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1449 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 · RussiaIvan III1440–1505Grand prince of Moscow from 1462 to 1505, born in 1440, who made Russia an independent power. He ended two centuries of Mongol overlordship by refusing tribute in 1480, annexed Novgorod and other principalities, and took the title sovereign of all Russia. The double headed eagle became Russia's emblem under him.

Ruler · High and Late Middle Ages · PeruPachacutir. c. 1438–c. 1471Ninth Sapa Inca, reigning about 1438 to 1471, who turned a small highland kingdom into the Inca Empire. He rebuilt Cusco as the imperial capital and launched the conquests that carried Inca rule the length of the Andes. The empire's roads, storehouses and terraces were largely his work.