Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"On August 29, 1526, a small town just 115 miles (185 km) form Budapest was the site of a battle between the forces of King Louis II and the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. At stake was the independence of Hungary and, arguably, the future direction of Europe. . . . As King Louis fled the battlefield, he was thrown from his horse and killed. After the battle, the sultan ordered that all 2,000 of the Hungarian prisoners be killed. . . .Defeat was a disaster for Hungary and resulted in the country's partition and the effective end of Hungary as an independent kingdom. . . . Over the decades that followed, this division of Hungary between the eastern-aligned Ottoman Empire and the western-aligned Austrian monarchy saw many battles. Bohemia and Croatia fell to Austria, but the Ottoman Empire managed to retain control over central Hungary and Transylvania. However, the wars between the Habsburg and Ottoman empires continued for more than two centuries, devastating the Hungarian countryside and population." [Furtado: 1001 Days]