Ulugh Beg's observatory
The best star catalogue between Ptolemy and Tycho Brahe
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Timur's grandson Ulugh Beg, ruler of Samarkand, built an observatory on Kuhak hill in the 1420s, with a giant sextant about 40 metres in radius. His astronomers compiled the Zij-i Sultani, tables giving the positions of more than a thousand stars and a length of the year within about a minute of the true value. After Ulugh Beg was murdered in 1449 the observatory was destroyed; archaeologist Vasily Vyatkin unearthed its remains in 1908.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 15th century
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Europe
- 1429 Joan of Arc relieves Orléans — 5 years later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1410 Battle of Grunwald — 14 years earlier
- c. 1411 Andrei Rublev's Trinity — 13 years earlier
Americas
- c. 1438 Pachacuti founds the Inca Empire — 14 years later
Oceania
- c. 1445 Extinction of the moa — 21 years later
Alive at the time
- Johannes Gutenberg (aged 24)
- Joan of Arc (aged 12)
- Andrei Rublev (aged 64)
- Sigismund (aged 56)
- Zheng He (aged 53)
- Sejong the Great (aged 27)
- Charles VII (aged 21)
- Murad II (aged 20)
- Pachacuti (aged 6)
- Louis XI (aged 1)