The Fifteenth Century 1476-1499
Return to home
c1400 Johann
Gutenberg (Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg d.1468), was
born in Mainz. He was the inventor of movable, metal type, a stamping
mold for casting type, the alloy of lead, tin, and antimony for the
cast letters, the printing press itself, and a printing ink with an oil
base. The first books were printed around 1450 on rag paper.
(V.D.-H.K.p.153-154)(SFC, 2/15/97, p.D1)(WSJ,
9/14/00, p.A24)
1400 Feb 14, Richard II (33),
deposed king of England (1377-99), was murdered in Pontefract Castle in
Yorkshire.
(HN, 2/14/99)(MC, 2/14/02)
1400 Oct 25, Geoffrey Chaucer,
author (Canterbury Tales), died in London.
(AP, 10/25/97)(WSJ, 9/18/00, p.A36)
c1400 “The Edifying Book of Erotic
Chess,” in effect a manual of seduction, was published.
(Econ, 7/10/04, p.76)
c1400 The first gold balls were
made of stitched leather which was soaked and filled with feathers.
(SFEC, 6/14/98, p.A12)
c1400 The Ahwahneechee, a Southern
Sierra Miwok band, first began to inhabit Yosemite in California.
(SFEC, 5/18/97, Z1 p.4)
1400 Occupants of the Towosaghy
site near New Madrid, Missouri, burned their temple about this time.
Later evidence indicated that this coincided with a major earthquake in
the area.
(Arch, 1/06, p.34)
c1400 In Washington state the 6
yard deep Electron Mudflow came down from Mount Rainier where the town
of Orting was later established.
(SFEC, 7/12/98, p.A22)
1400 From about this time Dubai
became a major crossing point on int’l. trading routes in silk, pearls,
spices and gold.
(WSJ, 6/20/06, p.C12)
1400 Plague broke out again in
Europe.
(HN, 1/20/01)
1400 Mali (Africa) was under
attack from all four sides and gradually weakened in power.
(ATC, p.120)
1400 In Cracow, Poland, the
Jagiellonian University was re-founded with funds and a permanent
income by the royal couple. [see 1364]
(WSJ, 7/13/00, p.A24)(PG-Comm)
c1400 The Toraja people came to
Sulawesi (later part of Indonesia) by boat from a island to the
southwest and settled on the banks of the Sa’dan River.
(SFEC, 6/11/00, p.T8)
c1400 In Wales Owain Glyndwr (Owen
Glendower c1359-c1460) led the warriors of Gwynned in a bloody revolt
against Henry IV. The event was marked by a comet.
(SFEC, 6/22/97, p.D2)
c1400 Stone buildings were erected
at Zimbabwe in central Africa and continued to be enlarged until about
1830.
(Enc. of Africa, 1976, p.169)
1400s Kongo’s king, the
Mani-Kongo, ruled six provinces and about two million people. The
capital of the Kongo was Mbanza, built on a fertile plateau 100 miles
east of the coast and 50 miles south of the Congo River in southwest
Africa.
(ATC, p.150)
c1400-1425 Yong Le, the 3rd Ming emperor, created a
permanent imperial residence in Beijing. Work was done by some 200,000
laborers and in time became the 8,886-room complex called the
"Forbidden City."
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R36)
1400-1450
http://www.donsweb.com/History/Timeline/12--1400-1450ad.htm
1400-1464 Roger Van Der Weyden, Flemish painter.
(AAP, 1964)(WUD, 1994, p.1624)
c1400-1471 Sir Thomas Malory, English author. His
work included "Le Morte Darthur."
(WUD, 1994, p.868)
c1400-1474 Guillaume Dufay [Du Fay], Flemish
composer. His work included the "Ecclesie militantis," which has four
texts going simultaneously.
(WUD, 1994, p.440)(WSJ, 7/29/97, p.A12)
1400-1500 The 15th cent Urbino Bible was produced.
(WSJ, 7/12/96, p.A9)
1400-1500 In China a Shang Xi 15th cent. painting
portrayed "The Xuande Emperor on an Outing."
(WSJ, 2/19/98, p.A20)
1400-1500 Europeans began producing ethereal sounds
from wine glasses containing liquids.
(SFEC,12/28/97, DB p.17)
1400-1500 In 2005 Tim Parks authored “Medici Money:
Banking, Metaphysics, and Art in Fifteenth Century Florence.”
(Econ, 4/23/05, p.81)
c1400-1500 The 15th century German "Housebook" was
produced. It taught the rules and etiquette of jousting, and contained
remedies, cooking recipes, information on love and horoscopes.
(SFEC, 1/10/99, p.T3)
c1400-1500 In Germany Cardinal Nikolaus Cusanus,
philosopher, founded a religious and charitable institution complete
with vineyard at Kues, across from Bernkastel on the Mosel River.
(SFEC, 4/30/00, p.T8)
1400-1500 The Vietnamese from the north pushed the
Chams south and opened the port of Hoi An to foreign traders.
(SFEC, 4/26/98, p.T4)
1400-1500 Porcelain from this period was recovered
from a sunken ship in the South China Sea in 1999. 10% of the 150,000
pieces were kept by the Vietnamese government and the rest was
scheduled for auction on eBay.
(WSJ, 6/22/00, p.W10)
1400-1500 The city of Bagerhat was founded in
southern Bangladesh by Ulugh Khan-i-Jahan as a Muslim colony.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.B)
1400-1500 In the Philippines Vigan historic town on
Luzon was established by Chinese traders by this time.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.F)
1400-1500 Giovanni Spinetti of Venice built the first
small piano called the spinet.
(SFEC, 4/20/97, Z1 p.5)
1400-1500 In Romania Vlad Tepes, aka Vlad the
Impaler, the son of Vlad Dracul (Vlad the Dragon), was a 15th century
gruesome Wallachian nobleman. Dracula means son of the dragon. He
punished disobedient subjects and "unchaste" women by impaling them on
sharpened logs, often dining amid the victims as they died. The family
name changed to Kretzulesco and grew in stature with members upgraded
to princes and princesses.
(WSJ, 10/30/97, p.A20)
1400-1600 Researchers in 1997 announced that sometime
in this period the Sauvignon Franc grape crossed with Sauvignon Blanc
grape to produce the Cabernet Sauvignon grape.
(SFC, 6/4/97, Z1 p.4)
1400-1600 Hoi An, Vietnam, flourished at the end of
the 2nd Cham (Vijaya) Empire of this time. It attracted Japanese, then
Portuguese, Dutch and Chinese merchants.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.H)
1400-1850 This was a frigid period in Europe and came
to be called the Little Ice Age.
(NG, 7/04, p.28)
1401 Jan 9, In Marienburg some 80
Lithuanian barons were baptized to Catholicism.
(LHC, 1/9/03)
1401 Jan 18, In Lithuania Vytautas
and the country’s dukes submitted documents to Poland that Vytautas
would rule Lithuania as a vassal to Poland and return the country to
Poland upon his death.
(LHC, 1/18/03)
1401 Feb 19, William Sawtree, 1st
English religious martyr, was burned in London.
(MC, 2/19/02)
1401 Mar 13, The 1st
Samogitian uprising supported by Vytautas took place against the German
knights.
(LHC, 3/13/03)
1401 Jul 9, Timur Lenk, Mongol
monarch, destroyed Baghdad.
(MC, 7/9/02)
1401 In England King Henry IV
passed the medieval statute De Heretico Comburendo.
(MWH, 1994)
1401 A giro bank was established
in Barcelona, making it Europe’s first bank.
(Econ, 1/10/09, p.74)
1401-1428 Tomasso di Giovanni, Italian artist, also
known as Masaccio. His only know documented work is the Pisa altarpiece
of 1426.
(WSJ, 9/27/01, p.A16)
1402 Mar 2, In Marienburg
Svitrigaila crossed over to the Knights of the Cross and promised to
uphold the Salyn treaty that was broken by Vytautas.
(LHC, 3/1/03)
1402 Jul 20, In the Battle of
Angora the Mongols, led by Tamerlane "the Terrible," defeated the
Ottoman Turks and captured Sultan Bayezid I. The Turks eventually
regained control of the city and it remained a part of the Ottoman
Empire for the next five centuries. Around 2,000 BCE the site of the
present day city was a Hittite village known as Ancyra. It was
conquered in 333 BC by Macedonians led by Alexander the Great. Because
of its central Anatolian Plateau location on the Ankara River, it
became an important commercial center. Angora’s name was changed to
Ankara in 1930.
(HN, 7/20/98)(Ot, 1993, p.6)(HNQ, 4/15/02)
1402 Sep 3, Gian Galeazzo
Visconti, duke and tyrant of Milan (1395-1402), died at 51.
