Middle Ages
Askia Muhammad (1493-1528): The Songhai Empire at Its Height
Askia Muhammad founded the Askia dynasty, reorganised Songhai's government on Islamic lines and expanded it into the largest empire in West African history.
Era · c. 500 – 1500
Middle Ages
Kingdoms, crusades and plagues: the medieval world from the end of the Western Roman Empire to the fall of Constantinople.
Middle Ages
Tomb of Askia in Gao (c. 1495): Songhai's Pyramid of Mud
The tomb became the burial place of Askia Muhammad and a landmark of Sudano-Sahelian mud architecture, inscribed by UNESCO in 2004.
Middle Ages
Savonarola and the Bonfire of the Vanities (1497)
Savonarola's followers burned thousands of 'vanities' at Carnival in 1497 and 1498, but the friar was excommunicated, arrested and executed in the same square in May 1498.
Middle Ages
Llullaillaco Children: The Inca Capacocha Mummies
Three naturally frozen Inca children and their offerings were recovered in 1999, giving detailed evidence of the capacocha ritual.