1294

1294 (MCCXCIV) was a common year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar, the 1294th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 294th year of the 2nd millennium, the 94th year of the 13th century, and the 5th year of the 1290s decade. As of the start of 1294, the Gregorian calendar was 7 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which was the dominant calendar of the time.

Events

• July 5 – Pope Celestine V succeeds Nicholas IV as the 192nd pope.
• December 24 – Pope Boniface VIII succeeds Pope Celestine V as the 193rd pope after Celestine V abdicates the papacy on December 13, only five months after reluctantly accepting his surprise election on July 5, wishing to return to his life as an ascetic hermit.
• John Balliol, King of Scotland, decides to refuse King Edward I of England's demands for support in a planned invasion of France, and instead informs the French of Edward's plans and negotiates the Auld Alliance with France and Norway. These actions play a part in precipitating the Scottish Wars of Independence, to begin in 1296.
• The Strata Florida Abbey is rebuilt; it had been destroyed some years earlier in King Edward I of England's conquest of Wales.
• Architect Arnolfo di Cambio designs the Florentine cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore, better known smply as Il Duomo. He also begins work on the Basilica di Santa Croce di Firenze, also in Florence.
• England and Portugal enter into the first iteration of the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance, the oldest alliance in the world still in force.
• The death of Kublai Khan allows the four khanates of the Mongol Empire (the Chagatai Khanate, the Golden Horde, the Ilkhanate, and the Yuan Dynasty of China) to formally become independent; they each had already been moving toward independence during Kublai's reign.

Births

• Charles IV of France (died 1328)
• Kusunoki Masashige, Japanese samurai (died 1336)

Deaths

• February 18 – Kublai Khan of the Mongol Empire (born 1215)
• May 3 – John I, Duke of Brabant
• December 25 – Mściwój II of Pomerania
• Roger Bacon, English philosopher and scientist
• Emperor Yagbe'u Seyon of Ethiopia
• John I of Brienne, Count of Eu
• Brunetto Latini, Florentine philosopher (born c. 1220)
• Dmitri of Pereslavl, Grand Duke of Vladimir-Suzdal