Battle of Varna

On November 10, 1444, Ottoman forces under Sultan Murad II defeated a Crusader army near Varna on the Black Sea coast of modern Bulgaria. The Crusade, called by Pope Eugene IV in 1443, aimed to halt Ottoman expansion into the Balkans. King Wladyslaw III of Poland and Hungary led approximately 20,000 Crusaders, with John Hunyadi commanding the field forces. Wladyslaw was killed during a cavalry charge against the Ottoman center, and his head was displayed on a pike. The defeat ended organized Western military resistance to Ottoman control of the Balkans for decades.