Alexander Jagiellon
Channel: all the knowledge of the universe PRINCIPIA
Date: 2021-12-03

Alexander Jagiellon, by Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1589 / CC BY SA 3.0

#1461_births
#1506_deaths
#16th-century_monarchs_in_Europe
#16th-century_Polish_monarchs
#Polish_Roman_Catholics
#Jagiellonian_dynasty
#Grand_Dukes_of_Lithuania
#Gediminids
#Burials_at_Vilnius_Cathedral
#Nobility_from_Kraków
Alexander Jagiellon （Polish: Aleksander Jagiellończyk; Lithuanian: Aleksandras Jogailaitis; 5 August 1461 – 19 August 1506） of the House of Jagiellon was the grand duke of Lithuania and later also king of Poland.
He was the fourth son of Casimir IV Jagiellon.
He was elected grand duke of Lithuania on the death of his father （1492） and king of Poland on the death of his brother John I Albert （1501）.
Alexander was born as the fourth son of King Casimir IV of Poland and Elisabeth, daughter of the King Albert of Hungary.
At the time of his father's death in 1492, his eldest brother Vladislaus had already become king of Bohemia （1471） and Hungary and Croatia （1490）, and the next oldest brother,
Casimir, had died （1484） after leading an ascetic and pious life in his final years, resulting in his eventual canonization.
While the third oldest brother, John I Albert was chosen by the Polish nobility （szlachta） to be the next king of Poland, the Lithuanians instead elected Alexander to be their next grand duke.
The greatest challenge that Alexander faced upon assuming control of the grand duchy was an attack on Lithuania by Grand Duke Ivan III of Russia and his allies, the Tatars of the Crimean Khanate, which commenced shortly after his accession.
Ivan III considered himself the heir to the lands of Kievan Rus', and was striving to take back the territory previously gained by Lithuania.
Unable to successfully stop the incursions, Alexander sent a delegation to Moscow to make a peace settlement, which was signed in 1494 and ceded extensive land over to Ivan.
In an additional effort to instill a peace between the two countries, Alexander was betrothed to Helena, the d...