Timur died marching on China in 1405 — the very year China sent its great fleet to sea. The conqueror died at Otrar in February; that summer Zheng He's ships set out on their first voyage.
The events
- Battle of Ankara1402 · Çubuk plain, near Ankara. Timur routed the army of Sultan Bayezid I the Thunderbolt and took him prisoner; Bayezid died in captivity in 1403. His sons fought each other for the throne for a decade, and the Ottoman state nearly fell apart. The defeat delayed the fall of Constantinople by half a century.
- Voyages of Zheng He1405–1433 · Nanjing. Admiral Zheng He's fleet of hundreds of ships made seven voyages across the Indian Ocean, reaching Arabia and the East African coast. The expeditions displayed Ming power, but the court halted them after 1433.
More amazing facts
- 1400 · 1800 Chastity belts were almost certainly not worn in the Middle Ages.
- 1405 · 1498 Zheng He's first fleet sailed in 1405, 93 years before Vasco da Gama reached India.
- 1405 · 1429 Europe's first woman to make a living as a writer praised Joan of Arc while Joan was still alive.
- 1405 · 1941 Tamerlane's tomb was opened on 20 June 1941, two days before Germany invaded the USSR.
- 1408 · 1900 Less than 4% survives of the world's largest encyclopedia before Wikipedia.
- 1408 · 1492 By the time Columbus sailed, there were probably no Europeans left in Greenland.