Bayezit I
1354 – 1403
Turkish

Ottoman Sultan. After his succession to the Sultanate in 1389, he enjoyed many military successes, besieged the Byzantine Emperor at Constantinople for a decade, and defeated a crusader army. Then in 1402, Timur (Tamerlane), the legendary ruler of the Central Asian empire centered on Samarkand, tricked him by marching around his forces and poisoned his water sources to the rear, so that the Ottoman soldiers entered battle in poor condition and were defeated. Bayezit, previously known as the "Thunderbolt," was captured, treated with courtesy by Timur, but had to watch helplessly as his women and possessions were divided among his foes. He died shortly thereafter, a poignant reminder of the fickleness of fate and the impermanence of pomp, power and conquest.

Contemporaries
1378–1446Vittorino da Feltre
1370–1424John Ziska
1330–1384Wycliffe
?–1386Arnold von Winkelried
?–1381Wat Tyler
1313–1354Cola di Rienzi
1380–1459Giovanni Poggio
1304–1374Petrarch
1378–1417Sir John Oldcastle
1401–1464Nicholas of Cusa
1370–1451John Lydgate
1332–1400William Langland
1373–1440Margery Kempe
1379–1471Thomas Kempis
1340–1399John of Gaunt
1365–1416Jerome of Prague
1370–1440Laurens Janszoon
fl. c. 1394–c. 1437James I
1394–1460Henry the Navigator
1387–1422Henry V
1326–1390Hafiz
1363–1429Jean de Gerson
1347–1380Catherine of Siena
1300–1358Jean Buridan
1313–1375Giovanni Boccaccio
1380–1444St. Bernardino of Siena
1320–1395John Barbour
fl. 1385Brites de Almeida