Murad II

Murad II (1404-1451), sultan (1421-1451 and 1446-1451) of the Ottoman Empire, the son of Muhammad I. Murad spent the early years of his reign defeating rival claimants to the throne and reasserting Ottoman control over areas of Anatolia that had been lost to the Turkic conqueror Tamerlane at the beginning of the century. In the west, he took Thessaloníki from the Venetians in 1430, and defeated Władysław III of Poland at the Battle of Varna in 1444. In the same year he retired and was replaced by his son Muhammad II. Murad returned to the throne in 1446 and in 1448 won a victory over the Hungarian leader János Hunyadi at the Second Battle of Kosovo.