the closing of English ports to stop information from reaching France. July 3 – The English fleet attempts to sail from Portsmouth to Normandy, but is forced back by contrary winds. July 11 – Charles IV, Count of Luxembourg and King of Bohemia, is elected King of the Romans. July 11–12 – Edward III and the English army cross the English Channel and begin an invasion of France. July 12–18 – The English raid and burn neighbouring towns and villages in the Cotentin Peninsula. July 26 – Battle of Caen (1346): an English army captures and sacks the French city of Caen. August 10 – Jaume Ferrer sets out from Majorca for the "River of Gold", the Senegal River. August 24 – Battle of Blanchetaque: The English defeat the French. August 26 – Battle of Crécy: The English defeat the French, in the first European battle where gunpowder is used. September 4 – The English begin the siege of Calais. September–October – Anglo-Gascon offensives overrun large parts of southwest France. October 4 – The English capture and sack the French city of Poitiers. October 17 – Battle of Neville's Cross: The English army defeats the Scots. October–November – Several Mongol towns in the Crimea are cleared of inhabitants by the Black Death. Repairs are made in the Hagia Sophia. Asia Western Asia The Golden Horde's siege of Kaffa continued through 1346, despite a number of obstacles. They were struck with the Black Plague and forced to retreat, although not until the following year. As one Russian historian records: In the same year [1346], God's punishment struck the people in the eastern lands, in the town Ornach, and in Khastorokan, and in Sarai, and in Bezdezh, and in other towns in those lands; the mortality was great among the Bessermens, and among the Tartars, and among the Armenians and the Abkhazians, and among the Jews, and among the European foreigners, and among the Circassians, and among all who lived there, so that they could not bury them. The many areas and peoples listed here represent much of Western Asia and the Caucasus. The "European foreigners" are those fighting with the Tartars in the Mongol-led siege of Kaffa. These Europeans would return to Europe the following year, carrying the plague with them. Travellers returning from the Crimea also carried the plague to Byzantium and Arabia, according to Greek and Arab scholars of