The Albert Ludwig University, established in Freiburg…

Ōta Dōkan is best known as the architect and builder of Edo Castle (now the Imperial Palace) in what is today modern Tokyo.

A samurai warrior-poet, military tactician and Buddhist monk, he is considered the founder of the castle town which is to grow up around that Ōnin era fortress.

Instead of stone walls, the defense works around the fifteenth century castle are only grassy embankments, and the structures inside them are not grand.

The initial enclosure which serves as the castle's core area, the space which would have been Dōkan's hon-maru, is modestly sized; but the moats are extensive for this time.

These moats and their locations will figure prominently in the serial phases of construction and development that follow.

The Ming Dynasty, ruled from Beijing by ethnic Han Chinese, has constructed a vast navy and maintains a standing army of one million troops.

Enormous construction projects, including the restoration of the Grand Canal and the Great Wall and the establishment of the Forbidden City in Beijing had taken place during the first quarter of the fifteenth century.

Estimates for the late-Ming population vary from one hundred and sixty million to twio hundred million.

The founding emperor’s rebuilding of China's agricultural base and strengthening of communication routes through the militarized courier system has had the unintended effect of creating a vast agricultural surplus that can be sold at burgeoning markets located along courier routes.

Rural culture and commerce have become influenced by urban trends.

The upper echelons of society embodied in the scholarly gentry class are also affected by this new consumption-based culture.

In a departure from tradition, merchant families have begun to produce examination candidates to become scholar-officials and adopted cultural traits and practices typical of the gentry.

Parallel to this trend involving social class and commercial consumption are changes in social and political philosophy, bureaucracy and governmental institutions, and even arts and literature.

The Zhengtong Emperor had been released from a yearlong Mongol captivity in 1450 but when he returned to China had been immediately put under house arrest by his brother Zhu Qiyu, who, to calm the crisis, had been installed as the Jingtai Emperor.

For almost seven years, he has resided in the southern palace of the Forbidden city and all outside contacts are severely curtailed by the Jingtai Emperor.

Zhengtong's son (later Emperor Chenghua) had stripped of the title of crown prince and replaced by Jingtai's own son.

This act had greatly upset and devastated Zhengtong but the heir apparent had died shortly thereafter.

Overcome with grief, the Jingtai Emperor falls ill and Zhengtong decides to depose Jingtai by a palace coup which eventually reinstalls Zhu Qizhen as emperor, who renames his second reign Tianshun ("heavenly obedience"); he will go on to rule for another seven years.

Three ships from Danzig defeat a combined Danish-Livonian fleet of sixteen ships near Bornholm during two weeks in August 1457.

Sweden and Denmark have been in a state of war against each other from 1451.

A growing opposition against Charles VIII Knutsson has emerged in Sweden because of the devastating conflict.

The Swedish church, which opposes Charles's efforts to concentrate royal and secular power, is his strongest opponent.

Other opponents include the family group of Oxenstierna and Vasa (House), which had been in the opposing side in the election of the king in 1449 and lost.

A rebellion led by Jöns Bengtsson (Oxenstierna), Archbishop of Sweden, and a nobleman, Erik Axelsson Tott, in 1457 deposes Charles, who goes into exile to Danzig (Gdańsk).

The two leaders of the revolt name themselves co-regents, and organize the election of Christian I of Denmark and Norway as king of Sweden (firstly in Turku, later in Stockholm), thus reestablishing the Kalmar Union.

Brother Gregory, influenced by the spiritual heritage of John Huss, founds the Bohemian Unity of the Brethren, which, having functioned within the Utraquist group of Hussites for a decade, separates in 1457 and establishes an independent ministry.

The reform movement bases itself solely on the Bible, and its leaders are able to procure non-Roman ordination from a bishop of the Waldenses.

The roots of this radical and pacifistic stream within the early reformation movement begin in a small village called Kunvald near Žamberk, on the Litice lordship of George Podebrady, in the northeast part of Bohemia.

Theologians and thinkers who provide inspiration for the future Unity of the Brethren are Hussite bishop Jan Rokycana and Petr Chelčický.

Hermann Vischer (the Elder) had come to Nuremberg as a worker in brass in 1453 and there become a "master" of his gild.

In 1457, he creates his major work, the only one that can be ascribed to him with certainty: the bronze baptismal font in the Stadtkirche, Wittenberg, decorated with figures of the Apostles.

Moldavia has from 1451 been racked by civil war between Petru Aron, who had murdered his half-brother Bogdan II to usurp the throne, and Alexăndrel—a nephew of Alexandru cel Bun (Alexander the Good), Voivode (Prince) of Moldavia between 1400 and 1432.

Following the outbreak of the conflict, Bogdan’s son Stephen had taken refuge in Transylvania, seeking the protection of military commander John Hunyadi.

After Hunyadi’s death, he had moved to the court of Vlad III Dracula and, in 1457, manages to receive six thousand horsemen as military assistance, putting them to use in a victorious battle against Petru Aron at Doljeşti.

Following another lost battle at Orbic, Aron flees to Poland, while Stephen is crowned Prince.

The most prominent representative of the House of Muşat, Stephen cel Mare (Stephen the Great) is to retain the throne of Moldavia for the next forty-seven years.

Abul-Qasim Babur Mirza, the Timurid ruler in Khurasan, had in 1454 invaded Transoxiana, then under the control of Abu Sa'id Mirza, in retaliation for the latter's seizure of Balkh.

He had quickly laid siege to Samarkand.

The conflict between the two soon ended, however, with the Oxus River agreed to as the border.

This has remained in effect until Babur's death in 1457.

Babur's son Mirza Shah Mahmud succeeds him but, as he is still a boy, his hold on power is weak.

Weeks after Babur's death, Ibrahim Mirza bin Ala-ud-Daulah overthrows Shah Mahmud and therefore becomes the ruler of Khurasan.

However, Abu Sa'id Mirza, invades in July 1457 and occupies Balkh but is unable to conquer Herat.

Ibrahim's troubles increase when Jahan Shah of the Black Sheep Turkmen invades as well.

After occupying Gurgan, he defeats Ibrahim outside Astarabad.

Ibrahim's father Ala-ud-Daulah Mirza bin Baysonqor meets up with him in Herat to offer assistance, but in the end they both flee from the region.

Merchants and soldiers of the young Songhai empire have developed and protected a lucrative trade extending south toward the forests and north across the Sahara from the great bend of the Niger River.

Constantinople had controlled Samothrace until 1204, when Venetians took their place, only to be dislodged by a Genoan family in 1355, the Gattilusi.

The Ottoman Turks take over the island in 1457.