feb 16, 1300 - Tuetonic Knights become state in Baltics

Description:

a military religious order founded during the crusades, became the most powerful state in the Baltics, conquered Prussia, and allied themselves with the Hanseatic League, an alliance of trading guilds that had a monopoly over the Baltic Sea and most of Northern Europe.
In 1226, the Teutonic Knights (also known as the Teutonic Order) moved their operations from the Holy Land to Europe and were allowed by Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II (1215-1250) to enter Prussia; after more than 50 years of fighting, the Knights conquered Prussia, and established it as a nominal Christian state, and encouraged immigrants from the Holy Roman Empire (mainly Germans) to settle there. The Knights also directed their campaigns against pagan Lithuania and were faced with a crisis of purpose when Lithuania converted to Christianity in 1386. At the Battle of Tannenberg in 1410, the Knights were defeated by Poland-Lithuania. Grand master of the Teutonic Knights, Albrecht of Hohenzollern, established a Prussian duchy in 1525 based on lands that the Knights held. The Hohenzollern eventually unified Germany in the nineteenth century.