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The 1450s

572 sourced entries across 10 years, inside the 15th century. Each year below opens its own page; the lines under it are that year’s highest-ranked entries.

1450 CE72 entries

  • March 15 – English commander Thomas Kyriell and 2,500 soldiers land at Cherbourg in English-occupied France, where they join another 1,800 English troops recruited by the Duke of Somerset from the garrisons at Bayeux, Caen and Vire.
  • August 12 – Cherbourg, the last English territory in Normandy, surrenders to the French.
  • December 23 – In Rome, the collapse of the Ponte Sant'Angelo, a bridge over the Via Giulia and the subsequent stampede combine to kill more than 300 people, most of whom were on a pilgrimage to the Holy See.

1451 CE48 entries

  • January 7 – Pope Nicholas V issues a Papal Bull to establish The University of Glasgow; classes are initially held in Glasgow Cathedral.
  • May 31 – King Henry VI of England gives royal assent to the Attainder of John Cade Act 1450, confiscating the lands of Jack Cade, who had led a rebellion against the King in 1450. Cade is posthumously convicted of treason so that his estate will go directly to the King.
  • August 14 – A three-year truce is signed between Scotland and England at the Church of St Nicholas at Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

1452 CE53 entries

  • March 17 – Reconquista – Battle of Los Alporchones (around the city of Lorca in Murcia): The combined forces of the Kingdom of Castile, and its subsidiary kingdom of Murcia, defeat the Emirate of Granada.
  • June 18 – Pope Nicholas V issues the bull Dum Diversas, legitimising the colonial slave trade.
  • October – Byzantine–Ottoman Wars: The Ottoman governor of Thessaly, Turakhan Beg, breaks through the Hexamilion wall for the fourth time, and ravages the Peloponnese Peninsula to prevent the Byzantine Despotate of the Morea from assisting Constantinople, during the final Ottoman siege of the imperial capital.

1453 CE54 entries

  • January 26 – As the Ottoman Empire is increasing its number of troops in Byzantium, mercenary troops from the Republic of Genoa, commanded by Giovanni Giustiniani, arrive in Constantinople to join with Venetian troops already present.
  • April 6 – The Ottoman Empire declares war against the Byzantines, beginning the Siege of Constantinople.
  • July 23 – The Burgundian army led by Duke Philip the Good defeats the rebel forces of Ghent at the Battle of Gavere

1454 CE47 entries

  • January 6 – Mehmed II, the Muslim Sultan of the Ottoman empire, restores the Christian Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople, and appoints the Byzantine Greek theologian Gennadius Scholarius as the Patriarch Gennadius II.
  • March 27 – Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, becomes Protector for King Henry VI of England, who is in a catatonic state.
  • November 16 – Nikola Skobaljić, the Serbian voivode of Dubočica who had resisted Ottoman rule, is defeated by the armies of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II and is taken prisoner. Skobaljić is executed by impalement at the Mehmed's command, and his head is sent to Constantinople to serve as an example of the punishment for people who resist the Ottoman Sultan.

1455 CE65 entries

  • June 15 – In Egypt, the Sultan Sayf al-Din Inal confronts a revolt of 500 of his ethnic Circassian slave-troops (mamluks) after rejecting the soldiers' requests for camels to accompany them on an expedition against Bedouin invaders in the Nile Delta. After attempting to assassinate the Sultan's secretary, Yunus al-Aqba'i, the rebels join discontented Zahiri troops and besieged the Cairo Citadel. Facing a withdrawal of support from the Egyptian Caliph, the Sultan eventually meets the rebels' demands.
  • June 25 – Prince João, the new son of King Afonso V of Portugal, is approved as the heir to the throne by the representatives of the three estates of the realm (nobility, clergy and bourgeoisie) in the Portuguese Cortes at Lisbon.
  • October 5 – Threatened with an invasion by the Ottoman Empire, the Principality of Moldavia sends its first tribute to the Ottoman Sultan, paying 2,000 ducats (equivalent to 6.99 kg of gold) in response to an ultimatum.

1456 CE61 entries

  • 25 February – Richard, Duke of York is dismissed as Lord Protector, effectively regent for the King, for the second time.
  • September 23 – Pope Calixtus III issues a papal bull granting a seven-year indulgence to any Christian who makes a pilgrimage to Our Lady of the Pillar in Zaragoza in Spain's Kingdom of Aragon
  • October 17 – The University of Greifswald is established, making it the second oldest university in Northern Europe. Due to border changes, from 1648 to 1815 it is the oldest in Sweden, and from 1815 to 1945 the oldest in Prussia.

1457 CE56 entries

  • 28 January – Margaret Beaufort gives birth to Henry Tudor the future King at Pembroke Castle in Wales
  • April 12 – Ştefan cel Mare secures the throne of Moldavia, which he retains for the next 47 years.
  • May 15 – The Swiss city of St. Gallen becomes a free imperial city within the Holy Roman Emperor upon payment of 7,000 gulden to its former abbot, Kaspar von Breitenlandenberg.

1458 CE56 entries

  • March 25 – The Loveday is staged in London, by which Henry VI of England attempts to unite the warring factions who have triggered the Wars of the Roses.
  • 25 March – The Love Day is staged in London, by which Henry VI of England attempts to unite the warring factions who have triggered the Wars of the Roses
  • April 20 – Isidore of Kiev is installed as the Latin Patriarchate of Constantinople, leader of Eastern Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire, with the approval of the Muslim Ottoman Sultan, Mehmed II.

1459 CE60 entries

  • April 25 – The Treaty of Eger is signed by representatives of the Kingdom of Bohemia and the Electorate of Saxony, setting a border that remains more than 500 years later as the border between the Czech Republic and Germany as running along the main ridge of the Ore Mountains from Eger to the River Elbe.
  • September 23 – Wars of the Roses: At the Battle of Blore Heath in the Kingdom of England, Yorkists under Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury, defeat a Lancastrian force.
  • December 20 – England's "Parliament of Devils" is dissolved after accomplishhing its purpose of passing bills of attainder for high treason, indictments of Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York and other Yorkist supporters in the War of the Roses. Other prominent Yorkists charged are Edward, Earl of March (the future King Edward IV), Edmund, Earl of Rutland, Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury, and his son, Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick.