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The 1390s

498 sourced entries across 10 years, inside the 14th century. Each year below opens its own page; the lines under it are that year’s highest-ranked entries.

1390 CE51 entries

  • February 16 – At Heidelberg (now in Germany) Ruprecht II of the House of Wittelsbach becomes the new Elector of the Palatinate in the Holy Roman Empire upon the death of his uncle, Rupert I.
  • May 26 – Lithuanian Civil War: The Treaty of Königsberg is signed in Königsberg, between Samogitian nobles and representatives of the Teutonic Knights.
  • October 9 – King Juan, ruler of the Crown of Castile and the Kingdom of León, is fatally injured when he is thrown from his horse while he is participating in an exhibition of horsemanship before a crowd at Alcalá de Henares. The Archbishop of Toledo, Pedro Tenorio, conceals the news of King Juan's death from the public until a regency council can be created for the King's 11-year-old son, Prince Enrique of Trastámara, who is proclaimed as King Enrique III.

1391 CE38 entries

  • February 16 –Manuel II Palaiologos becomes Byzantine emperor after his father, John V Palaiologos, dies from a nervous breakdown, due to his continued humiliation by the Ottoman Empire.
  • June 6 – Massacre of 1391: Anti-Jewish pogroms erupt in Seville, Spain. Many thousands of Jews are massacred, and the violence spreads throughout Spain and Portugal, especially to Toledo, Barcelona and Mallorca. This event marks a turning-point in the history of the Spanish Jews, with most of the survivors leaving the Iberian Peninsula or being forced to convert.
  • November 2 – Al-Nasir Muhammad Salah al-Din, Imam of the Zaydi sect of Shia Islam in Yemen, dies at San'a from injuries sustained from being thrown off of his mule. Nasir's death is not announced for two months while his son Al-Mansur Ali bin Salah ad-Din becomes the new Imam but three other claimants attempt to claim the office as well.

1392 CE50 entries

  • August 5 – King Charles VI of France (later known as "Charles the Mad") first displays symptoms of psychosis while crossing through the forests of Le Mans, attacking his own soldiers with his sword while under the delusion that they are enemy troops from the Duchy of Brittany. Charles' madness enables Philip II, Duke of Burgundy, to strengthen his power in the French court.
  • August 5 – At Gaegyeong, General Yi Sŏng-gye crowns himself King Taejo of Korea, ending the Goryeo dynasty in the Korean Peninsula, and establishing the Joseon dynasty, which will last for more than 500 years.
  • September 24 – Zhu Yuanzhang, the Hongwu Emperor of Ming dynasty China, declares that all males must wear the queue hairstyle.

1393 CE65 entries

  • February 10 – The English Parliament adjourns after three weeks and the passage of numerous laws. Among the acts given royal assent are the Trade Act 1392 ("No merchant stranger shall buy or sell with another merchant stranger to sell again"), the Statute of Praemunire (which outlaws appealing an English court case to the Pope if the King of England objects) and the Weights and Measures Act 1392 ("The clerk of the market shall carry with him all his weights and measures signed.")
  • April 3 - Philippe III de Thurey, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Lyon issues warrants approved by the Avignon Pope Clement VII to expel the officers of France's King Charles VI from Lyon, and drives the King's Sénéchal and deputies out of town.
  • April 14 - To resolve issues remaining from the six-year long war in Myanmar between the Kingdom of Ava and the Hanthawaddy Kingdom, a delegation sent by King Swa Saw Ke of Ava arrives at Nanjing, capital of Ming dynasty China, to seek the aid of the court of the Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang. The mission is unsuccessful.

1394 CE57 entries

  • August 15 – Two months after being captured by King Zsigmond of Hungary, the Serbian rebel Janos Horvati, is brutally executed at Pécs by dismemberment to avenge the 1387 execution of the former Queen consort of Hungary, Elizabeth of Bosnia.
  • November 29 – The capital city of the Joseon dynasty (in present-day Korea) is moved from Gaegyeong (now Gaeseong) to Hanseong (now Seoul).
  • 25 December – Richard defines the borders of English rule in Ireland; later to become known as the English Pale.

