15th century

Timeline

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Years of interest

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The 15th century was a time of great suffering and great discovery, especially for Europeans. Labelled "the Renaissance", it saw the ascension of several great human scholars, as well as some decisive political and military events.

• 1430: Aztec priest Yetaxa died and was entombed in an Aztec temple. (TV: The Aztecs)
• 1450: The Thousand Year War between the Thals and the Kaleds ended with the destruction of both races. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks)
• 1453: The first Gutenberg Bibles were printed. Scaroth acquired several copies and sold them in 1979 to fund his time travel experiments. (TV: City of Death)
• 1471: An Englishman named One-Armed Clarrie — according only to himself — fought off twenty Lancastrians with a spoon in the Battle of Tewkesbury. (AUDIO: The Kingmaker)
• 1478: After being convicted of treason, George Duke of Clarence worked in The Kingmaker tavern. (AUDIO: The Kingmaker)
• 1479: Duroc manifested in Cardiff. (TV: Dead Man Walking)
• 1482: The Eleventh Doctor said that this year was "full of glitches". (TV: The Impossible Astronaut)
• 1483: Around April, the Fifth Doctor, Peri Brown and Erimem met the young Richard III, who had just begun his reign as King of England. The Doctor skipped ahead to 1485, leaving Peri and Erimem to live through the next two years in England to catch up to him. They were forced to take up employment as serving wenches at a pub called "The Kingmaker". (AUDIO: The Kingmaker)
• 1485: The Fifth Doctor intended to rendezvous with Peri and Erimem in 1485, but they instead got off the TARDIS in 1483. Waiting for them, the Doctor got embroiled in a series of events with King Richard III, whose nephews disappeared. (PROSE: Sometime Never..., AUDIO: The Kingmaker)
• 1487: The Aztecs sacrificed 20,000 victims to Huitzilopochtli at their capital of Tenochtitlan. Huitzilin fed upon the violent energies released by these sacrifices. (PROSE: The Left-Handed Hummingbird)
• 1489: The Doctor visited China. (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang)
• 1491: The Doctor had his first encounter with Torquemada in Toledo. (PROSE: Managra)
• 1492: The Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith accidentally brought the Mandragora Helix to San Martino. It attempted to plunge Earth back into the Dark Ages, but the Doctor defeated it. Among young Duke Giuliano's guests were Lorenzo de Medici, the Duke of Milan, the Doge of Venice, and Leonardo da Vinci. (TV: The Masque of Mandragora)
• Christopher Columbus embarked on his first voyage to the Americas. At some point in the explorer's life, the Doctor acquired his business card. (TV: The Two Doctors) The Sixth Doctor and Peri Brown met Columbus aboard the Santa Maria on 12 October of that year. (AUDIO: Trouble in Paradise)
• 1498: On 16 September, the Doctor was present during Torquemada's death. (PROSE: Managra)
• Unknown Date: A Samurai sword dating from this century was among the artefacts abandoned by the departing inhabitants of the former Earth colony Jegg-Sau in the 25th century. (AUDIO: The Relics of Jegg-Sau)
• Unknown Date: The First Doctor, Susan Foreman, Ian Chesterton, and Barbara Wright visited the Aztec empire. Barbara, taken for the reincarnation of Yetaxa, tried in vain to stop the Aztec practice of human sacrifice. (TV: The Aztecs)

By the 15th century, it was against Spanish custom to engage in the slave trade. (AUDIO: Trouble in Paradise)

As with most centuries of the first two millennia, the 15th century was home to Jack Harkness, Amy Pond and an Auton duplicate of Rory Williams. A version of Jack from around the time of the deaths of Toshiko Sato and Owen Harper existed in this century, having been buried alive in the 1st century by his brother, Gray. He perpetually died and resurrected an unknown number of times in an earthen tomb underneath Cardiff. (TV: Exit Wounds) Meanwhile, a near-dead Amy Pond was kept alive inside the Pandorica, beginning in the 2nd century. An Auton version of Rory kept vigil near her the entire time. They both awaited a moment in the mid-1990s when a young Amelia Pond would touch the outside of the Pandorica and restore Amy to full health. (TV: The Big Bang)

It was substantially unclear whether the events of the subsequent Big Bang Two erased Amy and Rory's presence in the 15th century. This ambiguity was caused, in part, because the non-Auton, married Rory Williams claimed to have remembered being "made of plastic" at his wedding reception, suggesting that, at least inasmuch as he was concerned, he and Amy were present in the 15th century. (TV: The Big Bang) Amy seemed to also remember those events, and displayed a fondness for the Auton Rory both during her honeymoon (TV: A Christmas Carol) and during a kind of lullaby to her newborn child Melody Pond. (TV: A Good Man Goes to War)