St Basil's Cathedral and the Süleymaniye Mosque were going up at the same time: Sinan built the mosque in 1550–1557 and Moscow raised the cathedral in 1555–1561, so for a couple of years both were building sites.
The events
- Saint Basil's Cathedral1555–1561 · Moscow. The Cathedral of the Intercession on Red Square was built in 1555–1561 on Ivan the Terrible's orders to celebrate the capture of Kazan. It later took the name of the holy fool Basil, who was buried beside it.
- Süleymaniye Mosque1550–1557 · Constantinople. Architect Mimar Sinan built this mosque complex, with schools, a hospital and baths, for Suleiman the Magnificent. It became a symbol of the golden age of the Ottoman Empire, then at the height of its power.
More amazing facts
- 1547 Ivan IV's nickname Grozny meant 'formidable' or 'awe-inspiring' rather than 'terrible' in the modern sense; the English word 'terrible' once meant the same, but its sense has drifted.
- 1551 · 1636 The first universities in the Americas are 85 years older than Harvard.
- 1555 · 1561 Ivan the Terrible did not blind the architects of St Basil's Cathedral.
- 1556 · 1584 Ivan the Terrible, the Mughal emperor Akbar and Elizabeth I were contemporaries: from 1558 to 1584 all three reigned at the same time.
- 1556 · 1605 The Mughal emperor Akbar assembled a library of 24,000 volumes but apparently could not read himself.
- 1561 · 1632 St Basil's Cathedral is more than 70 years older than the Taj Mahal: it was consecrated in 1561, and work on the Agra mausoleum began only in 1632.