Hosta

1444 (MCDXLIV) was a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar, the 1444th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 444th year of the 2nd millennium, the 44th year of the 15th century, and the 5th year of the 1440s decade. As of the start of 1444, the Gregorian calendar was 9 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which was the dominant calendar of the time.

Events

March 2 – The League of Lezhë, an alliance of Albanian principalities, is established in Lezhë; George Kastrioti Skanderbeg is proclaimed commander of the Albanian resistance.
May 22 – The Treaty of Tours, signed between England and France, secures a truce in the Hundred Years' War for five years.
June 15 – Cosimo de' Medici founds a public library at San Marco, Florence.^[1]
June 29 – Battle of Torvioll: Skanderbeg defeats an Ottoman army.
August 6 – A Portuguese fleet of caravels, led by Lançarote de Freitas, lands 235 slaves at Algarve, Portugal.^[2]
August 15 – The Peace of Szeged is signed between the Turkish Ottoman Empire and Hungary.
August 26 – Old Zürich War – Battle of St. Jakob an der Birs: Charles VII of France, seeking to send away troublesome troops made idle by the truce with England, sends his son (the Dauphin Louis) with a large army into Switzerland, to support the claims of Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor. The massively outnumbered Swiss force is destroyed in this battle, but inflict such casualties on the French that they withdraw.
August – After making peace with the Karamanids, Ottoman Sultan Murad II abdicates in favor of his son Mehmed II.
November 10 – Battle of Varna: The crusading forces of King Władysław III of Poland and Hungary are defeated by the Turks, under Sultan Murad II. Władysław is killed, ending the Jagiellonian Union of Hungary and Poland.

Constantine XI Palaiologos, as ruler of the Despotate of the Morea, invades the Duchy of Athens (at this time under Florentine control), and forces it to pay tribute and return Thebes to the Byzantine Empire.
Forces of the Sultan of Egypt fail to take Rhodes from the Knights of Rhodes.
Portuguese explorers reach the mouth of the rivers Senegal and Gambia.
The first European slave market for the sale of African slaves, the Mercado de Escravos, opens in Lagos, Portugal.
A serious fire occurs at Old St Paul's Cathedral in London.
The Iguvine Tablets are discovered at Gubbio, Italy.
Stephen II of Moldavia takes as co-ruler his step brother Petru, also brother-in-law to John Hunyadi.

^ Norman, Jeremy M. (2022-12-20). "Foundation of the Library of the Dominican Convent of San Marco, the First "Public" Library in Renaissance Europe". HistoryofInformation.com. Retrieved 2023-01-18.
^ Thomas, Hugh (1999). The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade: 1440 - 1870. Simon and Schuster. pp. 22. ISBN 9780684835655.
^ British Museum. Department of Prints and Drawings; Richard Fisher (1886). Introduction to a Catalogue of the Early Italian Prints in the British Museum. Chiswick Press. pp. 348–.
^ Raphael Holinshed (1907). Shakespeare's Holinshed: The Chronicle and the Historical Plays Compared. Chatto and Windus. p. 218.
^ Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini; Pope Pius II (November 2013). Europe (c.1400-1458). CUA Press. p. 220. ISBN 978-0-8132-2182-3.
^ Jerzy Lukowski; Hubert Zawadzki (20 September 2001). A Concise History of Poland. Cambridge University Press. p. 41. ISBN 978-0-521-55917-1.

1444 by topic
Arts and science
Architecture Art
Leaders
Political entities State leaders Religious leaders
Birth and death categories
Births – Deaths
Establishments and disestablishments categories
Establishments – Disestablishments
Art and literature
1444 in poetry