Born Then1381–1405
Life during the Conquests of Timur
Be born in a place it hit, a few years before it began, and see what it did to five ordinary lives.
What it meant for ordinary people
Timur, a Turco-Mongol warlord from Samarkand, campaigned from Anatolia to India between about 1370 and his death in 1405. Cities that resisted, such as Isfahan, Baghdad and Damascus, were sacked and their people massacred, while skilled craftsmen were taken to build his capital. His empire broke up soon after he died.
Deaths: perhaps 15 to 17 million, about 5 percent of the world population; the figure is uncertain.
How hard it hits each person in the game (risk of death, of being conscripted, of leaving) comes from scholarly estimates.
Around the same time
- Indian Ocean slave trade 700–1799
- Rise of Great Zimbabwe 1200–1450
- Hundred Years' War 1337–1453
- Return of the plague 1360–1400
- Conquests of Timur 1381–1405
- Timur's sack of Delhi 1398–1399