Princes in the Tower vanish

1483NotableContested

Edward V and his brother Richard disappear in the Tower of London after their uncle takes the throne as Richard III. Their fate is still argued over.

Longest chain: The Big Bang → First stars ignite → Supernovae seed heavy elements → The Sun forms → Earth forms → First oceans → First life → Photosynthesis evolves → Great Oxidation Event → Complex cells (eukaryotes) → Multicellular life → First animals → Cambrian Explosion → First vertebrates → Jawed fish → Fish walk onto land → The amniotic egg → The Great Dying → Dinosaurs appear → Asteroid ends the dinosaurs → Early primates → Apes split from monkeys → Human line splits from chimpanzees → Walking upright → First stone tools → Genus Homo appears → Homo erectus → Control of fire → First fired clay figures → First pottery → Potter's wheel → The wheel → Spoke-wheeled chariot → Hittite Empire → Iron Age begins → Rome founded (traditional date) → Roman Republic founded → Caesar crosses the Rubicon → Roman Empire begins → Jesus of Nazareth crucified → Paul spreads Christianity → Edict of Milan → Constantinople founded → Roman Empire permanently divides → Fall of the Western Roman Empire → Feudalism → Hundred Years' War → Princes in the Tower vanish

Contested history

Consensus: Edward V and Richard of York were last seen in the Tower of London in 1483 and were never seen alive again.

Killed on the orders of Richard IIIDebated

Most historians lean this way: Richard gained the throne, and contemporaries like Mancini and the Crowland chronicler reported rumors of their deaths, but no direct proof exists.

Killed on the orders of Henry VII or the Duke of BuckinghamMinority view

Both had motives, but no contemporary source accuses them and the princes were already missing before Henry took power.

One or both princes survived abroadSpeculation

Pretender Perkin Warbeck claimed to be Richard, but he confessed to being an imposter and no records confirm survival.

The 1674 bones in Westminster Abbey are the princesDebated

A 1933 examination found two children of roughly the right ages, but the remains have never been dated or DNA tested.

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