(MC, 9/3/01)
1402 The English Bedlam
institution, a former monastery whose named derived from Bethlehem,
began to house the poor and incurably mad. From 1728-1853 it was
presided over by a family of doctors all descended from James Monro. On
2003 Jonathan Andrews and Andrew Scull published their 2-volume study:
"Undertaker of the Mind" and "Customers and patrons of the mad-Trade,"
based on Monro’s Case Book.
(WSJ, 1/29/03, p.D10)
1402 In Scotland the Duke of
Rothesay, son of King Robert III and heir apparent, died under
mysterious circumstances while in the custody of Robert Stewart, the
1st Duke of Albany. Stewart had built Duane Castle at the end of the
14th century.
(SSFC, 11/23/03, p.C6)
1403 Feb 22, Charles VII, King of
France (1422-1461), was born.
(HN, 2/22/98)(MC, 2/22/02)
1403 Jul 21, Henry IV defeated the
Percys in the Battle of Shrewsbury in England. Henry IV fought down an
insurrection from Henry Percy, the Earl of Northumberland and Ralph
Neville, the Earl of Westmorland, the same men who had helped him
overthrow Richard II. Henry Percy (39), [Harry Hotspur] was killed in
the battle.
(WUD, 1994, p.1671)(MWH, 1994)(HN, 7/21/98)
1403 Gjergj Kastrioti (d.1468)
was born. He became the Albanian leader known as Skanderbeg.
(www, Albania, 1998)(HNQ, 10/5/98)
1403-1413 The Ottoman Empire fell into 11 years of
civil war between the 4 sons of Beyazid.
http://www.osmanli700.gen.tr/english/sultans.html
1403?-1482 Giovanni di Paolo, painter. He painted
"Expulsion from Paradise."
(AAP, 1964)
1404 Feb 9, Constantine XI
Dragases, last Byzantine Emperor, was born.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1404 Feb 18, Leon Battista Alberti
(d.1472), Italian humanist, architect (Della Pittura), was born in
Genoa, the illegitimate son of a Florentine merchant.
(WSJ, 11/30/00, p.A20)(MC, 2/18/02)
1404 Sep 27, William of Wykeham,
chancellor and Bishop of Winchester, died.
(MC, 9/27/01)
1404 In Wales Owain Glyndwr
convened a parliament in Macchynlleth.
(SFEC, 6/22/97, p.D2)
1404-1423 China controlled the price of tea and was
able to increase its stock of horses from 20,000 to 1,600,000.
(WSJ, 8/15/00, p.A24)
1405 Feb 14, Timur, aka Tamerlane
(b.1336), crippled Mongol monarch, died in Kazakhstan. In 2004 Justin
Marozzi authored “Tamerlane: Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World.”
(V.D.-H.K.p.172)(http://au.encarta.msn.com)(Econ,
8/28/04, p.76)
1405 Andrei Rublev, Russian icon
painter, painted the iconostasis of the Cathedral of the Gospel with
Theophan the Greek; this was the 1st work executed in the classical
Russian style, distinguished from the Byzantine by its great height and
width and organization of multiple, varied icons along axes.
(DVD, Criterion, 1998)
1405 Admiral Zheng He, a Muslim
eunuch, led a Ming dynasty fleet with 28,000 men through Southeast Asia
to India and on to Africa and the Middle East.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R51)(WSJ, 11/18/06, p.P11)
1406 Apr 4, Robert III, King of
Scotland (1390-1406), died.
(MC, 4/4/02)
1406 In Beijing the Palace of
Heavenly Purity, later renamed the People’s Cultural Palace, was built.
(SFC,12/22/97, p.E7)
1406 The Signoria of Florence
decreed that the city’s 12 guilds had 10 years to fulfill their
obligations to decorate an exterior niche of the Orsanmichele guild
center.
(WSJ, 12/22/05, p.D8)
1407 Oct 26, Mobs attacked the
Jewish community of Cracow.
(MC, 10/26/01)
1407 Genoa established a private
bank to consolidate its debts and called it the Bank of Saint George.
It also operated as a giro bank with direct transfer between accounts
without checks, and stayed in business for 400 years.
(Econ, 1/10/09,
p.74)(www.investopedia.com/terms/b/bankgirotransfer.asp)
1408 Feb 14, Vytautas gave
self-rule status to Kaunas, which was 1st mentioned in the summer of
1361.
(LHC, 2/14/03)
1408 Feb 19, Henry IV led a
victory in the Battle of Brabham Moor that marked the end of domestic
threats. The revolt of Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, against
King Henry IV, ended with his defeat and death at Bramham Moor.
