Listed are only events that solely occurred on command of church authorities or
were committed in the name of Christianity. (List incomplete)
Ancient Pagans
As soon as Christianity was legal (315), more and more pagan temples were
destroyed by Christian mob. Pagan priests were killed.
Between 315 and 6th century thousands of pagan believers were slain.
Examples of destroyed Temples: the Sanctuary of Aesculap in Aegaea, the
Temple of Aphrodite in Golgatha, Aphaka in Lebanon, the Heliopolis.
Christian priests such as Mark of Arethusa or Cyrill of Heliopolis were
famous as "temple destroyer." [DA468]
Pagan services became punishable by death in 356. [DA468]
Christian Emperor Theodosius (408-450) even had children executed, because
they had been playing with remains of pagan statues. [DA469]
According to Christian chroniclers he "followed meticulously all Christian
teachings..."
In 6th century pagans were declared void of all rights.
In the early fourth century the philosopher Sopatros was executed on demand
of Christian authorities. [DA466]
The world famous female philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria was torn to
pieces with glass fragments by a hysterical Christian mob led by a
Christian minister named Peter, in a church, in 415.
[DO19-25]
Mission
Emperor Karl (Charlemagne) in 782 had 4500 Saxons, unwilling to convert to
Christianity, beheaded. [DO30]
Peasants of Steding (Germany) unwilling to pay suffocating church taxes:
between 5,000 and 11,000 men, women and children slain 5/27/1234
near Altenesch/Germany. [WW223]
Battle of Belgrad 1456: 80,000 Turks slaughtered. [DO235]
15th century Poland: 1019 churches and 17987 villages plundered by Knights
of the Order. Victims unknown. [DO30]
16th and 17th century Ireland. English troops "pacified and civilized"
Ireland, where only Gaelic "wild Irish", "unreasonable beasts lived without any
knowledge of God or good manners, in common of their goods, cattle, women,
children and every other thing." One of the more successful
soldiers, a certain Humphrey Gilbert, half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh,
ordered that "the heddes of all those (of what sort soever thei were) which
were killed in the daie, should be cutte off from their bodies... and
should bee laied on the ground by eche side of the waie", which effort to
civilize
the Irish indeed caused "greate terrour to the people when thei sawe the
heddes of their dedde fathers, brothers, children, kinsfolke, and freinds on
the grounde".
Tens of thousands of Gaelic Irish fell victim to the carnage. [SH99, 225]
Crusades (1095-1291)
First Crusade: 1095 on command of pope Urban II. [WW11-41]
Semlin/Hungary 6/24/96 thousands slain. Wieselburg/Hungary 6/12/96
thousands. [WW23]
9/9/96-9/26/96 Nikaia, Xerigordon (then turkish), thousands respectively.
[WW25-27]
Until Jan 1098 a total of 40 capital cities and 200 castles conquered
(number of slain unknown) [WW30]
after 6/3/98 Antiochia (then turkish) conquered, between 10,000 and 60,000
slain. 6/28/98 100,000 Turks (incl. women & children) killed.
[WW32-35]
Here the Christians "did no other harm to the women found in [the enemy's]
tents - save that they ran their lances through their bellies," according to
Christian chronicler Fulcher of Chartres. [EC60]
Marra (Maraat an-numan) 12/11/98 thousands killed. Because of the
subsequent famine "the already stinking corpses of the enemies were eaten by
the Christians" said chronicler Albert Aquensis. [WW36]
Jerusalem conquered 7/15/1099 more than 60,000 victims (jewish, muslim,
men, women, children). [WW37-40]
(In the words of one witness: "there [in front of Solomon's temple] was
such a carnage that our people were wading ankle-deep in the blood of our
foes", and after that "happily and crying for joy our people marched to our
Saviour's tomb, to honour it and to pay off our debt of gratitude")
The Archbishop of Tyre, eye-witness, wrote: "It was impossible to look upon
the vast numbers of the slain without horror; everywhere lay
fragments of human bodies, and the very ground was covered with the blood
of the slain. It was not alone the spectacle of headless bodies and
mutilated limbs strewn in all directions that roused the horror of all who
looked upon them. Still more dreadful was it to gaze upon the victors
themselves, dripping with blood from head to foot, an ominous sight which
brought terror to all who met them. It is reported that within the Temple
enclosure alone about ten thousand infidels perished." [TG79]
Christian chronicler Eckehard of Aura noted that "even the following summer
in all of palestine the air was polluted by the stench of decomposition".
