The Phra Bang ("Royal Buddha Image in the Dispelling Fear mudra), is the palladium of Laos.

The Lao-language name for the image has been transliterated in a number of ways, including "Pra Bang," "Prabang," "Phabang" and "Pha Bang."

The statue is an eighty-three centimeter-high standing Buddha with palms facing forward, cast in bronze and covered in gold leaf.

According to local lore, it was cast in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) sometime between the first and ninth century.

However, the features of the image suggest a much later Khmer origin.

The Phra Bang arrives in Lan Xang during the reign of Fa Ngum from Angkor, and is used to spread Theravada Buddhism in the new kingdom.

In 1359, the Khmer king gives the Phra Bang to his son-in-law, the first Lang Xang monarch Fa Ngum (1353-1373); to provide Buddhist legitimacy both to Fa Ngum's rule and by extension to the sovereignty of Laos.

The former Lao capital Luang Prabang, where it is kept, is named after the Buddha image.

The Red Turban Rebellion has spread through much of China by 1355.

Zhu Yuanzhang captures Nanjing in 1356 and makes it his capital.

It is here that he begins to discard his heterodox beliefs and so wins the help of Confucian scholars who issue pronouncements for him and perform rituals in his claim of the Mandate of Heaven, the first step toward establishing new dynastic rule.

Meanwhile the Mongols are fighting among themselves, inhibiting their ability to suppress the rebellion.

Gi Cheol, whose younger sister is Empress Gi of China’s Mongol Yuan dynasty, has come to threaten the position of the king of Goryeo, which is a client state of the Mongols.

Gongmin of Goryeo exterminates the Gi family in a coup in 1356.

Öljei Khutuk, the Mongolian name by which Empress Gi is known in Korean, responds by selecting Tash Temür as the new king of Goryeo and dispatches troops to Goryeo.

The Mongol troops wae defeated by the army of Goryeo while attempting to cross the Yalu River.

Casimir III has annexed the Halych–Volodymyr area of Rus' in the course of Poland’s expansion to the east through a series of military campaigns between 1340 and 1366.

The town of Lviv here attracts newcomers of several nationalities, is granted municipal rights in 1356, and thus begins its career as Lwów, the main Polish center amidst a Rus' Orthodox population.

Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV promulgates the Golden Bull signed in Nürnberg in 1356, thereby providing Germany with a new legal framework to achieve sorely needed stabilization after a century of fragmentation in Central Europe over princely rights in the election of emperors,.

In regularizing elections by naming seven electors, Karl’s decree formally acknowledges the principle of elective monarchy.

The king of Bohemia receives first place among the empire’s electors, who also include the duke of Saxony, the margrave of Brandenburg, the count palatine of the Rhine, and the archbishops of Mainz, Trier, and Cologne.

Serving as a constitution for the Holy Roman Empire, the Golden Bull defines the electors’ ceremonial functions, prescribes their judicial powers, and regulates succession in their principalities.

The papacy, assigned no role, is thus de facto excluded from a voice in imperial elections.

The Ottomans, who had been allied with the Kantakouzenoi, continue to press John.

Suleyman Paşa, the son of the Ottoman sultan, leads their forces in Europe and is able to take Adrianople and…

…Philippopolis and to exact tribute from the emperor.

The initial Thracian conquests place the Ottomans strategically astride all of the major overland communication routes linking Constantinople to the Balkans’ frontiers, facilitating their expanded military operations.

In addition, control of the highways in Thrace isolate the diminished Empire from direct overland contact with any of its potential allies in the Balkans or in Western Europe.

Emperor John V is forced to sign an unfavorable treaty with Orhan in 1356 that recognizes his Thracian losses.

A Genoese commercial boat captain, conducting acts of piracy alongside commercial activity, had been able to capture Şehzade Halil, Orhan’s only son by Theodora, in 1356, abducting the young prince somewhere on the Bay of Izmit and take him over to Phocaea on the Aegean Sea, which is under Genoese rule.

Orhan, very much upset by this kidnapping, conducts talks with his brother-in-law and now sole Emperor John V Palaeologos.

As to the agreement, John V leads a naval fleet to Phocaea, pays the demanded ransom of one hundred thousand hyperpyra, and brings Halil back to Ottoman territory.

Halil will later marry Irene, a daughter of John V Palaiologos and Theodora's sister, Helena Kantakouzene.

The Swiss Confederation, having resisted an attack by Bavaria in 1355, had gained Imperial concern.

The confederates have to return both Glarus and ...

...Zug to the Habsburgs in the peace treaty of Regensburg in 1356; ...