1414
Council of Constance Opens
Sigismund convened the largest church gathering in a century to end the Papal Schism and silence the Bohemian heretic Jan Hus. Thirty thousand clerics, merchants, and prostitutes descended on the lakeside town. It would take four years to produce one pope, and only one man would be burned. Its agenda encompassed ending the schism, reforming the Church, and suppressing heresy, though procedural disputes consumed enormous energy.
Parameswara of Malacca Converts to Islam
The Hindu-Buddhist founder of Malacca adopted Islam and took the name Iskandar Shah, cementing the port city's vital commercial alliance with Muslim traders arriving from Gujarat, Arabia, and the Swahili coast. The conversion transformed Malacca into the primary vector for Islam's rapid spread across the entire Malay Archipelago, eventually carrying the faith to the shores of Java, Sumatra, Mindanao, and the spice islands of the eastern seas.
Khizr Khan Founds the Sayyid Dynasty in Delhi
After Timur's devastating invasion left northern India in smoking fragments, his appointed governor Khizr Khan established a new ruling house in Delhi that claimed descent from the Prophet Muhammad himself. The Sayyid sultans ruled little beyond the capital's immediate hinterland, their authority a shadow of earlier sultanate power. Their weakness signaled the deep political fragmentation of north India that would persist until Babur arrived with artillery a century later.
Bengali Sultan Builds Adina Mosque at Pandua
Sultan Sikandar Shah of the Ilyas Shahi dynasty completed the Adina Mosque at Pandua in Bengal, one of the largest mosques ever built on the Indian subcontinent. Its vast prayer hall, modeled on the Great Mosque of Damascus but built with local brick and terracotta, could hold thousands of worshippers. Bengal's Islamic architecture was developing a distinctive identity independent of Delhi's influence.