Krook - thanks for that - the strength of this thread is how it highlights different aspects of history. The battle of Grunwald is virtually unknown here - to be honest vast tracts of central European history are sketchy to us here in England - so, inspired by your post, I went off to Wiki and found out a bit more. I have always been fascinated by the Teutonic Order ever since seeing them as sinister Knights in the film of Alexander Nevsky - MTW and the forum have sparked me into finding out a bit more of their history.

My contribution is a more minor one. On July 15 1989 Laurie Cunningham, an English footballer, was killed in car crash outside of Madrid. Laurie was one of the first black footballers to make the grade here in England and he caused a major change in English football. Racism - absolutely rife in the 1960's and 70's - has mostly gone from the game and teams here in the UK have all races playing from them. Laurie and several other gifted black footballers lead the way for this major change in English sport. For our American friends, he did for football what Jackie Robinson did for baseball. For those who want to know more see this article from the BBC - http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/8149282.stm