1410
Battle of Grunwald
The Polish-Lithuanian hosts under Jogaila and Vytautas crushed the Teutonic Knights in a dusty forest clearing in Prussia. Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen died in the melee; two hundred white-mantled knights were left face-down in the ferns. The Order's four-century crusade against the pagan Baltic was broken in an afternoon.
Herat Becomes Timurid Cultural Capital
Under Shah Rukh and his formidable wife Goharshad, Herat in modern Afghanistan became the undisputed jewel of the Timurid Renaissance. Mosques clad in turquoise tile rose beside madrasas where Persian miniature painting reached its zenith of refinement. The Goharshad Mosque complex, designed by the architect Qavam al-Din Shirazi, would stand as Central Asia's greatest architectural achievement of the century, rivaling anything built in Europe.
Mwene Mutapa Emerges
The Shona kingdom of Mutapa was taking form north of the Zambezi as Great Zimbabwe declined. Its rulers styled themselves Mwene Mutapa, controlling gold exports that would later attract Portuguese traders. Swahili merchants already carried Mutapa gold to Kilwa and thence to Arabia, India, and China. The kingdom's stone enclosures, built without mortar, dotted the Zambezi corridor and marked the northward migration of Shona power.
Jean Fouquet Born in Tours
The French painter who would bridge Gothic precision and Italian perspective was born to an obscure priest. He would eventually travel to Rome, paint the Virgin with Agnes Sorel's bared breast, and return to transform French illumination into something the Medici could respect. His naturalistic panel portraits later pioneered a precision borrowing from Flemish oil technique while retaining French manuscript clarity.