One million victims of the first crusade alone. [WW41]
Battle of Askalon, 8/12/1099. 200,000 heathens slaughtered "in the name of
Our Lord Jesus Christ". [WW45]
Fourth crusade: 4/12/1204 Constantinople sacked, number of victims unknown,
numerous thousands, many of them Christian. [WW141-148]
Rest of Crusades in less detail: until the fall of Akkon 1291 probably 20
million victims (in the Holy land and Arab/Turkish areas alone). [WW224]
Note: All figures according to contemporary (Christian) chroniclers.
Heretics
Already in 385 C.E. the first Christians, the Spanish Priscillianus and six
followers, were beheaded for heresy in Trier/Germany [DO26]
Manichaean heresy: a crypto-Christian sect decent enough to practice birth
control (and thus not as irresponsible as faithful Catholics) was
exterminated in huge campaigns all over the Roman empire between 372 C.E.
and 444 C.E. Numerous thousands of victims. [NC]
Albigensians: the first Crusade intended to slay other Christians. [DO29]
The Albigensians (cathars = Christians allegedly that have all rarely
sucked) viewed themselves as good Christians, but would not accept roman
Catholic rule, and taxes, and prohibition of birth control. [NC]
Begin of violence: on command of pope Innocent III (greatest single
pre-nazi mass murderer) in 1209. Beziérs (today France) 7/22/1209
destroyed, all the inhabitants were slaughtered. Victims (including
Catholics refusing to turn over their heretic neighbours and friends)
20,000-70,000. [WW179-181]
Carcassonne 8/15/1209, thousands slain. Other cities followed. [WW181]
subsequent 20 years of war until nearly all Cathars (probably half the
population of the Languedoc, today southern France) were exterminated.
[WW183]
After the war ended (1229) the Inquisition was founded 1232 to search and
destroy surviving/hiding heretics. Last Cathars burned at the stake
1324. [WW183]
Estimated one million victims (cathar heresy alone), [WW183]
Other heresies: Waldensians, Paulikians, Runcarians, Josephites, and many
others. Most of these sects exterminated, (I believe some Waldensians
live today, yet they had to endure 600 years of persecution) I estimate at
least hundred thousand victims (including the Spanish inquisition but
excluding victims in the New World).
Spanish Inquisitor Torquemada alone allegedly responsible for 10,220
burnings. [DO28]
John Huss, a critic of papal infallibility and indulgences, was burned at
the stake in 1415. [LI475-522]
University professor B.Hubmaier burned at the stake 1538 in Vienna. [DO59]
Giordano Bruno, Dominican monk, after having been incarcerated for seven
years, was burned at the stake for heresy on the Campo dei Fiori
(Rome) on 2/17/1600.
Religious Wars
15th century: Crusades against Hussites, thousands slain. [DO30]
1538 pope Paul III declared Crusade against apostate England and all
English as slaves of Church (fortunately had not power to go into action).
