The Ming Dynasty in China completes its last great maritime expedition, led by Admiral Zheng He;[9] the fleet would be dispersed, altering the balance of power in the Indian Ocean, and making it easier for Portugal and other Western naval powers to gain dominance over the seas.
In Ming Dynasty China, cotton is listed as a permanent item of trade, on the tax registers of Songjiang prefecture.[10]
In Ming DynastyChina, a long episode of drought, flood, locust infestation, and famine cripple agriculture and commerce in areas throughout the country, until 1448.
By August – Battle of Podraga: Brothers Iliaș and Stephen II battle to a draw for the throne of Moldavia, leading to a joint rule by them, helped by the intervention of the Polish king.
January 11 – Eric of Pomerania is deposed from the Swedish throne for the second time, only three months after having been reinstated. Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson remains the leader of the land, in his capacity of rikshövitsman (military commander of the realm).
February – Charles Knutsson becomes joint rikshövitsman with Engelbrekt (the two will share the title until Engelbrekt's death).
May 4 – Following the murder of Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson, while on his way to Stockholm for negotiations. Charles Knutsson temporarily holds the position of leader of Sweden alone. The probable first meeting of the Riksdag of the Estates takes place afterwards, in Uppsala, Sweden.
In Ming dynasty China, a significant portion of the southern grain tax is commuted to payments in silver, known as the Gold Floral Silver (jinhuayin). This comes about due to officials' and military generals' increasing demands to be paid in silver instead of grain, as commercial transactions draw more silver into nationwide circulation. Some counties have trouble transporting all the required grain to meet their tax quotas, so it makes sense to pay the government in silver, a medium of exchange that is already abundant amongst landowners, through their own private commercial affairs.
The Florentine polymath Leon Battista Alberti begins writing the treatise On Painting, in which he argues for the importance of mathematical perspective, in the creation of three-dimensional vision on a two-dimensional plane. This follows the ideas of Masaccio, and his concepts of linear perspective and vanishing point in artwork.
At 95 years of age, Nang Keo Phimpha becomes queen of Lan Xang for a few months before being deposed and killed.
Just two years after the Ming dynasty court of China allowed landowners paying the grain tax to pay their tax in silver instead, the Ming court now decides to close all silver mines and prohibit all private silver mining in Zhejiang and Fujian provinces. This is a concerted effort to halt the increase of silver circulating into the market. The illegal mining of silver is now an offense punishable by death; although it becomes a dangerous affair, the high demand for silver also makes it very lucrative, and so many chose to defy the government and continue to mine.
The Great Ordinance is adopted by the French Estates-General. This measure grants the king the exclusive right to raise troops, and establishes the taxation measure known as the taille, in support of a standing army.
^King, Ross (2000). Brunelleschi's Dome. London: Chatto & Windus. ISBN0-7011-6903-6.
^Shara, M. M.; Iłkiewicz, K.; Mikołajewska, J.; Pagnotta, A.; Bode, M. F.; Crause, L. A.; Drozd, K.; Faherty, J.; Fuentes-Morales, I.; Grindlay, J. E.; Moffat, A. F. J.; Pretorius, M. L.; Schmidtobreick, L.; Stephenson, F. R.; Tappert, C.; Zurek, D. (2017). "Proper-motion age dating of the progeny of Nova Scorpii AD 1437". Nature. 548 (7669): 558–560. arXiv:1704.00086. Bibcode:2017Natur.548..558S. doi:10.1038/nature23644. PMID28858302. S2CID205259426.