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1316 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

Ruler · High and Late Middle Ages · MaliMansa Musar. c. 1312–c. 1337Emperor of Mali from about 1312 to about 1337, whose pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324 displayed wealth that astonished the Islamic world. His caravan carried so much gold that he depressed the price of gold in Egypt for years. He built mosques and schools that made Timbuktu a center of learning.

Ruler · High and Late Middle Ages · ChinaHongwu Emperor1328–1398Founder of China's Ming dynasty, reigning from 1368 to 1398, born Zhu Yuanzhang in 1328 to a poor peasant family. He rose through the Red Turban rebellion, drove the Mongol Yuan dynasty out of China, and made Nanjing his capital. His rule restored Han Chinese government after nearly a century of Mongol rule.