1433
Zheng He Dies at Sea
On the return leg of his seventh voyage, the admiral who had linked China to Africa by sail died somewhere in the Indian Ocean and was, most likely, buried at sea. The Confucian court at Beijing quietly dismantled the shipyards. The treasure fleets would never sail again. His tomb in Nanjing became a pilgrimage site for Chinese Muslims, and his voyages remain a source of national pride and scholarly debate.
Cosimo de Medici Exiled from Florence
The Albizzi faction briefly banished the banker whose vaults held half of Europe's debts. Within a year the city's merchants realized they needed him more than their own government and recalled him. Cosimo returned, destroyed his enemies through tax audits rather than executions, and began four generations of Medici rule.
Tuareg Sack Timbuktu
Tuareg nomads from the southern Sahara seized Timbuktu from its weakened Mali overlords, disrupting the scholarly and commercial life of West Africa's most famous city of learning for a generation. The Sankore madrasa continued teaching Islamic jurisprudence and astronomy under new masters, but trade revenues were diverted. The city would change hands again when Songhai's Sunni Ali conquered it three decades later, beginning another turbulent chapter in its restless history.