Events and trends

• Johannes Gutenberg was credited with inventing the first movable type printing press in Mainz, Germany.
• 1453 – Mehmed II of the Ottoman Empire laid siege to, and captures, Constantinople, ending the political independence of the millennium-old Byzantine Empire.
• 1455 – Forces led by Richard, Duke of York and Richard, Earl of Warwick captured Lancastrian King Henry VI of England. This began the Wars of the Roses; the first major event of the war was a Yorkist victory in the First Battle of St Albans.
• 1456 – Siege of Belgrade. The Hungarians under John Hunyadi routed the Turkish army of Sultan Mehmed II. The victory stopped the Ottoman Turkish advance towards Catholic Europe for 70 years.