1424
Yongle Emperor Dies on Campaign
Returning from his fifth Mongol expedition, the builder of Beijing and sponsor of Zheng He collapsed in his tent on the steppe. His corpse was hidden in a tin coffin until the army reached Beijing; a palace coup was feared. The treasure voyages paused. The Confucian bureaucrats had been waiting.
Battle of Verneuil
The Duke of Bedford crushed a Franco-Scottish army in a second Agincourt, killing nearly every Scot on the field. It was the high-water mark of English France. Within five years, a peasant girl would arrive at Chinon and begin reversing every gain. The Scots bore the heaviest losses, with the Earls of Buchan and Douglas killed, ending Scotland's military intervention in the war.
Aztec Flower Wars Formalized
Under Itzcoatl and his powerful nephew Moctezuma I, the Triple Alliance institutionalized ritualized warfare with Tlaxcala and other unconquered neighboring enemies. These xochiyaoyotl, or flower wars, served as training grounds for young warriors and produced a steady supply of sacrificial captives for the temples of Tenochtitlan. The practice would prove catastrophically fatal when Tlaxcala, nursing decades of accumulated humiliation, eagerly allied with Hernan Cortes a century later.
Zizka Dies of Plague
The blind Hussite general, campaigning in Moravia, died of the plague in a wagon-camp. His followers reportedly continued using his skin as a war drum, or so the legends insisted. His successor Prokop the Bald would continue winning battles for another decade, until Hussite radicalism fractured from within. He had never lost a battle, a record unmatched by any commander of his era, and his name remains synonymous with Czech valor.