- Constantine XI by Cole Daniels
1404--53, last Byzantine emperor (1448--53): killed when Constantinople was captured by the Turks
- Vlad IV by Samantha Morales
1431?–1476, prince of Walachia (1448, 1456–62, 1476), known as Vlad the Impaler. He was the son of Prince Vlad Dracul (Vlad the Devil) and is therefore also called Dracula or son of the Devil. Vlad IV seized the Walachian throne briefly in 1448 and definitively in 1456 with the support of John Hunyadi, whom he had helped against the Ottoman Turks. Ruling with firmness and with cruelty toward ...
- Velikiye Luki by Ivan Palmer
City (1989 pop. 114,000), W central European Russia, on the Lovat River. A railroad junction, it has industries producing rolling stock and foodstuffs. Dating from the 12th cent., the city was controlled first by Novgorod, then by Lithuania, and, from 1448, by Moscow. During the Livonian war it was captured by Stephen Bathory of Poland (1580), who controlled it until 1582.
- John VIII by Jared Alvarez
John VIII. (John Palaeologus), 1390–1448, Byzantine emperor (1425–48), son and successor of Manuel II. When he acceded, the Byzantine Empire had been reduced by the Turks to the city of Constantinople. John sought in vain to secure Western aid by agreeing at the Council of Florence (1439) to the union of the Eastern and Western churches. His brother, Constantine XI, succeeded him in 1449 and ...
- Basel, Council of by Great Soviet Encyclopedia
an ecumenical council of the Catholic Church that met from 1431 to 1449, at first in Basel and, beginning in 1448, in Lausanne. It was held under the circumstances of the severe decline of the papacy and the successes of the early movement for reformation. At the Council of Basel a struggle developed between the papacy and the supporters of the conciliar movement (those who advocated the idea ...