Brunelleschi's dome in Florence and the Aztec Empire are contemporaries.
The dome was consecrated in 1436, and the Triple Alliance that created the Aztec Empire formed in 1428, eight years earlier.
The events
- Brunelleschi's dome1436 · Florence. For decades Florence's cathedral rose around a vast opening that nobody knew how to roof. Brunelleschi built it without wooden centring, laying some 4 million bricks in herringbone; it is still the largest brick dome.
- Aztec Triple Alliance1428 · Tenochtitlan. The cities of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco and Tlacopan formed an alliance and defeated Azcapotzalco. Thus arose the Aztec Empire, which within a century dominated most of central Mexico.
More amazing facts
- 1420 · 1912 For almost 500 years the Forbidden City was home to 24 emperors.
- 1424 · 1437 Tamerlane's grandson got the length of the year wrong by just 58 seconds.
- 1428 · 1545 Among the Aztecs money grew on trees: people paid in cacao beans.
- 1431 · 1920 Joan of Arc was burned as a heretic in 1431, and in 1920 the Catholic Church made her a saint, 489 years later.
- 1431 · 1897 The name Dracula meant "son of the Dragon". Vlad III's father joined the Order of the Dragon in 1431 and was called Dracul, and in 1897 Bram Stoker gave the name to his vampire.
- 1438 · 1934 The first autobiography in English was dictated by a woman who could not write.