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Western Europe

1400 CE – 1900 CE

Five centuries of Western Europe — the Renaissance, the Reformation, revolutions and empires, the densest cluster of events in Annalium.

6432 events · 5314 people · 1 eras

Key events

1. Battle of Grunwald1410 CE
   The Battle of Grunwald, also known as the (First) Battle of Tannenberg or the Battle of Žalgiris, was fought on 15 July 1410 during the Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War. The alliance of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, led respectively by King Władysław II Jagiełło (Jogaila), and Grand Duke Vytautas, decisively defeated the Teutonic Order, led by Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen. Most of the Teutonic Order's leadership was killed or taken prisoner.
2. Council of Constance1414 CE
   The Council of Constance was an ecumenical council of the Catholic Church that was held from 1414 to 1418 in the Bishopric of Constance (Konstanz) in present-day Germany. This was the first ecumenical council convened in the Holy Roman Empire. The council ended the Western Schism by deposing or accepting the resignation of the remaining papal claimants and by electing Pope Martin V. It was the last papal election to take place outside of Italy until Vatican City became an independent state.
3. Battle of Agincourt1415 CE
   The Battle of Agincourt was an English victory in the Hundred Years' War. It took place on 25 October 1415 near Azincourt, in northern France. The unexpected victory of the vastly outnumbered English troops over the French army boosted English morale, crippled France, and began a new period of English dominance in the war. This advantage lasted for 14 years, until England was defeated by France in 1429 during the Siege of Orléans.
4. Council of Florence1431 CE
   The Council of Florence was the seventeenth ecumenical council recognized by the Catholic Church, held between 1431 and 1445. It was convened in territories under the Holy Roman Empire. Italy became a venue of a Catholic ecumenical council after a gap of about two centuries. It was convoked in Basel as the Council of Basel by Pope Martin V shortly before his death in February 1431 and took place in the context of the Hussite Wars in Bohemia and the rise of the Ottoman Empire. At stake was the greater conflict between the conciliar movement and the principle of papal supremacy.
5. Battle of Varna1444 CE
   The Battle of Varna took place on 10 November 1444 near Varna in what is today eastern Bulgaria. The Ottoman army under Sultan Murad II defeated the Crusaders commanded by King Władysław III of Poland and Hungary, John Hunyadi and Mircea II of Wallachia. It was the final battle of the unsuccessful Crusade of Varna, a last-ditch effort to prevent further Ottoman expansion into the Balkans.
6. Battle of Kosovo1448 CE
   The Second Battle of Kosovo was a land battle between a Hungarian-led Crusader army and the Ottoman Empire at Kosovo field that took place from 17–20 October 1448. It was the culmination of a Hungarian offensive to avenge the defeat at the Battle of Varna four years earlier. In the three-day battle the Ottoman army under the command of Sultan Murad II defeated the Crusader army of regent John Hunyadi.
7. Fall of Constantinople1453 CE
   The Fall of Constantinople, also known as the Conquest of Constantinople, was the capture of Constantinople, the capital city of the Byzantine Empire, by the Ottoman Empire. The city was captured on 29 May 1453 as part of the culmination of a 53-day siege which had begun on 6 April.
8. Battle of Bosworth Field1485 CE
   The Battle of Bosworth or Bosworth Field was the last significant battle of the Wars of the Roses, the civil war between the houses of Lancaster and York that extended across England and Wales in the latter half of the 15th century. Fought on 22 August 1485, the battle was won by an alliance of Lancastrians and disaffected Yorkists. Their leader Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, became the first Welsh monarch of England from the Tudor dynasty by his victory and subsequent marriage to the de facto Yorkist heiress, Elizabeth of York. His opponent Richard III, the last king of the House of York, was killed during the battle, the last English monarch to fall in battle. Historians consider Bosworth Field to mark the end of the Plantagenet dynasty, making it one of the defining moments of English history.
9. Treaty of Tordesillas1494 CE
   The Treaty of Tordesillas, signed in Tordesillas, Spain, on 7 June 1494, and ratified in Setúbal, Portugal, divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe between the Kingdom of Portugal and the Crown of Castile, along a meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands, off the west coast of Africa. That line of demarcation was about halfway between Cape Verde and the islands visited by Christopher Columbus on his first voyage, thought then to be Cipangu and Antillia, but in fact Cuba and Hispaniola; the treaty itself does not mention Cipangu or Antillia.
10. Wars of the Roses1500 CE
    The Wars of the Roses, known at the time and in following centuries as the Civil Wars, and also the Cousins' War, were a series of armed confrontations, machinations, battles and campaigns fought for control of the English throne from 1455 to 1487. The conflict was fought between supporters of the House of Lancaster and House of York, two rival cadet branches of the royal House of Plantagenet. The conflict resulted in the end of Lancaster's male line in 1471, leaving the Tudor family to inherit, through the female line, the Lancaster claim to the throne. Conflict was largely brought to an end upon the union of the two houses through marriage, creating the Tudor dynasty that would subsequently rule England.
11. Stockholm Bloodbath1520 CE
    The Stockholm Bloodbath was a trial that led to a series of executions in Stockholm between 7 and 9 November 1520. The event is also known as the Stockholm massacre. The events occurred after the coronation of Christian II as the new king of Sweden, when guests in the crowning party were invited to a meeting at Tre Kronor castle. Archbishop Gustav Trolle, demanding economic compensation for things such as the demolition of Almarestäket's fortress, questioned whether the former Swedish regent Sten Sture the Younger and his supporters had been guilty of heresy.
12. Battle of Pavia1525 CE
    The Battle of Pavia, fought on the morning of 24 February 1525, was the decisive engagement of the Italian War of 1521–1526 between the Kingdom of France and the Habsburg Empire of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor as well as ruler of Spain, Austria, the Low Countries, and the Two Sicilies.

Notable people

• Jesus Christ7 BCE – 30 CE
• Karl Marx1818 CE – 1883 CE
• Leonardo da Vinci1452 CE – 1519 CE
• Napoleon1769 CE – 1821 CE
• جورج واشنطن1732 CE – 1799 CE
• Winston Churchill1874 CE – 1965 CE
• Miguel de Cervantes1547 CE – 1616 CE
• Otto von Bismarck1815 CE – 1898 CE
• Benjamin Franklin1706 CE – 1790 CE
• Nicolaus Copernicus1473 CE – 1543 CE
• Genghis Khan1162 CE – 1227 CE
• Friedrich Engels1820 CE – 1895 CE

Cultural works

Eras spanning this view

Related atlas views

• Renaissance Italy
• Britain & Ireland
• Medieval Iberia

Explore more of the atlas

• China
• Tang Dynasty China
• Three Kingdoms
• Japan
• Heian Japan
• East Asia

Want the background? Read the guides on what was happening at the same moment in history.

Events from Wikipedia/Wikidata (CC-BY-SA); base map © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL); era boundaries are a hand-curated set in v1. Spotted a mistake? Email [email protected].