[DO31]
1568 Spanish Inquisition Tribunal ordered extermination of 3 million rebels
in (then Spanish) Netherlands. Thousands were actually slain. [DO31]
1572 In France about 20,000 Huguenots were killed on command of pope Pius
V. Until 17th century 200,000 flee. [DO31]
17th century: Catholics slay Gaspard de Coligny, a Protestant leader. After
murdering him, the Catholic mob mutilated his body, "cutting off his
head, his hands, and his genitals... and then dumped him into the river
[...but] then, deciding that it was not worthy of being food for the fish, they
hauled it out again [... and] dragged what was left ... to the gallows of
Montfaulcon, 'to be meat and carrion for maggots and crows'." [SH191]
17th century: Catholics sack the city of Magdeburg/Germany: roughly 30,000
Protestants were slain. "In a single church fifty women were found
beheaded," reported poet Friedrich Schiller, "and infants still sucking the
breasts of their lifeless mothers." [SH191]
17th century 30 years' war (Catholic vs. Protestant): at least 40% of
population decimated, mostly in Germany. [DO31-32]
Maybe it was these 1000 years he was talking about?
Bill Roh
Tim Rhodes wrote:
> Nate H. writes:
>
> >>From the fall of Rome in 476 to the fall of Constantinople in 1453. I
> >don't blame religion for the fall of Rome unlike Edward Gibbon but I do
> >think it prevented progress after the roman collapse.
>
> Just to make sure were on the same page here, if the following is this the
> same period your talking about, it would seem disease and famine had more to
> do with the duration of the the Dark Ages than religion did.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> -----------
>
> All events exerpted from _The People's Chonology; a Year-by-Year Record of
> Human Events from Prehistory to the Present_ by James Trager, typos and
> [bracketed text] are mine.
>
> 501 (date approximate) The /Susruta/ medical book that will become a
> classic of medicine in India is completed.
>
> 541-605 The Great Plague of Justinian (bubonic plague) spreads from Egypt
> to Palistine and thence to Constantinople and throughout the Roman-Byzantine
> world, bringing agiculture to a standstill and resulting in widespread
> famine in Europe, the Near East, and Asia over a period of 60 to 70 years.
> 5,000 to 10,000 _a day_ will die for period in Constantiople alone. [BTW, I
> find it hard to fault the Christians for this one, Nate.]
>
> 552 The European silk industry is begun by the emperor Justinian, who sends
> missionaries to China and Ceylon to smuggle silkworms out of the Orient.
>
> 558 Plauge takes a heavy toll throughout the Byzantine Empire.
>
> 590 Plague strikes Rome but subsides.
>
> 598 Food production increases in northern and western Europe as a result of
> agricultural technology introduced by the Slavs, who have made it possible
> to farm virgin lands whose heavy clay has discouraged agriculture. The
> Slavs employ a new, lightweight plow with a knife blade (coulter) that cuts
> vertically, deep into the soil, and a ploshare that cuts horizontally at the
> grassroots level, together with a shaped board (or moldboard) that moves the
> cut soil or turf nratly to one side.
>
> 598 A population explosion begings in northern and western Europe as new
> agriculture increases the availiblity of food.
>
> 598 The first English school is founded at Canterbury.
>
> 601 Indian physicians compile the /Vaghbata/. At least one Indian
> medicinal herb mentioned in the classic work--/Rauwolfia serpentina/--will
> be enployed in Western medicine. But this will not happen until 1949 [a
> good 500 years after the fall of Constaninople, Nate] when it will be
> confirmed, by an Indian doctor, to reduce high blood pressure. In 1952
> /reserpitine/, the acive ingredient in pure crystal form, will be isolated
> by Swiss chemists. Its effects not only on blood pressure, but also the
> reduction of anxiety will lead to the discovery of seritonin in the human
> brain the following year.)
>
> 626 Edinburgh is founded by Edwin of Northumbria, a Christian.
>
> 700-800 Blubonic plague apears in Sicily and southern Italy
>
> 711 Moors invading the Iberian Peninsula introduce rice, saffron, and
> sugar.
>
> 732 Bubonic plague again strikes Constantinople as it did in 541. The
> plague will kill as many as 200,000 in the next 4 years.
>
> 746 Contantinople is once again struck by plague, this one the worst since
> the 6th century Plague of Justinian.
