Middle Ages
Medici Bank (1397): How a Florentine Family Built a Fortune
The Medici Bank became one of the largest businesses in 15th-century Europe and funded the Medici family's rise to power in Florence.
Region
Europe
Middle Ages
Owain Glyndŵr's Rising (1400): The Last Welsh Prince of Wales
The revolt briefly made Owain master of most of Wales but was crushed by 1409; Owain disappeared and became a Welsh national hero.
Middle Ages
Prague Astronomical Clock (1410): The Medieval Orloj
A working medieval astronomical clock that has survived more than six centuries and become one of Prague's best-known landmarks.
Middle Ages
Battle of Grunwald (1410): Poland-Lithuania Defeats the Teutons
Decisive Polish-Lithuanian victory; the Grand Master and most of the Order's leadership were killed, beginning the long decline of the Teutonic Order's state.
Middle Ages
Battle of Agincourt (1415): Henry V's Famous Victory
Decisive English victory; much of the French nobility was killed or captured, opening the way for Henry V's conquest of Normandy.
Middle Ages
Jan Hus (1415): The Bohemian Reformer Burned at Constance
Hus was condemned as a heretic and burned at the stake; his death provoked a revolt in Bohemia that grew into the Hussite movement and wars.
Middle Ages
Hussite Wars (1419-1434): Jan Zizka and the War Wagons
The crusades against Bohemia failed; after moderate Hussites defeated the radicals at Lipany in 1434, the Compacts of Basel allowed Bohemian Utraquism within the Catholic Church.
Middle Ages
Brunelleschi's Dome: Building Florence Cathedral's Cupola
The dome was closed in 1436 and remains the largest masonry dome ever built, a landmark of early Renaissance engineering.
Middle Ages
Siege of Orléans (1428-1429): The Turning Point for France
French victory; the English lifted the siege on 8 May 1429, opening the way to Charles VII's coronation at Reims.
Middle Ages
Joan of Arc: The Maid of Orléans, Her Trial and Her Legacy
Joan helped relieve Orléans and crown Charles VII, was executed for relapsed heresy in 1431, rehabilitated in 1456 and canonised in 1920.
Middle Ages
Ghent Altarpiece: Van Eyck's Masterpiece of Oil Painting
A landmark of early Netherlandish painting that survived iconoclasm, war, looting and theft, and is still displayed in Ghent.
Middle Ages
Skanderbeg (1443): Albania's Revolt Against the Ottomans
Skanderbeg held off repeated Ottoman invasions until his death in 1468; Krujë fell in 1478 and Albania came under Ottoman rule.