Events from 1453

Fall of Constantinople brings Byzantine legal manuscripts West - Greek texts of Justinian trigger humanist legal scholarship

Shroud transferred to Savoy - Duke Louis obtains from Charny family - Blind child receives sight after touching reliquary

Holy Face of Genoa (separate from Shroud) performs miracle - Image on cloth spontaneously appears during Mass - Byzantine emperor's gift authenticated by bleeding

Constantine XI dies on walls - last emperor refuses surrender, body never found, empire ends

Donatello completes bronze David for Medici palace - first free-standing nude sculpture since antiquity

Ottomans capture Constantinople - spice prices triple in Europe, desperate search for alternative routes begins

Fall of Constantinople - Constantine XI dies on walls, Byzantine Empire ends after 1,123 years

Mehmed II's giant cannon 'Basilica' breaches Constantinople's walls - 1000-year-old Theodosian walls fall to gunpowder

Battle of Castillon ends Hundred Years War - English lose all French territory except Calais

Henry VI's first madness begins - complete mental breakdown, catatonic for 17 months, York becomes Protector