1276
Yuan forces capture the Song capital Lin'an
After decades of slow reduction, Bayan's Mongol army occupied Lin'an, modern Hangzhou, without serious resistance. The child emperor and the empress dowager surrendered. The Song court, or its remnants, fled south with loyalists into the mountains of Fujian and Guangdong. The fall of Lin'an, once the most populous and prosperous city on earth, marked the beginning of the end for the last Chinese dynasty.
James I of Aragon dies at Valencia
The Conqueror who had taken Mallorca and Valencia from Muslim rulers and sired a vast brood of legitimate and illegitimate sons died at seventy-eight in the city he had made his own. His kingdom was divided among heirs, sowing the conflict that would become the War of the Vespers. His autobiography, the Llibre dels Fets, is one of the few medieval royal memoirs written in the vernacular.
Inca lords consolidate Cusco valley
In the high Andean valley around Cusco, a small Quechua-speaking polity under its early sinchis began absorbing neighboring ayllus through marriage alliances and seasonal warfare. The kingdom was still modest, its stone walls rough, but the organizational genius that would build Tawantinsuyu was already germinating in the thin mountain air.
Llywelyn ap Gruffudd submits at Aberconwy
The last native Prince of Wales, overwhelmed by Edward I's massive invasion force, was forced to sign the Treaty of Aberconwy, surrendering most of his territory and retaining only a rump principality in Snowdonia. Welsh independence survived in name only; the real power now lay with English garrisons and English law.