Mansa Musa said he came to the throne because his predecessor sailed off into the Atlantic.
Abu Bakr II wanted to find where the ocean ended, led a fleet west, and never came back.
The events
- Abu Bakr II sails into the Atlanticc. 1311 · Mali. Mansa Musa said his predecessor sent a fleet to find the far edge of the ocean; when only one ship returned, he led thousands of boats west himself. He never came back, and the throne passed to Musa.
- Hajj of Mansa Musa1324 · Timbuktu. Mali's ruler Mansa Musa made the pilgrimage to Mecca with a vast retinue and caravan of gold; chroniclers say his largesse in Cairo depressed the price of gold for years. Back home he built the Djinguereber Mosque, making Timbuktu a centre of learning.
More amazing facts
- 1300 · 1303 Dante booked a place in Hell for a living pope.
- 1300 · 1944 Coins of the Kilwa Sultanate in East Africa were found in Australia.
- 1300 · 1910 On finding a bronze head at Ife in 1910, the German ethnologist Leo Frobenius decided it was a relic of Atlantis.
- 1300 Medieval people did drink water; beer was not a forced substitute for 'unsafe' water.
- 1306 · 1727 For over 400 years spectacles had no arms: people held them, pinched them on the nose or tied them on with ribbons.
- 1307 Friday the 13th is not unlucky because of the Templars.