The Fibonacci numbers became famous through a puzzle about rabbits.

1202

In his Liber Abaci of 1202 Fibonacci asked how many pairs there would be after a year if each pair bred a new pair every month: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8…

◍ Show on the globe

The event

• Fibonacci's Liber Abaci1202 · Pisa. In 1202 Leonardo of Pisa, known as Fibonacci, published Liber Abaci, introducing Europeans to Hindu–Arabic numerals and positional notation. Merchants soon saw how much easier calculation became.

13th century

More amazing facts

• 1200 · 1215 While England was sealing Magna Carta, whole churches were being cut out of rock in Ethiopia.
• 1204 · 1797 · 1815 The bronze horses of St Mark's in Venice are crusader loot.
• 1206 · 1227 The grave of Genghis Khan, founder of the largest contiguous empire in history, has never been found.
• 1206 · 1279 At its height the Mongol Empire was almost one and a half times the size of modern Russia.
• 1206 · 1209 Cambridge University is as old as Genghis Khan's empire.
• 1206 Al-Jazari's elephant clock put a whole world into one machine: Greek waterworks, an Indian elephant, Chinese dragons, an Egyptian phoenix and the driver's Islamic turban.

All amazing facts (1058) →