Public Figures & Cultural Luminaries

Arts & Music

5

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Sesshu Toyo

雪舟 等楊

Japan

c. 1420 – 1506 (86 years old)

Master Japanese ink painter and Zen Buddhist monk of the Muromachi period who traveled to Ming China and synthesized Chinese song painting into the distinctive Japanese Zen landscape style.

Masuda (Shimane), Japan

5 Full Record →

Religious Figures & Theologians

4

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Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti

جلال الدين السيوطي

🌐 Mamluk Sultanate

1445 – 1505 (60 years old)

Extraordinary Egyptian polymath and mujaddid who authored over 500 treatises spanning Quranic sciences, Hadith, grammar, and law, including 'Tafsir al-Jalalayn' and 'Al-Itqan'.

Cairo, Egypt

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Monarchs, Kings & Royalty

4

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Isabella I of Castile

Isabel I de Castilla (La Católica)

Crown of Castile (Spain)

1451 – 1504 (53 years old)

Queen of Castile who unified Spain with Ferdinand II, completed the Reconquista of Granada, and sponsored Christopher Columbus in 1492.

Granada, Andalusia, Spain

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Resistance & Human Rights

2

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Anacaona

Anacaona (Golden Flower)

Jaragua (Hispaniola)

c. 1474 – c. 1504 (30 years old)

Legendary Taino queen, poet, and composer celebrated as the 'Golden Flower' (Anacaona) of Xaragua on Hispaniola, whose lyric ballads (Areitos) and tragic execution by Spanish conquistadors made her an eternal martyr of indigenous Caribbean civilization.

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

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Religious Figures & Theologians

4

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Girolamo Savonarola

Girolamo Savonarola

Duchy of Ferrara

1452 – 1498 (45 years old)

Dominican friar and fiery reformer who led the Florentine Republic, organized the 'Bonfire of the Vanities', and fearlessly denounced the corruption of Borgia Pope Alexander VI.

Florence, Italy

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Arts & Music

4

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Hans Memling

Hans Memling

Electorate of Mainz

c. 1430 – 1494 (64 years old)

Leading Early Netherlandish painter in Bruges whose serene portraits, 'The Last Judgment' triptych, and the Reliquary of Saint Ursula embodied Flemish graceful harmony.

Bruges, Belgium

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Monarchs, Kings & Royalty

2

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Tupac Inca Yupanqui

Topa Inka Yupanki

Inca Empire

c. 1441 CE – c. 1493 CE (52 years old)

Tenth Sapa Inca and supreme military conqueror of the Inca Empire, who doubled the empire's size from Ecuador to central Chile and led a legendary balsa-raft expedition across the Pacific Ocean.

Chinchero (Urubamba Valley), Peru

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Religious Figures & Theologians

4

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Ahmad al-Zarruq

أحمد زروق الفاسي

Morocco

1442 – 1493 (50 years old)

Moroccan-born Islamic scholar and Shadhili Sufi reformer who reconciled exoteric jurisprudence with esoteric mysticism in his classic 'Qawa'id al-Tasawwuf', buried in Misrata, Libya.

Misrata, Libya

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Monarchs, Kings & Royalty

3

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Sunni Ali Ber

Si Ali Ber (Sonni Ali)

🌐 Songhai Empire

Unknown – 1492

First great imperial ruler of the Songhai Empire (1464–1492) who transformed a local riverine kingdom into West Africa's dominant superpower, capturing the scholarly cities of Timbuktu and Djenné with a legendary river fleet and cavalry.

Gao, Mali

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Monarchs, Kings & Royalty

3

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Sunni Ali Ber (Sunni Ali the Great)

Sonni Ali Ber / Si Ali

Songhai Empire (Mali)

c. 1440 – 1492 (52 years old)

Founder of the Songhai Empire who forged the greatest state in West African history through naval cavalry dominance on the Niger River.

Gao, Mali

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Sciences & Discovery

5

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Al-Qalasadi

علي بن محمد القلصادي

🌐 Nasrid Kingdom

1412 – 1486 (74 years old)

Nasrid-born North African mathematician who revolutionized mathematics by inventing the world's first modern algebraic symbolic notation using Arabic characters, dying in exile in Béja, Tunisia.

Béja, Tunisia

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Monarchs, Kings & Royalty

12

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Mehmed II (Fatih Sultan Mehmed / The Conqueror)

فاتح سلطان محمد / Fatih Sultan Mehmed

Turkey

30 March 1432 – 3 May 1481 (49 years old)

Seventh Ottoman Sultan who conquered Constantinople in 1453 at age twenty-one, bringing an end to the Byzantine Empire and the Middle Ages. A Renaissance polyglot who spoke six languages and issued the Ahdname charter protecting religious freedom.

Gebze, Turkey

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Religious Figures & Theologians

4

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Sidi Abderrahmane et-Thaâlibi

عبد الرحمن الثعالبي

Algeria

1384 – 1479 (95 years old)

Eminent Algerian Quranic commentator, Maliki jurist, and Sufi saint who authored the celebrated exegesis 'Al-Jawahir al-Hisan' and is venerated as the patron saint and spiritual protector of Algiers.

Algiers (Casbah), Algeria

4 Full Record →

Arts & Music

5

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Dirk Bouts

Dirk Bouts

County of Holland

c. 1415 – 1475 (60 years old)

Pioneering Early Netherlandish painter and city painter of Leuven whose 'Altarpiece of the Holy Sacrament' perfected mathematical perspective and northern atmospheric space.

Leuven, Belgium

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Arts & Music

5

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Petrus Christus

Petrus Christus

Duchy of Brabant

c. 1410 – c. 1475 (65 years old)

Netherlandish painter who succeeded Jan van Eyck in Bruges, pioneering geometrically unified one-point perspective in Northern Europe in 'A Goldsmith in His Shop'.

Bruges, Belgium

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Sciences & Discovery

10

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Ali Qushji (Ala al-Din Ali ibn Muhammad)

علاء الدين علي بن محمد القوشجي

Uzbekistan

1403 CE – 16 December 1474 (71 years old)

Astronomer who directed the Samarkand Observatory and later served Sultan Mehmed II in Istanbul, proving that astronomy does not rely on Aristotelian physics and supporting the Earth's rotation.

Istanbul, Turkey

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Monarchs, Kings & Royalty

3

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Oba Ewuare

Ewuare Ogidigan (Ewuare the Great)

Kingdom of Benin

c. 1440 CE – c. 1473 CE (33 years old)

Transformative Oba of Benin known as Ewuare the Great who transformed Benin from a city-state into a vast maritime empire, rebuilt Benin City with massive earthwork moats, and patronized brass casting.

Benin City (Edo State), Nigeria

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Religious Figures & Theologians

5

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Thomas Hemerken

Thomas a Kempis

🌐 Electorate of Cologne

c. 1380 – 1471 (91 years old)

Dutch-German monk of the Devotio Moderna movement and author of 'The Imitation of Christ', the most widely translated Christian devotional book in history after the Bible.

Zwolle, Netherlands

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