>
> 750 Plague follows a famine in the Iberian Peninsula, taking a heavy toll.
>
> 765 European writings make the first known mention of a three-field
> crop-rotation system. The system makes a given section of land productive 2
> years out of three, instead of every other year as was previously the case.
> The second crop in this system is sown with barley, broad beans, chickpeas,
> lentils, oats, or peas--food with more protein value than the wheat or rye
> usually grown in the two-field system.
>
> 780 Charlemagne encourages the three-field system of crop rotation in his
> realms.
>
> 800-900 Agromatic science is now on the decline, despite the growing use of
> the three-field system, and while Scandinavians will inprove agriculture,
> which has been unprofitable since the 4th century [having nothing to do with
> religion, Nate], Europe will experience famines from now until the 12th
> century.
>
> 806 Famine strikes Japan.
>
> 809 Famine sweeps the empire of Charlemagne.
>
> 856 The first recorded major outbreak of ergotism occurs in the Rhine
> Valley, where thousands die after eating bread made from rye infected with
> the ergot fungus parasite /Claviceps purpura/. The fungus contians several
> alkaloid drugs including ergotamine, which is transformed in baking into an
> hallucinogen.
>
> 868 _The Diamond Sutra_ [yes, a religious text, Nate], produced in China,
> is the world's first printed book.
>
> 900 The first distinction between measles and smallpox is made by Rhazes,
> chief physician of a busy Baghdad hospital, who gives the first descriptions
> of smallpox and establishes criteria for diagnosing the disease that will be
> used until the 18th century.
>
> 900-1000 Eurpoe will suffer 20 sever famines this century, some lasting for
> 3 to 4 years. An alimentary crisis will occur every few years for the next
> 3 centuries, in fact, and as populations grow and become more urbanized, the
> famines will strike more cruely, although they may be fewer in number than
> in some earlier centuries.
>
> 915 Famine strikes the Iberian Peninsula, possibly as a result of wheat
> crop failure due to rust mold.
>
> 919 Famine returns to the Iberian Peninsula.
>
> 927 Famine devistates the Byzantine Empire. Constantinople's Constantine
> VII and his co-emperor and father-in-law Romanus Lecapenus push through
> stringent laws to prevent landed magnates from buying up the small holdings
> of poor farmers.
>
> 932 Printing is used for the first time to reproduce Confucian classics of
> the 5th century B.C.
>
> 943 Ergotism strikes Limoges in France, killing an estimated 40,000 who
> have eaten bread made from diseased rye.
>
> 970 A great hospital is founded at Baghdad by the vizier Adul al-Daula.
> Physicians are divided into the equivlent of interns and externs, a
> primative nursing system is developed, and the hospitals pharmacy is stocked
> with drugs from all parts of the world, including spices thought to have
> medicinal value.
>
> 973 Direct trade between Italy and Egypt begins.
>
> 975 Arabs introduce modern arithmetical notation, originally from India,
> into Europe making calculations much easier than with Roman numerals.
>
> 986 /al-Tasrif/ is compiled at Cordova and will serve for centuries as a
> mannual for surgery. Among the medical knowledge described it illustrates
> the position for lithotomy (cutting a stone out of the bladder),
> differentiates between goiter and cancer of the thyroid gland, and instructs
> surgeons in the delivery of infants in abnormal positions, the use of iron
> cautery, amputation of limbs, transverse tracheotomes, removal of goiters,
> tying of arteries, repair of fistulas, healing of aneurisms and arrow
> wounds, and other matters.
>
> 1000 The Indian mathematician Sridhara recognizes the importance of the
> zero.
>
> 1000-1100 Iron plows with wheels will replace wooden plows in much of
> Europe in this century. Food will become more abundant as a result of such
> agricultural improvements, but France will nevertheless have 26 famines, and
> England will average one famine every 14 years. Increased planting of oats
> in the three-crop system or the past 3 centuries will lead to the expanded
> use of horses in Europe and thus to increased trade, larger towns, and more
> people who do not raise their own food.
