Second Battle of Kosovo

October 17, 1448

John Hunyadi, Hungary's Transylvanian warlord, met Murad II on the same field where the Serbs had died in 1389. Three days of fighting ended in another Christian disaster. Hunyadi escaped, briefly a prisoner of a Serbian despot. The Balkans were now, irrevocably, Ottoman territory waiting to be organized. The defeat ended Hungary's ability to project offensive power into the Balkans, leaving defense to desperate border garrisons.