Cipher seals

  1. 42
  2. 69
  3. 420
  4. 690

Quiet field

1442

The year was full. This aperture was quiet.

The surviving record for 1442 is not blank. It does not, under the categories declared before this sweep, resemble a cluster of instruments, laws, or named firsts that would promote the year. Quiet is a description of the aperture, not of the century.

  • Portuguese Atlantic voyaging under Henry the Navigator
  • Late Hundred Years’ War
  • Ming China

The aperture

Quiet under the declared categories. Retained as a denominator year.

Regions checked

  • Europe
  • Middle East and North Africa
  • East Asia
  • South Asia
  • Africa
  • the Americas
  • Central Asia

Included / excluded

  • Excluded: Gutenberg’s Bible as 1442. Experiments may be earlier; the dated printed Bible is mid-1450s.

41 | 42 | 43

Same century. Same research threshold. Matched frames. Neither pane brighter except that the middle year is the selected aperture.

1441

Neighbor

1441: Portuguese and European records continue.

1442

Aperture

Quiet under the declared categories. Retained as a denominator year.

1443

Neighbor

1443: not empty. Printing’s dated monuments are later (1450s).