1453
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Constantinople falls to the Ottoman Turks, who end the Byzantine Empire that has ruled since the fall of the Roman Empire in 476. An enormous iron chain has kept the fleet of Mehmet II out of the Golden Horn, but he has had some 70 small ships dragged overland from the Bosphorus to support the 250,000 troops that have besieged the city since April 6. Beginning April 12 he pounds the city walls with a 26-foot long bronze cannon built by the Hungarian renegade Urban. Dragged by 60 oxen and 200 men, the gun has an internal caliber of 42 inches, and although it takes an hour to load and 3 hours to reposition and reload after its recoil, its 1,200-pound granite cannonballs breach the thick, 1,000-year-old city walls, the Turks force an entry at the Romanos Gate May 29, the last Byzantine emperor Constantine XI Palaeologus is killed in the fighting (his head, or one said to be his, is delivered to Mehmed II), the Turks sack Constantinople, and they make it the Ottoman capital.
The Hundred Years' War that has continued off and on since 1337 ends in France with the expulsion of the English from every place except Calais, which England will retain for more than a century. John Talbot, 65, earl of Shrewsbury, marshal of the king's armies, and constable of Aquitaine, is the last surviving general of the late Henry V; he has come ashore in the Gironde with a force of 3,000, Bordeaux and the smaller towns have risen to his support and have driven out their French garrisons, but he is shot in the throat with an arrow (or killed with roundshot) July 17 at the Battle of Castillon, five miles east of Bordeaux. Armed with Jean Bureau's recently introduced field artillery, the French have laid siege to the pro-English stronghold of Castillon on the lower Dordogne River upstream from Libourne; Shrewsbury has advanced against the fortified French camp with 1,000 horsemen in advance of his 5,000 foot soldiers, the English attack prematurely in the mistaken belief that the camp has been deserted, and the French slaughter Shrewsbury's army in the final encounter of the long war. The Bordelais surrender October 19 when it becomes clear that they can expect no further English aid, and Guyenne and Gascony are returned to French rule (see 1451; 1607). Thanks to the late Joan of Arc, Yolande of Anjou, and Agnès Sorel, Charles VII has regained his realms.
Jacques Coeur is judged guilty of lèse-majesté, fined 400,000 crowns, committed to prison at Poitiers, and stripped of all his holdings (see 1451; 1454).
England's Henry VI has his first episode of insanity, inherited from his grandfather Charles VI of France. His cousin Richard Plantagenet, 3rd duke of York, serves as regent for the 31-year-old king.
Hungary's Ladislas V is crowned king of Bohemia October 28 at age 13 and will hereafter live mostly at Prague (where he reigns as Ladislav I) and at Vienna while his regents George Podiebrad and János Hunyadi rule Bohemia and Hungary, respectively (see 1456).
The fall of Constantinople ends the Greek Empire of the East and leaves the Roman pope without any serious rival.
The Ottoman sultan Mehmed II follows up his victory at Constantinople by advancing into Greece and Albania.
The White Sheep dynasty that will rule Persia until 1490 comes to power in the person of Uzun Hasan, who will extend Turkoman authority over Armenia and Kurdistan and then over Azerbaijan and Iran.
The fall of Constantinople increases the need for sea routes to the Orient. Muslim rulers have imposed stiff tariffs on caravan shipments with the highest duties being levied on spices, and the sultan of Egypt exacts a duty equal to one-third the value of every cargo entering his domain. Venice continues to import spices at higher prices and maintains her monopoly in the spice trade (see Lisbon, 1501).
Greek scholars fleeing Constantinople receive a cordial welcome from Cosimo de' Medici to live in his palazzo at Florence (see 1429).
Picardy nobleman Enguerrand de Monstrelet dies in July at age 63 (approximate), having continued the chronicles of the late Jean Froissart to cover the years from 1400 to 1444.
Danish and Dutch merchants have obtained exclusive rights to Portuguese salt during the Hundred Years' War, which has made export of Bourneuf salt via the Straits of Dover difficult. The Portuguese salt, made at Setubal, is of high quality and very cheap (see 1669).
France regains possession of the rich Bordeaux wine-growing areas following the success of French forces at Castillon over the English, who may have been befuddled by drinking too much wine at Saint-Emilion (the English call it Semilione).
Coffee is introduced to Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks (see 850). First used by the Sufi in Yemen, the beverage has been popular in parts of the Middle East for several decades, although many Muslim authorities disapprove of it, observing that the prophet Mohammed did not drink coffee (see 1475).
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