>
> 1006 China's Song emperor establishes granaries for emergancy famine relief
> in every prefecture.
>
> 1021 Epidemics of St. Vitus' dance sweep Europe. The disease is a cholera
> whose victoms invoke the name of a Christian child martyr of the 3rd
> century.
>
> 1022 The Synod of Pavia orders celibacy among the higher clergy.
>
> 1026 Solmization of music (do, re, mi, fa, so, la...) is introduced by the
> Benedictine monk Guido d'Arezzo, 31.
>
> 1027 The Mayan Empire in the Western Hemisphere suffers an epidemic that
> weakens her people and begins her decline.
>
> 1030 /Cannon of Medicine/ by Arab physician Abu Sina follows the thinking
> of Aristotle and Galen, but is so well written and organized that it will be
> a major influence on medical thinking for centuries.
>
> 1036 Modern musical notation is pioneered by Guido d'Arezzo, who also
> invents the "great scale," or gamut, the hexachord and hexachord
> solmization.
>
> 1039 Ergotism breaks out in parts of France.
>
> 1041 Movable type for printing will be used over the next 8 years by
> Chinese printer Pi Sheng, who will use hundreds of clay blocks bearing
> Chinese ideograms.
>
> 1064 "Regulative grainaries" established by China's emperor Ying Zong buy
> surplus grain in good harvests and release stocks in times of shortage.
>
> 1065 Westminster Abby is consecrated after 13 years of constuction.
>
> 1067 A Chinese edit aimed a keeping gunpowder a state monopoly forbids
> export of sulfur or saltpeter.
>
> 1069 Chinese prime minister Wang An-Shih begins a radical program to reform
> Chinese agriculture after finding the nation's grainaries stocked with
> emergency stocks of releif grain valued at 15 million strings of cash. He
> offers poor farmers loans at 2 percent interest per month in cash or grain
> to free them from usurers and monopolists who charge higher rates. He gives
> his chief transport officer power to sell from state grainaries when prices
> are high and buy when prices low.
>
> 1086 /The Doomsday Book/ compiled on orders from England's William I lists
> more than 25,000 slaves and 110,000 villeins (serfs) among the properties
> and assets of English landowners.
>
> 1089 Ergotism strikes a French village, whose inhabitants run throught the
> streets in fits of madness.
>
> 1096 The First Crusade raises more than 30,000 men and converges on
> Constantinople in three groups as Norman-French barons rush to take the
> cross. Half the knights of France will set off in the next 30 years either
> for the Levant or for the Islamic lands in northern Spain, but the First
> Crusade has been inspired as much by population pressures (a product of the
> new agriculture) as by religious zeal or desire for plunder.
> [That's Trager writing there, Nate, not me. :-) ]
>
> 1098 The Cistercian order monks is founded in the monastary of Citeaux.
>
> 1120 Measurement of latitude and longitude in degrees, minutes, and seconds
> is pioneered by the Anglo-Saxon scientist Welcher of Malvern, who in 1092
> observed the solar eclipse and tried to calculate the difference in time
> between England and Italy.
>
> 1128 Cistercian monks from Normandy settle in England and begin an
> extensive program of swamp reclamation, agricultural improvement and stock
> breeding. The Cistercians live austerly, depending for income entirely on
> the land, and will have a salutary effect in improving English and European
> horse and cattle breeds and raising the standards of agriculture.
>
> 1136 The French church of St. Denis, completed by the abbe' Suger, 45, is a
> romanesque structure, but includes some pointed arches and high clerestory
> windows that mark the beginning of Gothic architecture. Suger initiates the
> idea of the rose window, arguing that people can only come to understand
> absolute beauty, which is God, through the effect of precious and beautiful
> things on the senses. "The dull mind rises to truth through that which is
> material."
