First version · 12 regions · 321 hand-picked entries

Spin the History Clock

Pick a place, slide the clock, and watch who rules, what gets built, who is thinking and what is being written there.

1 · Pick a place

Coloured places have entries. Brighter colour means a dynasty in our list holds power there in 1500 CE. Hatched countries have no entries yet. Borders are today’s, for orientation only.

2 · Slide through time

1500 CE

3200 BCE1 CE2025 CE

3 · See what was going on

Kerala in 1500 CE

A narrow coast of spice ports, temple towns and a language of its own.

Who ruled when

400 BCETap a bar to jump to the year that power began.today

♛ In power

Zamorins of Calicut
c. 1200–1766 CE
Sea-trading rulers of Kozhikode, until Hyder Ali of Mysore took the city.
Portuguese forts on the coast
1498–1663 CE
From Vasco da Gama's landing until the Dutch took Kochi.

⚒ Rising and breaking (±100 years)

risesPortuguese forts on the coast · 1498 CE

✎ Around this time

Thinkers & leadersc. 1340–1425 CE
Madhava of Sangamagrama
Founder of the Kerala school of mathematics, known for infinite series.
Turning points1498 CE
Vasco da Gama reaches Kappad
The first sea voyage from Europe to India lands near Kozhikode.
Thinkers & leaders1501 CE
Nilakantha Somayaji
Wrote the Tantrasamgraha, an astronomy text, in 1501.
Arts & literaturec. 1550 CE
Thunchaththu Ezhuthachan
Poet called the father of modern Malayalam, author of Adhyatma Ramayanam Kilippattu.
Monumentsc. 1555 CE
Mattancherry Palace
Built by the Portuguese for the Raja of Kochi; later renovated by the Dutch.
Monuments1568 CE
Paradesi Synagogue, Kochi
Oldest active synagogue in the Commonwealth.