1480
Great Stand on the Ugra River
Ivan III's Russian army faced Khan Akhmat's Golden Horde forces across the frozen Ugra in a week-long standoff of cavalry maneuvers. Neither side fought. Akhmat withdrew. The Mongol yoke, already theoretical for decades, was formally finished. Moscow would never again pay tribute to a Tatar khan. Ivan III's alliance with the Crimean Tatars, who attacked Akhmat from the south, was a masterstroke rendering the confrontation unnecessary.
Siege of Rhodes
Mehmed II's forces besieged the Hospitaller fortress of Rhodes for three months but failed to take it. The Knights of Saint John held their walls against repeated assaults. It was one of the few Ottoman setbacks of Mehmed's reign, and Rhodes would hold out for another forty-two years until Suleiman the Magnificent finally reduced it.
Ottoman Raid on Otranto
Gedik Ahmed Pasha landed eighteen thousand Ottoman troops on the heel of Italy and stormed Otranto in a single day. The archbishop was sawn in half at the altar; eight hundred male civilians were beheaded on a nearby hill for refusing Islam. The pope briefly prepared to flee Rome. Mehmed II's death a year later saved Italy.
Leonardo Offers Sforza His Services
Leonardo wrote a famous letter to Ludovico Sforza, duke of Milan, listing his skills: designer of bridges, siege engines, armored wagons, mortars, catapults. Only at the end did he mention that he could also paint. He was hired. Milan acquired a military engineer who moonlighted as the age's supreme artist.