>
> 1150 Chinese sea masters and caravan leaders use magnetic compasses in
> crude form to guide them in their journeys.
>
> 1167 Oxford University has its beginnings.
>
> 1180 Glass windows appear in private English houses.
>
> 1184 Canterbury Cathedral opens in Kent. Architect for the great Gothic
> structure is William of Sens, who built the French cathedral at Sens that
> has helped establish the Gothic style in which pillars supported by
> buttressess replace walls as the main support of vaulted roofs, making
> possible large stained-glass windows to permit the entrance of mult-colored
> light. The cathedral will be given a nave in the late 14th century and a
> centeral tower in the 15th century.
>
> 1193 Licensed prostitution begins in Japan and the first known merchant
> guild is established at London.
>
> 1202 /Liber Abaci/ by Italian traveler-mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci
> introduces Europe to Arabic numerals from North Africa and the zero from
> India.
>
> 1202 Court jesters make their first appearance in European courts.
>
> 1203 Famine ravages England and Ireland as it will repeatadly throughout
> this century. Recurrent crop falures will bring hardship to the British
> Isles, the German states, and Poland, but cheap grain from the Balkans will
> lower food prices in much of the Continent.
>
> 1204 Bubonic plague reduces the ranks of the Fourth Crusade, prevents them
> from reaching Jerusalem, and ends the crusade.
>
> 1209 England's Cambridge University has its beginnings.
>
> 1215 The Magna Carta signed at Runnymede limits the power of the English
> monarchy and reaffirms human rights, chapter 39 stating, "No freeman shall
> be arrested and imprisoned, or dispossessed, or outlawed, or banished, or in
> any way molested; nor will we set forth against him, nor send against him,
> unless by the lawful judgment of his peers, and by the law of the land."
>
> 1233 England mines coal at Newcastle for the first time.
>
> 1236 Anesthesia is pioneered by Dominican friar Theodoric of Lucca, who
> teaches in Bologna. Theodoric advocates the use of sponges soaked in a
> narcotic and applied to the nose in order to put patients to sleep before
> surgery, he favors use of the opiates mandragora and opium, and he
> recommends mercurial ointments for skin diseases.
>
> 1237 Mongul forces use gunpowder and possibly firearms to conquer much of
> eastern Europe. They will also introduce eyeglasses and distilled alcholic
> beverages to Asia from Europe.
>
> 1241 A Hanseatic League formed by baltic trading towns employs new
> navigational discoveries including the rudder and the new bowsprit which
> permits the lower forward corner of the mainsail to be hauled beyond the
> bows so that a ship may sail more closely into the wind.
>
> 1244 Famine sweeps the German states whose towns are infested like most of
> Europe by black rats that have come westward from Asia with the Monguls.
>
> 1249 Roger Bacon, 35, fights to make science part of the curriculum at
> Oxford, holding that it is complementary to religion, not opposed to it.
>
> 1259 Famine and disease follow crop failures in the German and Italian
> states.
>
> 1267 Roger Bacon, the first truly modern scientist, describes the magnetic
> needle and reading glasses, predicts radiology, and predicts the discovery
> of the Western Hemisphere, the steamship, the airplane, and the television
> in addition to describing the principles of a camera obscura that can
> project pictures.
>
> 1272 A silk reeling machine is invented and will spur the use of silk
> textiles.
>
> 1277 Roger Bacon is imprisioned for heresy. He will remain incarcerated
> until two years before his death at age 80 in 1294.
>
> 1289 Block printing is employed for the first time in Eurpoe at Ravenna.
>
> 1294 Famine strikes England with special severity despite the fact that
> more English land is tilled than ever before and ever will be again.
>
> 1315 English wheat prices climb to 3 shillings 3 pence per bushel as a
> short crop combines with export demand to inflate prices. Meanwhile,
> disastorus famine strikes large parts of western Eurpoe and will continue
> for the next 3 years.
