1291 CE

Siege of Acre: Mamluk forces under Sultan Al-Ashraf Khalil capture Acre after a six-week siege. The Mamluks take the outer wall of the city after fierce fighting. The Military Orders drive them back temporarily, but three days later the inner wall is breached. King Henry II of Cyprus escapes, but the bulk of the defenders and most of the citizens perish in the fighting or are sold into slavery. The surviving knights fall back to the fortified towers and resist for ten days until the Mamluks breakthrough on May 28. The fall of Acre signals the end of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. No effective Crusade is raised to recapture the Holy Land afterward. Federal Charter of 1291: The "three forest cantons" (Waldstätte) of Switzerland (Schwyz, Uri and Unterwalden) form a defensive alliance to protect themselves from the House of Habsburg; this is a starting point for growth of the Old Swiss Confederacy. This year is also the traditional date of the Rütli Oath (Rütlischwur), the swearing of an oath by the three cantonal representatives at Rütli meadow. Mamluk forces conquer the last Crusader outpost in Syria, the Templar fortress of Atlit south of Acre. All that now is left to the Knights Templar is the island fortress of Ruad. Al-Ashraf Khalil returns to Cairo in triumph as the "victor in the long struggle against the Crusader states".

In the 1290s, the 13th century.