1500

1491

1492

Jan 2. Ferdinand and Isabella capture Granada, the last Moorish kingdom in Spain. Moors and Jews are expelled from Spain and seek refuge among the Turks.

Columbus sails to America. He notes that the deviation of his compass from true north changed from the east to the west, an early discovery of the variation of the Earth's magnetism.

Rodrigo Borgia becomes Pope Alexander VI. In response to the rise in print works, he creates an Index of prohibited books.

German navigator Martin Behaim and painter Goerg Glockendon build the earliest surviving terrestrial globe at Nuremberg.

Leonardo da Vinci experiments with lifting devices. He draws a flying machine lifted by an Archimedean screw ( ancestor of the helicopter).

1493

Cesar Borgia becomes a cardinal

Charles VIII of France invades Italy but is defeated by the Borgias and the Milanese.

Syphilis appears in Europe for the first time, in Barcelona, Spain, carried by sailors returning from South America with Columbus.

Feb 15. Columbus sends a letter describing Marino (possibly Martinique) where only women live. They are said to have gold and to live near or mate with the cannibalistic Caribs.

1494

Luca Paccioli publishes a treatise of mathematics and risk

1495

1496

1497

John Cabot (Giovanni Cabuto), exploring for England, lands on the east coast of Newfoundland

March. Charles VIII of France dies.

The bonfire of the vanities. Dominican monk Girolamo Saonarola complains that church leaders live in luxury and burns silk dresses and tapestries.

1498

April. Louis XI crowned king of France

May 20. Vasco da Gama lands at Calicut, India after rounding the Cape of Good Hope

Columbus reaches mainland America and names it Santa Isla.

1500

Jan 26. Vincente Yanez Pinzon discovers Brazil.

Jacob Nufer performs the first recorded Caesarean operation on a live woman, his wife.

Leonardo da Vinci investigates friction; invents the ball bearing to reduce its effects.

English printer Wynkyn de Worde establishes the first press in Fleet Street, London. The street will become synonymous with printing and newspapers.

Francesco Griffo creates italic typeface in Venice.

1501

Leonardo da Vinci builds the first pivoting crane

Katherine of Aragon arrives at Plymouth, from Spain, to marry Prince Arthur of England

1502

May 9. Columbus begins his last trip to the new world

Florentine Amerigo Vespucci sails from Lisbon to South America. He claims to encounter women in the West Indies who eat men.

May 21. St. Helena is discovered by the Portuguese

Sept 2. English Prince Arthur of England dies, leaving Prince Henry as heir

The Safavids become the first Shi'ite dynasty in Iran. Suffering and mourning become public events memorializing the death of Hussein ibn Ali at Karbala in 680.

1503

Death of Pope Alexander VI (Borgia) probably from poison, Aug. 18

1504

1505

1506

Queen Isabella of Spain dies. Her daughter Juana the Mad and husband Duke of Burgundy come to the throne.

1507

1508

First accurate Portuguese maps are made of Africa.

Leonardo da Vinci invents the centrifugal pump using a rotating screw lowered into water. It is widely used for drainage projects.

1509

1st censorship of drama in England

German chemist Erasmus Eberner of Nuremberg discovers zinc.

Nuremberg locksmith Peter Henlein invents one of the first watches, using springs to drive the mechanism

April 23. Death of Henry VII and ascension of Henry VIII to English throne.

1510

Spanish introduce the sunflower into Europe

1513

Sep 24. Vasco Balboa of Portugal is the first European to see the Pacific Ocean.

Raphael (Sanzio), working for Pope Julius II, plans excavations of ancient Rome. Their discovery fuels the Italian Renaissance.

1514

Polish astronomer and priest Nicholas Copernicus writes a short pamphlet on the Aristotelian Earth-centered view of the universe and circulates it privately.

1515

Cardinal Wolsey becomes Lord High Chancellor of England

1516

Sultan of Egypt captures Aden.

Turkey conquers Syria

Charles I becomes Holy Roman Emperor

Charles V succeeds to the Spanish throne

1517

Turkish sultan conquers Egypt and consecrates his roles as Caliph

April. Erasumus writes to Pope Leo X that "in our time a new golden age might be upon us" He believes the new learning distinguishes the present from a bleak middle age that existed between now and the classical past. Modernity he claims, heralds new learning, greater piety and Christian unity.

Martin Luther posts his 95 theses at Wittenberg.

1518

English king Henry VIII founds the Royal College of Physicians with the power to license and examine doctors.

