John of Bohemia

Born 10 August 1296, John became Count of Luxembourg in 1313 and King of Bohemia in 1310, also holding a titular claim to Poland. He lost his sight around 1336 but continued to campaign and govern. On 26 August 1346, a decade into blindness, he entered the Battle of Crécy and was killed in the fighting. Luxembourg remembers him as a national hero; the Czech lands remember him less for his own reign than as father to Charles IV, who became one of Bohemia's greatest kings and a leading Holy Roman Emperor.