History Timeline

1301 - 1500 AD

1300 - 1600 Height of Aztec Empire
   Warrior-leader Alauddin, in India makes war campaigns into southern India
   Lighthouse of Alexandria destroyed
1304 Birth of Petrarch
1313 Birth of Boccacio
1325 Italian Rennaisance begins
1328 Birth of Zhu YuanZhang
1337 - 1453 100-year war between France and England
1343 Birth of Chaucer
1346 Cannon becomes used widely
1347 - 1351 Black plague kills 25 million people in Europe
1348 Egypt devastated by Black Plague
1350 First gunpowder used as a projectile by a German monk
1368 - 1644 Ming Dynasty rules in China
1386 Birth of Donatello, the sculptor
1400 Founding of Inca civilization
   End of the Gothic period
1423 German civil war
1430 Joan of Arc is handed over to the English
1431 Joan of Arc is executed in England
1450 Florence becomes center of Renaissance
   Johannes Gutenberg invents movable type (printing press)
   Sforza family rules Milan until 1535
   End of Middle Ages
1451 Birth of Christopher Columbus
   Birth of Isabella I
1452 Birth of Leonardo Da Vinci
1453 Constantinople becomes Istanbul
   End of the Byzantine Empire
1466 Birth of Desiderius Erasmus
1473 Birth of Copernicus - heliocentric universe
1475 Birth of Michelangelo
1480 Modern chess appears
   Birth of Faust, legendary magician and fortuneteller
1483 Birth of Raphael
1491 Birth of Ignatius of Loyola - founder of the Jesuit church
1492 Columbus reaches Caribbean
1494 Birth of Rabelais
1495 - 1521 Height of Portuguese power
1497 Portuguese explorer Vasco de Gama leads an expedition around the Cape of Good Hope and across    the Indian Ocean
1500 Ivan the Great rules in Russia, he rids Russia of Mongol control
   Beginning of long, economic expansion in Europe, thanks to the Spanish colonies in South America (silver)