1395
Battle of the Terek: Timur breaks Tokhtamysh
On the steppe river in the northern Caucasus, Timur destroyed the Golden Horde army of his former protege. Tokhtamysh fled into the Lithuanian forests. Timur then sacked Sarai and Astrakhan, ravaging the Volga trade cities that had sustained the Horde's commercial power. The Horde never recovered its dominance, and Russian principalities began drifting freer of Tatar overlordship.
Wenceslaus IV elevates Milan to a duchy
For a hundred thousand florins, the Holy Roman Emperor granted Gian Galeazzo Visconti the title of Duke of Milan, formalizing his accumulation of Lombard cities into a legitimate principality. Visconti would soon press south toward Florence and very nearly assemble the first Italian regional state before plague carried him off at the height of his ambition.
Chimu Empire under Minchancaman
On Peru's northern coast, the Chimu king completed conquests stretching from Tumbes to Casma, absorbing neighboring kingdoms into a centralized polity ruled from adobe Chan Chan, the largest pre-Columbian city in South America. His successors would fall to the Inca within two generations, but Chimu metallurgy and weaving would be absorbed into Inca craft.
Gian Galeazzo Visconti purchases ducal title
The Milanese signore paid Emperor Wenceslaus a vast sum for the title of Duke of Milan, formalizing his rule over a domain stretching from Piedmont to the Veneto. The Visconti court at Pavia and Milan patronized early humanist scholarship and commissioned the monumental Certosa monastery. Gian Galeazzo nearly united northern Italy before plague took him in 1402.