Richard II Abdicates: First Monarch to Quit Throne
Richard II stepped down from the throne, triggering a direct transfer of power that installed Henry Bolingbroke as King Henry IV and ended the Plantagenet line's unbroken rule. This forced abdication established a dangerous precedent for deposing English monarchs through parliamentary action rather than divine right or battlefield victory.
September 29, 1399
627 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on September 29
In 522 BC, Pompey the Great celebrated his third triumph for victories over pirates and the conclusion of the Mithridatic Wars on his 45th birthday. This triump…
Themistocles lured the massive Persian fleet into the narrow straits of Salamis, where the Greeks’ agile triremes systematically dismantled Xerxes’ superior num…
Pompey paraded captured kings, gold, and a fleet of pirate ships through Rome to mark his third triumph on his forty-fifth birthday. This spectacle cemented his…
Pompey arranged his third Roman triumph to land exactly on his 45th birthday — a scheduling flex that was entirely intentional and entirely him. He paraded the …
Danish invaders breached Canterbury’s walls after a three-week siege, seizing Archbishop Ælfheah as a high-value hostage. This capture forced the English crown …
Frederick II kept promising to go on Crusade. He promised in 1215, again in 1220, again in 1227 — and kept not going. When he finally sailed in 1227 and turned …
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