1437
James I of Scotland Assassinated
The poet-king of Scotland, trapped in a sewer beneath the Perth Blackfriars, was stabbed twenty-eight times by Walter Stewart's men. His queen, Joan Beaufort, wounded defending him, later hunted his killers to their graves. Scotland's crown would now pass through a sequence of minorities and regicides for a century. His eighteen years as an English prisoner and attempts to curb noble power had made him dangerous enemies among the magnates.
Portuguese Disaster at Tangier
Prince Henry the Navigator led a catastrophic military expedition against the Moroccan fortress of Tangier that ended in complete defeat and humiliation. His younger brother Prince Ferdinand was left as a hostage in Moorish captivity and died in a dungeon five years later, never ransomed. The disaster taught Henry, painfully, that exploring the African coast by sea was both cheaper and safer than crusading against fortified North African cities by land.
Sigismund Dies in Hungary
The Holy Roman Emperor and King of Hungary died at seventy, leaving no male heir. His Habsburg son-in-law Albrecht inherited his crowns. Habsburg accumulation of Central European thrones accelerated, laying the foundation for the multinational monarchy that would shape the region until 1918. His four decades of restless diplomacy and extraordinary vision of European unity always outstripped the capacity of every state he governed.
Albrecht II Succeeds Sigismund
The Habsburg archduke, already king of Bohemia and Hungary through his wife, inherited the German crown from his father-in-law Sigismund. The Habsburgs held their first united bloc of Central European crowns. His sudden death a year and a half later nearly undid the arrangement, but the precedent was set. His brief reign established the Habsburg practice of accumulating crowns through marriage rather than conquest.