Afanasy Nikitin's journey to India
A Tver merchant reaches India 30 years before Vasco da Gama
The Tver merchant Afanasy Nikitin sailed down the Volga, crossed Persia and around 1469 reached India, where he spent almost three years, including in Bidar, capital of the Bahmani Sultanate. He died near Smolensk on the way home; his notes, A Journey Beyond Three Seas, are one of the first European accounts of India.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 15th century
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Europe
- c. 1450 Gutenberg's printing press — 19 years earlier
- 1492 Fall of Granada — 23 years later
- 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas — 25 years later
Middle East
- 1453 Fall of Constantinople — 16 years earlier
Africa
- 1488 Dias rounds the Cape of Good Hope — 19 years later
Asia
- 1446 King Sejong promulgates Hangul — 23 years earlier
Americas
- c. 1450 Building of Machu Picchu — 19 years earlier
- c. 1450 Founding of the Iroquois Confederacy — 19 years earlier
- 1492 Columbus reaches the Americas — 23 years later
Oceania
- c. 1445 Extinction of the moa — 24 years earlier
Alive at the time
- Mehmed II (aged 37)
- Christopher Columbus (aged 18)
- Leonardo da Vinci (aged 17)
- Pachacuti (aged 51)
- Louis XI (aged 46)
- Ashikaga Yoshimasa (aged 33)
- Ivan III (aged 29)
- Isabella I of Castile (aged 18)
- Richard III (aged 17)
- Henry VII (aged 12)