Joan of Arc Leads France
A teenage peasant girl claiming divine visions led the French army to a decisive victory at Orleans, turning the tide of the Hundred Years' War.
In 1429, a 17-year-old peasant girl named Jeanne d'Arc (Joan of Arc) from the village of Domremy convinced the French dauphin Charles VII that she had been sent by God to drive the English from France. Given command of troops, she led the French to a stunning victory at the Siege of Orleans in just nine days — a turning point in the Hundred Years' War. She then escorted Charles to his coronation at Reims. Captured by Burgundian forces in 1430, she was sold to the English, tried for heresy by a church court, and burned at the stake on May 30, 1431, at age 19. Her conviction was overturned in 1456, and she was canonized as a saint in 1920. Joan of Arc remains one of history's most extraordinary figures — a teenage girl who changed the fate of nations.
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