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The 1400s

545 sourced entries across 10 years, inside the 15th century. Each year below opens its own page; the lines under it are that year’s highest-ranked entries.

1400 CE71 entries

  • April 25 – Jingnan campaign: In the Shandong province of Ming dynasty China, Zhu Di, Prince of Yan, defeats the Imperial forces of General Li Jinglong in the two-day Battle of Baigou River, by taking advantage of the chaos that results when a gust of wind breaks the staff of General Li's flag of battle. The Yan forces capture 100,000 of the Imperial soldiers as prisoners and Li and the others retreat to Jinan.
  • June 5 – Duke Frederick I of Brunswick-Lüneburg is assassinated after being identified as a rival to Wenceslaus, Holy Roman Emperor. Frederick, on his way back from a May 22 meeting of the prince-electors, is ambushed by a party of men led by Count Henry of Waldeck while passing through the village of Kleinenglis in the Principality of Waldeck and Pyrmont (now part of the German state of Hesse, near Borken).
  • August 14 – King Henry IV leads the English Army into Scotland, after receiving no answer from Scotland's King Robert III to his August 6 demand. The troops reach Haddington, East Lothian the next day and at Leith, on the outskirts of Edinburgh, by August 18. As historian James Hamilton Wylie will note almost 500 years later, "the walls of Edinburgh did not fall before this ram's-horn blast, and August 23rd came and went without the required homage or recognition."

1401 CE58 entries

  • June – The English Pale in Ireland is reduced to Dublin, County Kildare, County Louth, and County Meath.
  • July 9 – (27 Dhu al-Qadah 803 A.H.) Timur raids the city of Baghdad, in the Jalayirid Empire, then carries out a massacre of its inhabitants, including women and children, as punishment for resisting his rule. According to accounts later, "90,000 human heads were piled up on the public places of the town." The only persons spared death are "theologians, shaikhs and dervishes", and the only buildings not demolished are "mosques, universities and hostels."
  • November 2 – The Battle of Tuthill takes place at Caernarfon in Wales as Owain Glyndŵr loses 300 soldiers in an attack by the English Army.

1402 CE66 entries

  • March 26 – David Stewart, Duke of Rothesay, heir to the throne of Scotland, dies while being held captive by his uncle, Robert Stewart, 1st Duke of Albany.
  • August 15 – King Enrique III of Castile and León (comprising most of Spain) signs a peace treaty with his brother-in-law, King João I of Portugal, ending fighting that began in 1396. The wives of the two kings, Catherine of Lancaster and Philippa of Lancaster respectively, are sisters.
  • December 26 – (3rd waxing of Tabodwe 764 ME) Ava–Hanthawaddy War: In what is now Myanmar, the forces of the Ava Kingdom, led by King Minkhaung I defeat King Razadarit of the Kingdom of Hanthawaddy in the Battle of Nawin, forcing Razadarit to abandon the siege of Prome.

1403 CE70 entries

  • March 13 – Muhammad Sultan Mirza, the favorite grandson and heir to the throne of the Emperor Tamerlane, Emperor of Transoxiana (comprising modern Afghanistan and parts of Iran, Tadzikstan and Kazakhstan), dies from injuries sustained in the Battle of Ankara.
  • April – Balša III succeeds his father Đurađ II as ruler of the Principality of Zeta (now Montenegro).
  • September 4 – The first 200 Chinese treasure ships are ordered by the new Ming dynasty Emperor Cheng Zu from the Capital Guards at Nanjing.

1404 CE50 entries

  • April 27 – At Dijon, in France's Burgundian State, John the Fearless (Jean sans Peur), nephew of Charles VI of France, becomes the new Duke of Burgundy upon the death of his father, Philip the Bold.
  • May - The Battle of Blackpool Sands. A French force raids the English coast as part of the Hundred Years War.
  • June 14 – Welsh rebel leader Owain Glyndŵr enters an alliance with the French against the English. He has begun to hold parliamentary assemblies (first on May 10 at Dolgellau).

