DeadlyCurious
Menu
A century

15th century

16 stories from this century.

The Cabinet June 27, 2026 · Agincourt, Pas-de-Calais

The Outnumbered English Army That Defeated a Substantially Larger French Force at Agincourt on Saint Crispin's Day in 1415 With the Help of the Longbow and Heavy Mud

Henry V's English army of approximately 8,000 men defeated a French army of approximately 25,000 at Agincourt on 25 October 1415. The English longbow inflicted heavy casualties on the French heavy cavalry crossing a narrow, deeply muddy field. Henry ordered the killing of approximately 1,500 French prisoners during the battle. The conventional French casualty estimate is 6,000-10,000 dead against fewer than 500 English.

Read the story →
The Coroner’s Report June 27, 2026 · Place du Vieux-Marché, Rouen

The 19-Year-Old Peasant Girl Tried for Heresy by the Bishop of Beauvais and Burned at the Stake at Rouen on 30 May 1431

Joan of Arc was tried for heresy at Rouen between 9 January and 30 May 1431 by a Church court under the Bishop of Beauvais Pierre Cauchon, who was on the English military payroll. Seventy specific articles were reduced to twelve and then to one — relapse into men's clothing. She was burned at the stake in the Vieux-Marché on 30 May 1431. The verdict was overturned in 1456 by the same Church.

Read the story →
The Footnote June 27, 2026 · Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin

The Ten-Year-Old Pretender Who Was Crowned King of England in Dublin in 1487 and Then Worked in Henry VII's Kitchen

Lambert Simnel was crowned Edward VI of England in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, on 24 May 1487, aged about 10. He was a baker's son being impersonated by Yorkist conspirators as the imprisoned Earl of Warwick. After his army lost the Battle of Stoke Field, Henry VII pardoned him and put him to work in the royal kitchens as a spit-turner.

Read the story →
The Cabinet June 27, 2026 · Tyburn, London

The Flemish Boatman's Son Who Convinced Half of Europe He Was the Younger Prince in the Tower for Eight Years

Perkin Warbeck claimed from 1490 to be Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, the younger of the two Princes in the Tower. He was recognised by Margaret of Burgundy, James IV of Scotland, and Maximilian I of Austria. He landed in Cornwall in 1497 with 8,000 supporters, was captured, and was hanged at Tyburn on 23 November 1499.

Read the story →
The Coroner’s Report June 27, 2026 · Bosworth Field, Leicestershire

The Last English King to Die in Battle Was Killed at Bosworth Field on 22 August 1485 and His Skeleton Was Found Under a Leicester Car Park in 2012

Richard III was killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field on 22 August 1485 by Henry Tudor's forces. He was the last English king to die in combat and the last Plantagenet. His body was buried at Greyfriars Priory at Leicester, lost after the Reformation dissolution. The skeleton was located under a Leicester car park in September 2012 by University of Leicester archaeologists, identified by DNA, and reburied at Leicester Cathedral in March 2015.

Read the story →
The Cabinet June 27, 2026 · Piazza della Signoria, Florence

The Dominican Friar Who Ruled Florence for Four Years, Burned the City's Artwork and Books, and Was Then Burned Himself in the Same Piazza

Girolamo Savonarola dominated the Florentine Republic from the 1494 expulsion of the Medici until his own execution in May 1498. His February 1497 Bonfire of the Vanities consumed thousands of paintings, books, mirrors, musical instruments, and cosmetics in the Piazza della Signoria. The same piazza was the site of his hanging and burning fifteen months later, on 23 May 1498.

Read the story →
The Footnote June 27, 2026 · Beinecke Library, Yale

The Early 15th-Century Manuscript Written in a Script That No One Has Read in Six Hundred Years

The Voynich Manuscript is a 240-page illuminated codex written in an unknown script and an unknown language, with botanical, astronomical, balneological, and pharmaceutical illustrations. Radiocarbon dating of the vellum places production between 1404 and 1438. No one has produced a generally accepted translation in the six centuries since.

Read the story →
The Footnote June 24, 2026 · Las Palmas, Canary Islands

Christopher Columbus Believed in a Smaller Earth Than Eratosthenes Had Measured and That Is Why He Sailed

The Eratosthenian Earth circumference (about 250,000 stadia, accurate to 2%) was the standard ancient figure but had been substantially undermined by a competing late-antique calculation by Posidonius. Columbus took the smaller Posidonian figure as his planning baseline. If he had used Eratosthenes's number, he would never have sailed.

Read the story →
The Cabinet June 24, 2026 · Northern Europe (climate impact zone)

The 90-Year Solar Quiet Period That Probably Helped Killed the Norse Greenland Colony

The Spörer Minimum was a sustained reduction in solar activity from approximately 1460 to 1550. The Sun went almost entirely spotless for nine decades. The associated climate effect contributed to the deeper cold of the [Little Ice Age](/articles/little-ice-age), the [collapse of the Norse colony in Greenland](/articles/erik-the-red-greenland), and the harvest failures of late-medieval northern Europe. It is the older and longer cousin of the better-known [Maunder Minimum](/articles/maunder-minimum) of the late 17th century.

Read the story →