1446

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political events

The French dauphine Margaret of Scotland dies of a lung inflammation at Châlons August 16 after saying, "Fi de la vie." She has avoided the dauphin's bed and done her best to avoid having children, drinking vinegar, eating green apples, and lacing herself tightly in the belief that these measures will prevent pregnancy. Her death grieves the king and his mistress Agnès Sorel but does not trouble the dauphin, who will remarry in 1450. The queen gives birth at Tours December 18 to a boy, who is named after his father.

The Ordenacoes Afonisans gives Portugal her first code of laws, an amalgam of Roman and Visigothic law mixed with local custom.

Hungarian noblemen elect János Hunyadi to rule the country as a governor during the minority of their king, Ladislas (László) V (see 1444). Hunyadi restores order in the country but is forced to contend with opposition from some of the country's magnates and from the Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich III while preparing for more encounters with the Ottoman Turks (see 1448).

Corinth falls to the Ottoman Turks, who abort an effort by the Greeks to expand from the Peloponnesus (Morea) into central Greece.

The grand prince of Muscovy Basil (Vasily Vasilyevich) II is arrested by his cousin Dmitri Shemyaka and blinded. His reign was interrupted in 1434 by his uncle Yuri, who seized the throne for nearly a year, and Shemyaka will hold the throne until next year. Basil's 6-year-old son Ivan is hidden in a monastery and then smuggled to safety, but he is later turned over to his father's captors and will be affianced after his father's release next year to the daughter of the grand prince of Tver, whom he will marry in 1452, when the principality's internal discord will finally end (see 1462).

exploration, colonization

Portuguese explorer Nino Tristram (Nuno Tristão) sights the Gambia River in West Africa.

education

Humanist educator Vittorino da Feltre dies at Mantua February 2 at age 67.

communications, media

A Korean alphabet devised by two research teams wins approval from the king Sejong, who proclaims it "the right language to teach the people" October 9. The educated elite have used Chinese ideographs since the 2nd or 3rd century and will retain the thousands of Chinese ideographs well into the 19th, disdaining the new 28-letter alphabet; the masses will be unable to use even the simple new alphabet, but a written Hangul (or Onmun) will evolve combining ideographs and a 24-letter alphabet containing 14 consonant and 10 vowel syllables.

art

Painting: Edward Grymestone and CarthusianMonk by Flemish painter Petrus Christus, 26; The Patron Saints of Cologne by Stefan Lochner.

architecture, real estate

Architect Filippo Brunelleschi dies at his native Florence April 15 at age 69, leaving the cupola of the great Duomo incomplete (see 1434).

Ireland's Blarney Castle is completed by Cormac Laidhiv McCarthy, lord of Muskerry. Set in a turret below the battlements is a limestone rock that will be called the Blarney Stone and that will be reputed to confer eloquence on anyone who hangs head downward to kiss it.

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