1326
Ottomans capture Bursa from Byzantium
After a six-year blockade Osman's son Orhan finally took the prosperous city below Mount Olympus and made it the first proper Ottoman capital. Bursa's silk markets bankrolled further conquests; its green-tiled tombs would receive every early Ottoman sultan. The Byzantine line in Bithynia had effectively ceased to exist, and Anatolia was lost to Constantinople forever.
Ibn Battuta departs Tangier on his epic journey
A twenty-one-year-old Moroccan qadi set out for Mecca and did not stop for nearly thirty years. His Rihla would record courts from Delhi to Mali to the Maldives, covering some seventy-five thousand miles - three times the distance Marco Polo claimed. He remains the greatest traveler of the medieval world.
Isabella of France lands in Suffolk
The estranged queen of Edward II returned from exile with her lover Roger Mortimer and a small mercenary force hired with Hainaut money. The king fled west; Isabella gathered support along the way. By autumn she controlled London. Her husband would be deposed by January and dead by autumn under murky circumstances at Berkeley Castle.
Orhan succeeds Osman as leader of the Ottoman beylik
With his father's death, Orhan inherited a small but expanding frontier state in northwest Anatolia. He would professionalize the Ottoman military, mint the beylik's first coins, establish a system of land grants to warriors, and take Bursa and Nicaea from a retreating Byzantium. Under Orhan the Ottomans ceased to be raiders and became a state.
Aqsunqur sacks Tabriz in Ilkhan succession war
In the final decade of the Ilkhanate, local emirs fought bloody wars around Tabriz and Maragheh for control of the Mongol court's last resources. Persian cities suffered repeated sackings and contractions under shifting warlords who taxed the populace into ruin. The Mongol peace that had enabled Marco Polo's journey had irretrievably ended.
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Frequently asked
What happened in the year 1326?
Saeculum lists 5 curated events from 1326. The most significant is Ottomans capture Bursa from Byzantium: After a six-year blockade Osman's son Orhan finally took the prosperous city below Mount Olympus and made it the first proper Ottoman capital.
What era was 1326 part of?
1326 falls within the Late Middle Ages (1301-1500). Plague, papal schism, and the seeds of nation-states.
Which regions saw notable events in 1326?
The curated events from 1326 span Middle East, Africa and Europe.