1462

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political events

England's Yorkist king Edward IV makes John Tiptoft, 34, 1st earl of Worcester, constable of England February 7 (see 1461). Worcester promptly condemns John de Vere, 12th earl of Oxford, and has him executed along with his eldest son Aubrey and other Lancastrians (Oxford's second son and namesake inherits his title at age 19). Worcester has served as deputy in Ireland, been sent on embassies to the pope at Rome, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and studied law, Latin, and Greek at Padua, Ferrara, and Florence; he begins a cruel regime in which he will become known as the "butcher of England" (see 1464).

The grand prince of Muscovy Basil (Vasily) II dies at Moscow March 27 at age 46 (approximate) after a 37-year reign marked by anarchy and civil war. Called Temny (the blind), Basil absorbed most of his neighboring principalities, resisted the Tatar hordes to his south and east, reduced the domination of the Tatar khan (who has remained Muscovy's suzerain in form if not substance), but welcomed occasional Tatars to his court. Basil is succeeded by his 22-year-old son, who will reign until 1505 as Ivan III Vasilievich, enlarging Muscovite territory enormously to become the first Russian national sovereign (see Novgorod, 1471).

Polish forces under the command of Casimir IV achieve a decisive victory over the Teutonic Knights (see 1454; Second Peace of Thorn, 1466).

Walachia's Vlad Tepes (Dracula) slaughters 20,000 Ottoman Turks along the Danube, but Vlad the Impaler is deposed and replaced by his pro-Turkish brother (see 1476).

Radical opponents led by his brother Albrecht besiege the Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich III in the Hofburg at Vienna (see 1458; 1463).

education

Cosimo de' Medici appoints philosopher-theologian-linguist Marsilio Ficino, 28, head of the Platonic Academy that he has established at his villa at Careggi, outside Florence. Ficino has learned Greek and has begun translating and interpreting the works of Plato and Plato's followers, trying to integrate them with Christian theology.

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