1395 CE41 entries

  • May 17 – Mary of Hungary dies, ending of the reign of Hungary by the Capet-Anjou family. Her co-reigning estranged husband, King Sigismund, becomes sole ruler of Hungary.
  • June 3 – Sultan Bayezid I of the Ottoman Empire has the former Bulgarian Emperor Ivan Shishman beheaded after Shishman is accused of collaborating with the Principality of Wallachia during the 1394 Battle of Karanovasa.
  • September 8 – The death of King Stjepan Dabiša leads to the election of his wife Jelena Gruba as Queen of Bosnia. However, most of the Bosnian land is soon appropriated by King Sigismund of Hungary.

1396 CE50 entries

  • July 20 – Queen Margaret I of Denmark, Norway and Sweden publishes the Treaty of Kalmar, proposing the personal union of the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway (with Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Shetland and Orkney) and Sweden (including Finland and Åland).
  • September 12 – The Crusaders, with more than 17,000 troops from France, Hungary, the Knights Hospitaler, Wallachia and the Holy Roman Empire , arrive at the outskirts of Nicopolis (now Nikopol in Bulgaria).
  • September 25 – Battle of Nicopolis: The Ottomans defeat a joint crusade by Hungary, France, the Holy Roman Empire, and Wallachia, led by King Sigismund of Hungary. This is the last large-scale crusade of the Middle Ages.

1397 CE54 entries

  • April 20 – At Kalaburagi in the Bahmani Kingdom (now in India's state of Karnataka) Ghiyath-ad-din Shah becomes the new Shah upon the death of his father, Mohammed Shah II.
  • October 13 – Richard Whittington, Lord Mayor of London since June 8 when he was chosen by King Richard II following the June 6 death of the Lord Mayor Adam Bamme, is overwhelmingly approved by London's freemen to serve permanently after Whittington had negotiated a deal to settle its debt to the King for £10,000.
  • December 31 – The Peace of Breno is signed in Val Camonica to temporarily halt the fighting between the Guelphs (who favor the Republic of Venice) and the Ghibellines (who favor the Duchy of Milan) in the fighting between the two nations.

1398 CE45 entries

  • July 14 – In what is now central Turkey, Kadi Burhan al-Din, the vizier of and regent for the Sultanate of Eretnia, on a campaign to conquer the Emirate of Erzincan (eastern Turkey and western Armenia) and capture its Emir Mutahharten, is killed in battle by Qara Yuluk Uthman Beg.
  • July 27 – Following the consensus of the Assembly of Paris of that had begun meeting on May 11, King Charles V of France signs an ordinance withdrawing obedience to both the French Avignon pope Benedict XIII and to Rome's Pope Boniface IX to issue benefices to persons who offer services to the Catholic Church. An army led by Geoffrey Boucicaut occupies Avignon, and starts a five-year siege of the papal palace.
  • September 16 – King Richard II of England exiles his cousin Henry Bolingbroke (the future Henry IV of England) for 10 years, in order to end Henry's feud with Thomas de Mowbray, 1st Duke of Norfolk, who is also exiled.

1399 CE47 entries

  • January 13 – In the Delhi Sultanate in what is now the Uttarakhand state of India, Timur the Lame captures and sacks Haridwar.
  • August 12 – At the Battle of the Vorskla River, Golden Horde forces, led by Mongol Khan Temür Qutlugh and Emir Edigu, annihilate a crusading army led by former Golden Horde Khan Tokhtamysh, and Grand Duke Vytautas of Lithuania..
  • December 10 – Manuel II Palaiologos, The Emperor of Byzantium, departs from Constantinople along with French General Jean II Le Maingre (known as Boucicaut) and a ships of the Venetian navy on a diplomatic mission to obtain military aid, traveling first to the Republic of Venice to negotiate with the Doge Antonio Venier.