>
> 1333 The Black Death begins in China after a severe drought and starvation
> weaken much of the population making them vulnerable to a form of bubonic
> plague.
>
> 1337 A "Hundred Years' War" between England and France begins.
>
> 1340 The road from the Black Sea to Cathay (China) is "safe both day and
> night," reports /The Merchant's Handbook/ by Pegolotti. Travelers on the
> road from China will return with rat-borne ticks and fleas that will bring
> the Black Death to Europe.
>
> 1347 The Black Death reaches Cyprus, whence it will spread to Florence and
> find thousands of victims weakened and made vunerable by famine.
>
> 1347 Jane I, queen of both the Sicilies and countess of Provence, opens a
> house of prostitution at Avignon in an effort to reduce venerial disease.
>
> 1348 The Black Death that will devastate Europe reaches Florence in April
> and spreads to France in July. England has her third cold wet summer in a
> row, and this one is the worst. Rain falls steadily from midsummer to
> Christmas, crops are poor, food is short, and the hunger makes the country
> vunerable to disease. The Black Death arrives in August, although London is
> sparred until November. The plague will extinguish nearly two-thirds of the
> population in some parts of Europe. At Locarno on Lake Maggiore the
> population will fall from 4,800 to 700.
>
> 1349 The Black Death kills from one-third to one-half the population of
> England which calls a truce to hostilities with plauge-striken France.
> English landlords offer high wages to field hands. Reapers and mowers
> spared by the plague eat better than they ever have or ever will again. A
> scottish army invades England in the Autumn and is stricken with plague
> which the dispersing solders carry back to Scotland in pneumonia
> (person-to-person) form.
>
> 1349 The Black Death reaches Poland and moves on toward Russia, flourishing
> on poverty and malnutrition, especially in the larger cities.
>
> 1350 The Black Death reaches Wales. The plague reduces population
> pressures on food supplies that have been growing in England and Europe in
> this century, and prices drop for lack of demand.
>
> 1351 The English Statue of Labourers fixes wages at 1346 levels and
> attempts to compel able-bodied men to accept work when it is offered as
> England adjusts to the fact that she no longer has a glut of labor. But
> while Parliment also orders victualers and other tradesmen to sell their
> goods at reasonable prices, the Statute of Labours destroys the country's
> social unity without resolving its problems.
>
> 1352 The Black Death reached Moscow and spreads eastward back to India and
> China.
>
> 1361 The Black Death strikes again in England, but less severly than in
> 1349, and rages also in France, Poland, and elsewhere, especially among
> children.
>
> 1372 The Black Death reappears once more in England, but the outbreak is
> milder than in 1361.
>
> 1373 The Vatican asks an astronomer to correct the Julian calender in use
> since 46 B.C. because it is too long by 11 minutes and 15 seconds each year,
> but the astronomer will die before he has a chance reform the calender.
>
> 1375 The Hanseatic League, grown to nearly 80 cities, establishes common
> weights, measures, and coinage.
>
> 1382 The Black Death sweeps Europe in a weaker epidemic than that of more
> than 30 years ago. It will take an especially heavy toll in Ireland in the
> next few years, and by the end of the century it will have killed an
> estimated 75 million people, leaving some areas completely depopulated.
>
> 1416 Sculpture of /St. George/ by Donatello.
>
> 1420 Painting /The Crucifiction/ and /The Last Judgement/ by Flemmish
> painter Jan van Eyck and his brother, Hubert. They have pioneered using oil
> paint on wood to achive brilliant colors.
>
> 1430 Sculpture of /David/ (bronze) by Donatello.
>
> 1449 Turkish prince Ulugh-Beg dies. He has been a scientist who used a
> curved device more than 130 feet long set on iron rails to catalog 1,018
> stars in the constellations, making tables so precise that his calculations
> of the annual movements of Mars and Venus will differ from modern figures by
> only a few seconds.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------------
>
> Are these the years without progress you're talking about, Nate?
>
> -Prof. Tim