Hunyadi, Janós

Born between 1407 and 1409; died Aug. 11, 1456, in Zemun. Military and state figure of the Kingdom of Hungary.

Hunyadi was the son of a Walachian boyar and the father of Mátyás Hunyadi. He entered the service of King Sigismund (Zsigmond) of Luxembourg in 1430. From 1439 to 1446, Hunyadi was ban, or governor, of Szörény, and from 1441 to 1444 he was both the voevoda and the ruling ispan of Temes.

When King Albert of Hapsburg died in 1439, Hunyadi supported the Polish king Wladyslaw III Jagiello in his struggle for the throne (Wladyslaw reigned in Hungary under the name Ulászló I). In a battle at Bátaszék, Hunyadi crushed an army of boyars who had sided with the Hapsburgs. Between 1441 and 1443 he led several successful campaigns against the Ottoman aggressors in the southern part of the Hungarian kingdom.

Hunyadi was regent of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1446 to 1452. His defeat of the Turks in the battle of Belgrade in 1456 spared Hungary from further Turkish incursions until 1521. Hunyadi died of the plague.