1405 CE43 entries

  • March 21 – John the Fearless, already Duke of Burgundy, becomes the Count of Flanders upon the death of his mother, Margaret III, Countess of Flanders, bringing the French speakers of Burgundy and the Flemish speaking citizens of Flanders under common rule in what will later become the Kingdom of Belgium.
  • May 5 – At the Battle of Pwll Melyn, fought in Wales, Baron Grey of Codnor routs the Welsh rebels commanded by two sons and the brother of the rebel leader Owain Glyndwr. Owain's eldest son, Gruffud, is taken as a prisoner of war by the English, while the brother, Tudur ap Gruffudd, is killed in action.
  • July 11 – Ming Dynasty fleet commander Zheng He sets sail from Suzhou, to explore the world for the first time.

1406 CE51 entries

  • January 22 – Abū al-Faḍl Al-Musta'in becomes the new Abbasid caliph of Cairo, spiritual leader of the Muslim faith in the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt, succeeding his father, Al-Mutawakkil I.
  • April 4 – James I becomes King of Scotland on the death of his father. He has been detained by Henry IV of England since March 30 and will remain at the English court for 18 years. With James absent, Robert Stewart, Duke of Albany administers the kingdom as "Governor of Scotland".
  • June 4 – The Chinese merchant Chen Yanxiang and his crew of 121 people depart from Java to Korea on the pretext of being Java's ambassador to Korea. His djong ship carries with it with various Southeast Asian products, including parrots, peacocks, agarwood, camphor, and black pepper.

1407 CE42 entries

  • April 10 – After several invitations by the Emperor Cheng Zu of China, the lama Deshin Shekpa, the fifth Karmapa of the Karma Kagyu sect of Tibetan Buddhism, finally visits the Emperor at Nanjing, the Ming dynasty. In his 22-day visit, the Karmapa thrills the Ming court with alleged miracles that are recorded in a gigantic scroll, translated into five different languages. In a show of mystical prowess, Deshin Shekpa adds legitimacy to a questionable succession to the throne by Cheng Zu, who had killed his nephew the Jianwen Emperor in the culmination of a civil war. For his services to the Ming court, including his handling of the ceremonial rites of Cheng Zu's deceased parents, Deshin Shekpa is awarded the title Great Treasure Prince of Dharma (大寶法王).
  • April 23 – The Banco di San Giorgio is founded by the government of the Republic of Genoa in Italy.
  • May 4 – Ming–Việt War: A Vietnamese force of 70,000 troops attempts to stop the advance of the Chinese at the Hong River at the Ham Tu pass in what is now Vietnam's Hưng Yên province. With superior firepower, the Chinese kill over 10,000 Viet troops and capture hundreds of warships.

1408 CE43 entries

  • January 12 – Western Schism: King Charles VI of France sends a letter to the Antipope Benedict XIII at Avignon, giving an ultimatum to Benedict and the other Avignon Papacy proponents to end the schism in the Roman Catholic Church against the Roman Obedience, headed by Pope Gregory XII. King Charles VI threatens that unless the schism ends by Ascension Day, 40 days after Easter (in 1408, April 24, with Ascension Day on June 3), France will end its support of the Avignon Obedience.
  • September 16 – Thorstein Olafssøn marries Sigrid Bjørnsdatter in Hvalsey Church, in the last recorded event of the Norse history of Greenland.
  • September 23 – Henry, Prince of Wales (later Henry V of England) retakes Aberystwyth from Owain Glyndŵr.

1409 CE51 entries

  • February 15 – The Galle Trilingual Inscription, with inscriptions in three languages (Chinese, Tamil and Persian) is installed by the Chinese admiral Zheng He at Galle in Sri Lanka, where he has stopped while on his way home during the second of his treasure voyages.
  • March 25 – On the day of the Feast of the Annunciation, the Council of Pisa opens at the Cathedral of Pisa with 22 cardinals, four patriarchs and 80 bishops to seek an end to the Western Schism and resolve the conflict between Pope Gregory XII of the Rome and Antipope Benedict XIII of Avignon.
  • December 9 – Louis II of Anjou founds the University of Aix-en-Provence.