury Cathedral, England. History tells us that Richard II died imprisoned at Pontefract Castle in 1400, possibly starved to death by his usurper, Henry IV, before a parade of the remains, and burial at King's Langley, Hertfordshire. But legend persisted that Richard did not die, but somehow arrived at Stirling Castle, Scotland, to be held by the governor there, the Duke of Albany - who told Henry IV this was the case in 1402. This legendary Richard was still there by 1417, running up bills, and died by 1419 to be buried with regal pomp - on the north side of the High Altar of Black Friars - the site now under re-investigation by archaeologists. (Reported by 29 January 2002, from The Times, London)
Dear Lost Worlds, Do you know what the current thinking is (in
regards to the rulers' identities) among modern scholars,
historians, and academia regarding the SHARQI SULTANS OF
JAUNPUR, INDIA, 1394-1479? Being:
1394-1399 Malik Sarwar
1399-1402 Mubarak Shah
1402-1440 Ibrahim Shah
Were the first three rulers in fact Africans (Habshis)?
From Nolan Carter in the US by 14 February, 2001.
On revisionism re the origins of Islam: http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/99jan/koran.htm
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