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1148 CE

This year falls in the High and Late Middle Ages (c. 1000–1500 CE). Trade grows across Eurasia, and in the thirteenth century the Mongols build the largest connected land empire in history. The Black Death kills a large share of the people of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa from the 1340s, and the era closes with the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and the first European voyages to the Americas.

Within fifteen years

Country · PortugalPortugal1139–Portugal is a country on the Iberian Peninsula, facing the Atlantic. It became a kingdom in 1139 and built the first global seaborne empire in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It has been a republic since 1910.

Philosopher · High and Late Middle Ages · SpainMaimonides1138–1204Jewish philosopher, rabbi, and physician born at Cordoba who fled persecution and settled at Fustat in Egypt, where he served Saladin's court. His Guide for the Perplexed joins Aristotle to the Torah. He lived 1138 to 1204.

Ruler · High and Late Middle Ages · EgyptSaladinc. 1137–1193Sultan of Egypt and Syria from 1174 to 1193, born Yusuf ibn Ayyub about 1137, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. He destroyed the crusader army at Hattin in 1187 and retook Jerusalem, ending nearly ninety years of crusader rule there. His chivalry toward his enemies made him famous in Europe as well as in Islam.