A Saxon victory, the deaths of a pope and an adventurer, and a meaningless batlte

Well, on January 8th, 871 AD, the future King Alfred the Great won a victory over the Danes at the battle of Ashdown. I can’t remember offhand if Bernard Cornwell let his fictional character, Uthred, take part in it, but I suspect he did—Uthred never missed a battle if he could help it! Any of my readers remember if Uthred was at Ashdown? (For those who’ve not read Conwell’s wonderful Saxon series, you are missing out on so much!)
On January 8th, 1198, Pope Celestine died, at the vast age of 92 or so. I think we can safely say that neither Richard nor Eleanor sent flowers; they were not happy with Celestine’s dithering during the fourteen months that Richard was held captive in Germany. He eventually got around to excommunicating Duke Leopold, but only after Richard was released and demanded it. There are some reports that he finally excommunicated Heinrich, but this has not been confirmed, and historians tend to discount it; I do, too. Celestine’s death led to the election of one of the most influential popes of the MA, Innocent III, who is not one of my favorites.
On January 8th, 1324, the famed Italian explorer Marco Polo died at age 69.
And though this is not medieval, on January 8th, 1215 was fought a meaningless battle in a needless war, the Battle of New Orleans, in which the Yanks defeated the British. It was meaningless because the War of 1812 was already over by then, but they didn’t know it yet. How sad is that—dying after peace had been made?