The Horde's rule over Rus' ended with the Great Stand on the Ugra in 1480 — only 12 years before Columbus reached the Americas.
The events
- Great Stand on the Ugra River1480 · Ugra River. The armies of Grand Prince Ivan III and Khan Akhmat of the Great Horde faced each other across the Ugra River for weeks until Akhmat withdrew without battle. The event traditionally marks the end of the Tatar yoke over Russia.
- Columbus reaches the Americas1492 · Guanahani. Christopher Columbus, sailing for Spain in search of a western route to Asia, landed on the Bahamian island of Guanahani on 12 October 1492. It began lasting contact between the Old and New Worlds, transforming both hemispheres.
More amazing facts
- 1450 · 1564 Ivan Fyodorov's Apostol (1564), the first precisely dated Russian printed book, came out more than a century after Gutenberg's press.
- 1450 Machu Picchu and Gutenberg's press are the same age: around 1450 the Incas were building their mountain estate while Mainz printed its first books.
- 1480 · 1492 Rus threw off the Horde in 1480 and Spain completed the Reconquista in 1492: two centuries-long struggles ended almost together.
- 1485 · 1508 The Kremlin's present walls were built by Italian masters (1485–1495).
- 1492 1492: Granada fell in January, Columbus reached the Americas in October, and in November the Ensisheim meteorite fell in Alsace — one of Europe's oldest witnessed falls.
- 1494 · 1497 Ivan III's law code (1497) appeared three years after Spain and Portugal divided the world between them at Tordesillas.