Malbork Castle

Malbork shows a military order building a castle as the seat of a whole state, and in brick rather than stone. The Teutonic Order moved its headquarters here in 1309, and on its completion in 1406 the complex was the world's largest brick castle. It passed its biggest test. After the knights' defeat at Grunwald in July 1410, Polish and Lithuanian forces besieged it in a two-month stand-off, and the knights held out while the town outside the walls was burned. In 1457 unpaid mercenaries holding it sold it to the Polish king. Today it is a museum and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and each July it hosts a reenactment of the 1410 siege.