The world: 1450s

1450–1459

Events in this period 4

1. c. 1450 · Europe · Science

   Printing press

   A printing press is a machine that applies pressure to transfer ink onto a surface made of paper, cloth, or a similar material. Its workers are known as printing press operators. It marked a significant improvement on earlier methods, in which the paper was rubbed by hand to transfer applied ink to the printing surface.

2. 1453 · Europe · War

   Fall of Constantinople

   Constantinople, the capital city of the Byzantine Empire, was captured by the Ottoman Empire on 29 May 1453 as part of the culmination of a 53-day siege which had begun on 6 April.

3. 1455 – 1487 · Europe · War

   Wars of the Roses

   The Wars of the Roses, known at the time and in the following centuries as the Civil Wars, 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 York and the House of Lancaster, 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. The 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.

4. c. 1450 · South America · Culture

   Machu Picchu

   Machu Picchu is a 15th-century Inca citadel located in the Eastern Cordillera of southern Peru on a mountain ridge at 2,430 meters (7,970 ft). It is situated in the Machupicchu District of Urubamba Province about 80 kilometers northwest of Cusco, above the Sacred Valley and along the Urubamba River, which forms a deep canyon with a subtropical mountain climate.

Descriptions are the opening paragraph of each Wikipedia article (CC BY-SA 4.0). Open an event for the full text and a link to the source.

Still under way

• Hundred Years' War1337 – 1453

Around the same time

• Creation of Hangul (Hunminjeongeum)1443
• Sengoku period1467 – 1615
• Columbus reaches the Americas1492
• Portuguese discovery of the sea route to India1497 – 1499
• Ming treasure voyages1405 – 1433
• Inca Empire1438
• Bartolomeu Dias1488
• Pedro Álvares Cabral1500
• Malacca Sultanate1400
• Battle of Ankara1402
• Battle of Grunwald1410
• Portuguese conquest of Ceuta1415

Other maps for this period

• War mapsHundred Years' War
• War mapsWars of the Roses