1294
Kublai Khan dies at Dadu
The first Yuan emperor, increasingly obese and grieving his favorite wife and son, died at eighty in his palace. His funeral cortege carried him in secret back to Mongolia for burial in an unmarked grave near Genghis Khan's. The Yuan dynasty entered a period of dynastic drift. His death ended the last realistic hope of Mongol unity, as the western khanates had long since gone their own ways.
Celestine V resigns the papacy
An aged hermit reluctantly elevated to the throne of Peter found the politics of Rome unbearable. After five months he read a statement of resignation, the first ever by a pope, and returned to his cave. His successor Boniface VIII promptly imprisoned him to be safe. Dante placed Celestine in the vestibule of Hell for making the great refusal, a judgment that has divided commentators ever since.
Boniface VIII elected after Celestine's resignation
Benedetto Caetani was elected pope after the abdication of the hermit Celestine V. A trained canon lawyer with an extravagant sense of papal authority, he would soon clash with Philip IV of France in a confrontation that would damage the papacy's prestige for a century. His bull Unam Sanctam declared that submission to the pope was necessary for salvation, the most extreme claim of papal supremacy ever issued.
Japanese Kamakura shogunate under financial strain
The Hojo regents of Kamakura, having defeated two Mongol invasions, found themselves unable to reward their samurai vassals because no conquered lands had resulted. Warrior resentment deepened, setting the slow fuse that would explode the shogunate four decades later. The financial crisis exposed a fatal flaw in the feudal system: warriors who fought without prospect of reward had no reason to remain loyal.