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1455 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

Philosopher · Early modern period · ItalyNiccolò Machiavelli1469–1527Florentine diplomat and author of The Prince and the Discourses on Livy. Effectual truth over imagined republics; republican institutions in the Discourses.

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.