1320 – 1330s

Events in the 1320s 6

• 1261 – 1325 King Denis of Portugal Portuguese troubadour king King Denis I of Portugal was himself a gifted troubadour who wrote over 130 surviving poems. He founded the University of Lisbon and was a major patron of arts and learning.
• 1299 – 1326 Osman I founds the dynasty Osman I (c.1258-1326) declares independence from the declining Seljuk Sultanate of Rum around 1299, establishing the Ottoman beylik in northwestern Anatolia near Bursa. A gifted leader who attracts ghazi warriors, nomadic Turks and dispossessed peasants, he raids Byzantine territory systematically, capturing Bursa shortly before his death (1326). His name gives the dynasty -- Osmanli in Turkish, Ottoman in European languages. He marries the daughter of a local religious leader, intertwining the dynasty with Islamic legitimacy from its foundation.
• 1300 – 1325 Aztlan -- the mythic homeland Aztlan ("Place of Herons" or "Place of Whiteness") is the legendary ancestral homeland of the Mexica -- a mythic island or northern territory from which they begin their long southward migration c.1111 AD (in their own tradition) or c.1250 AD (in archaeological terms). The location of Aztlan is unknown and may never have existed as a specific place; it functions in Mexica tradition as the Eden or Troy of their cultural memory -- a place of origin that legitimises their identity and mission. The migration narrative -- a god-directed journey southward, guided by the deity Huitzilopochtli ("Hummingbird of the South") speaking through his priests -- is the founding myth of Aztec civilisation. It explains why a people who arrive as wandering strangers in the most politically complex region of Mesoamerica are nonetheless the chosen people of the sun god, destined to rule.
• 1320 – 1362 Gherardello da Firenze Italian Trecento composer Gherardello da Firenze was a Florentine composer of the Trecento period whose ballate and madrigals were among the most refined of their era.
• 1325 – 1397 Francesco Landini Italian Medieval composer The most celebrated Italian composer of the 14th century, known for his ballatas and refined polyphonic style. Blind from childhood.
• 1325 Tenochtitlan founded -- 1325 Tenochtitlan ("Place of the Prickly Pear Cactus") is founded c.1325 on a small island in the western part of Lake Texcoco in the Valley of Mexico -- according to Mexica tradition, on the spot where the wanderers see an eagle perched on a cactus devouring a serpent, the sign promised by Huitzilopochtli to mark the end of their migration. The site is unpromising: a swampy island with no agricultural land, no stone, no timber. But it is defensible (access only by causeway), centrally located in the lake system, and unclaimed by the powerful valley states. The Mexica immediately begin reclaiming land from the lake with the chinampas technique -- building up artificial islands of layered vegetation and mud. Within a century the island is 13 square kilometres and growing. The eagle-and-serpent founding symbol remains the central image on the Mexican flag today.