Less than 4% survives of the world's largest encyclopedia before Wikipedia.
The Yongle Encyclopedia, the work of 2,169 scholars, existed only in manuscript copies; nearly all were lost, many in a Beijing fire in 1900.
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- 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.
- 1405 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.
- 1408 · 1492 By the time Columbus sailed, there were probably no Europeans left in Greenland.
- 1410 · 1490 Legend says the maker of Prague's astronomical clock was blinded so he could not build another.