German goldsmith Anthony Blatner builds a fire engine with a lever-operated water pump on a wheeled carriage.

1519

Ferdinand Magellan sets sail from Seville to circumnavigate the world, Sept 20

1520

Suleiman the Magnificent comes to power

Gold and relics begin to arrive in Spain. Some are waylaid by privateers and end up in Germany or England.

1521

Luther excommunicated

April 27. Ferdinand Magellan is murdered in the Philippines while circumnavigating the world

Venice enacts laws to prosecute anyone other than nuns, who enters a convent without permission. They ensure that convent windows are bricked up, doors sealed and gardens put out of reach of the nuns who are not to see the outside world once inside. The nuns circumvent the rules by providing sanctioned hospitality which might include talk, dinner and dancing.

1522

1523

Maize is introduced into Europe from North America.

1524

Giovanni da Verrazzano explores the Atlantic seaboard from Florida to Newfoundland

1525

1526

1527

Sack of Rome

1528

Capuchin Order established

English king Henry VIII invites German mining engineer Joachim Hochstetter to develop English metallurgy.

1529

Sir Thomas More, Lord High Chancellor

Spanish emperor Charles V orders the construction of an irrigation canal between Tudela and Saragossa in Spain, the Imperial Canal of Aragon

1530

Spanish importing slaves in bulk to work Mexican and Peruvian silver mines.

Trade from Europe of African slaves reaches 2000/year over next century

Swiss physician Paracelsus argues that the body depends on chemical processes and suggests specific chemical treatments for different diseases.

Belgian mathematician and cosmographer Gemma Frisius theorizes that longitude can be calculated based on the time, measured by the sun, from two places.

Italian sculptor Benvenuto Cellini invents a screw-based stamping press to mint coins.

1531

A rediscovered classical work by Galen, On Anatomical Procedures, is published for the first time in modern history.

German scientist Georgius Agricola publishes a treatise on alchemy.

Feb. 26. Over 20,000 people die in the Lisbon earthquake. It's sudden deadly force affects European notions of death.

1533

Flemish mathematician Gemma Frisius publishes a method for surveying with trigonometry.

Copernicus lectures in Rome on the heliocentric universe, with the approval of Pope Clement VII, who attends some of his lectures.

A manual for producting paints and inks is published in Augsburg, Germany.

Oct. 28. Catherine de Medici, daughter of Lorenzo, age 14, marries Henry, Duc d'Orleans, later King Henry II of France. Henry visibly prefers his mistress Diane de Poitiers but Catherine will manage to pump out 10 children.

King Henry VIII marries Ann Boleyn

1534-35

Jacques Cartier explores the St. Lawrence River and meets the Iroquois.

Elizabeth Barton, the nun of Kent, is executed for prophesying against King Henry VIII

Aug. 15. The Jesuit Order is founded by Ignatius Loyola and 6 others

1535-36

Portugese embassy in Mali

Antwerp becomes centre of Protestant book publishing

Italian Saint Angela Merici founds the Ursulines, based on a cult of St. Ursula of Cologne that claimed St. Ursula was enroute from Britain to be married, accompanied by a 11,000 virgins when storms drove them into Hun territory where they were martyred.

1536

English Poor Laws require community charity and workhouses

Beheading of Ann Bolyen on Tower Green, May 19. Within a few days he marries Jane Seymour. Edward is born in October.

1537

Mount Etna in Italy erupts violently.

Niccolò Tartaglia researches ballistics or the laws governing falling bodies.

1538

Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator produces a map of the world using a double-heart shaped projection.

Dec. 17. Pope excommunicates King Henry VIII for declaring himself head of the English Church

1539

French surgeon Ambroise Paré develops mechanical artificial limbs, false teeth, and gold and silver replacement eyes.

1540

Flemish anatomist Andreas Vesalius dissects human cadavers at the University of Bologna. His discoveries contradict the current authority, Galen

July 28. Execution of Thomas Cromwell

Henry VIII marries Anne of Cleves then Catherine Howard, in succession.

1541

1542

Roman Inquisitionestablished to combat Protestantism

Martin Luther attacks the heliocentric universe proposed by Copernicus.

March. Catherine Howard, Queen of England, is beheaded for treason (adultery).

1543

Copernicus publishes De revolutionibus orbium coelestium/On the Revolutions of the Celestial Sphere, detailing his theory that the Earth and other planets orbit the Sun. A copy is brought to him on his deathbed.

Henry VIII marries Catherine Parr

1544

1545

1546

1547

1548

1549