The Mongol invasions of Japan of 1274 and 1281 were major events of macrohistorical importance, despite their ultimate failures. These invasion attempts are among the most famous events in Japanese history, and due to their role in setting...

Musa I was the tenth Mansa, which translates as "King of Kings" or "Emperor", of the wealthy Mali Empire. At the time of Mansa Musa's rise to the throne, the Malian Empire consisted of territory formerly belonging to the Ghana Empire and Me...

The Majapahit Empire was a vast archipelagic empire based on the island of Java (modern-day Indonesia) from 1293 to around 1500. Majapahit reached its peak of glory during the era of Hayam Wuruk, whose reign from 1350 to 1389 was marked by...

The Hundred Years' War was a series of wars waged from 1337 to 1453 by the House of Valois and the House of Plantagenet, also known as the House of Anjou, for the French throne, which had become vacant upon the extinction of the senior Cape...

The Most Noble Order of the Garter is an order of chivalry, or knighthood, originating in medieval England, and presently bestowed on recipients in the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms; it is the pinnacle of the honours system i...

The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 75 to 200 million people in Eurasia, peaking in Europe from 1347 to 1351. The bacterium Yersinia pestis, which results in se...

The Limbourg brothers, Paul, Jean, and Hermann, were a Netherlandish family of manuscript illuminators. All three died in 1416, presumably of the plague. Paul is thought to be the eldest and therefore the head of the workshop, but the firs...

The Peasants' Revolt, also called Wat Tyler's Rebellion or the Great Rising, was a major uprising across large parts of England in 1381. The revolt had various causes, including the socio-economic and political tensions generated by the Bla...

The Battle of Nicopolis took place on 25 September 1396 and resulted in the rout of an allied army of Hungarian, Bulgarian, Wallachian, French, Burgundian, German and assorted troops (assisted by the Venetian navy) at the hands of an Ottoma...

Originating in Bruges, the Gruuthuse Manuscript is a very diverse collection of Middle Dutch rhyming literature which was compiled in about 1400. There are many reasons why it can be described as special. Perhaps the most important of these...

The Yongle Encyclopedia, literally The Great Canon or Vast Documents of the Yongle Era, was a Chinese compilation commissioned by the Chinese Ming Dynasty emperor Yongle in 1403 and completed by 1408. Until Wikipedia, it was the world's lar...

Joan of Arc (French: Jeanne d'Arc), nicknamed "The Maid of Orléans" (French: La Pucelle d'Orléans), is considered a heroine of France for her role during the Lancastrian phase of the Hundred Years' War and was canonized as a Roman Catholic...

The Battle of Agincourt was a major English victory against a numerically superior French army in the Hundred Years' War. The battle occurred on Friday 25 October 1415 (Saint Crispin's Day, November 3. NS), near modern day Azincourt, in nor...

Rowan Gavin Paton Menzies was a British author and retired submarine lieutenant-commander who has written books promoting claims that the Chinese sailed to America before Columbus. Historians have rejected Menzies' theories and assertions a...

Machu Picchu is a pre-Columbian Inca site located 2,430 metres (8,000 ft) above sea level. It is situated on a mountain ridge above the Urubamba Valley in Peru, which is 80 kilometres (50 mi) northwest of Cuzco and through which the Urubamb...