Yongle Encyclopedia
The world's largest encyclopedia until Wikipedia
Compiled on the Yongle Emperor's orders, it ran to 22,937 chapters in 11,095 volumes. It remained the world's largest encyclopedia for almost 600 years, until Wikipedia overtook it in 2007.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 15th century
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Less than 4% survives of the world's largest encyclopedia before Wikipedia. The Yongle Encyclopedia, the work of 2,169 scholars, existed only in manuscript copies; nearly all were lost, many in a Beijing fire in 1900. Share →
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Europe
- 1385 Union of Krewo — 23 years earlier
- 1429 Joan of Arc relieves Orléans — 21 years later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1410 Battle of Grunwald — 2 years later
- c. 1411 Andrei Rublev's Trinity — 3 years later
Middle East
- 1402 Battle of Ankara — 6 years earlier
Alive at the time
- Johannes Gutenberg (aged 8)
- Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (aged 50)
- Andrei Rublev (aged 48)
- Sigismund (aged 40)
- Zheng He (aged 37)
- Henry V (aged 22)
- Sejong the Great (aged 11)
- Charles VII (aged 5)
- Murad II (aged 4)
- Rupert of the Palatinate (aged 56)