Murano glass exists because of fear of fire.
In 1291 Venice ordered its glassmakers to move their furnaces to the island of Murano so fires would not spread through the wooden city; the island became the world capital of glass.
More amazing facts
- 1284 Hamelin has a street where music is forbidden.
- 1286 · 1306 Eyeglasses are over 700 years old, and we know it from a sermon.
- 1288 · 1326 The oldest surviving gun is Chinese, made no later than 1288, and weighs 3.5 kg. Europe's first picture of a cannon appears only in Walter de Milemete's English manuscript of 1326.
- 1293 The founder of Majapahit won with the help of Kublai Khan's army, then drove it out. In 1293 Raden Wijaya got the Mongol force on Java to crush his rival, then turned on the Mongols themselves.
- 1294 In 1294 Pope Celestine V resigned five months after his election.
- 1298 Marco Polo's book was written down by someone else: his cellmate.