(MWH, 1994)(HN, 2/19/98)
1408 Sep 22, Johannes VII
Palaeologus, Byzantine Emperor (1376-77, 90/1404-8), died.
(MC, 9/22/01)
1408 The Yongle Encyclopedia was
published in China. It consisted of thousands of volumes containing the
knowledge of some 2,000 scholars.
(WSJ, 3/18/09, p.A13)
1408 A law was enacted making it
illegal to translate any part of the scriptures into English. It was
declared a capital offense to possess an English Bible.
(WSJ, 12/22/94, A-20)(WSJ, 4/4/01, p.A18)
1408 A marriage at the Hvalsey
Church in the East Settlement was the last record of the Norse in
Greenland.
(SFEM, 11/15/98, p.25)(AM, 7/00, p.66)
1409 Jan 9, Rene' d'Anjou (d.1480)
was born the son and 3rd child of Duke Louis II of Anjou and Yolande of
Aragon at Angers in the Maine-and-Loire region of western France. King
René, poet and wine lover, demonstrated how all our leaders
ought to be.
(http://www.guice.org/reneharr.html)(WSJ, 2/13/04,
p.A12)
1410 May 18, Ruprecht, Roman
Catholics German king, died.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1410 Jul 15, Lithuanian-Polish
forces defeated the Teutonic Knights at the Battle of Tannenberg,
Prussia, thereby halting the Knights’ eastward expansion along the
Baltic and hastening their decline. Vytautas and Jogaila with hired
mercenaries from Belarus along with Tartars and Czechs defeated the
Teutonic Knights between Grunvald (Zalgiriai) and Tannenberg southeast
of Malburg. Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen and many of his nobles
were killed. The war officially ended with the Treaty of Thorn in which
the Knights gave up Zemaitija to Vytautas.
(COE)(H of L, 1931, p.52)(DrEE, 11/9/96, p.6)
1410 Andrei Rublev, Russian icon
painter, painted the icon “The Old Testament Trinity,” which showed
Abraham’s 3 angels. This is the only work known to be entirely his own.
(DVD, Criterion, 1998)
c1410 The French "Book of the
Chase" depicted hunting dogs and snares.
(SFEM, 4/6/97, p.16)
1411 Feb 1, Lithuania, Poland and
the Knights of the Cross signed the Torun Peace Treaty. Samogitia was
returned to Lithuania. The Teutonic Knights had regrouped and gone to
battle against Vytautas and Jogaila. Peace was signed at Torun and
western Lithuania was returned, but not Klaipeda (Memel).
(Ist. L.H., 1948, p. 71)(LHC, 1/31/03)
1411-1437 Sigismund became the Holy Roman Emperor.
[see 1433]
(WUD, 1994, p.1325)
1412 Jan 6, According to
tradition, French heroine Joan of Arc was born Jeanette d'Arc, in the
French village of Domrémy. When she was 12 years old, she began
hearing what she believed were voices of saints, sending her messages
from God. When she was 17, the voices told her to leave her village and
save Orléans. Joan convinced the dauphin that she could lead
French troops in resistance against their English invaders, and she was
given a force of several hundred men to command, whom she led to
victory at Orléans in 1429. Wearing her white enameled armor
suit, she continued to fight against the English. Joan was captured by
Burgundians and then burned at the stake by the English on May 30,
1431, for the offenses of witchcraft, heresy and wearing male clothing.
The Roman Catholic Church recognized Joan of Arc as a saint in 1920.
(CFA, '96,Vol 179, p.38)(AP, 1/6/98)(HNPD, 1/6/99)
1413 Mar 20, Henry IV (b.1367),
King of England (1399-1413), died in the house of the Abbot of
Westminster. He was succeeded by Henry V (b.1387).
(AP,
3/20/97)(www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/henry_iv_king.shtml)
1413 Iceland used dried fish for
money.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)
1414 Feb 19, Thomas Arundel,
archbishop of Canterbury, chancellor of England, died.
(MC, 2/19/02)
1414 Nov 16, A council of bishops
opened in Constance Germany under Emp. Sigismund. When the council of
Constance opened, Christians owed obedience to three different popes:
Gregory XII of the Roman party, Benedict XIII of the Avignon party, and
John XXIII, who had been elected after the death of Alexander V. John
XXIII and Benedict XIII were deposed by the council, and Gregory XII
voluntarily resigned. Then Martin V was elected pope on 11 November
1417 and he was regarded as the legitimate pontiff by the church as a
whole.
(www.ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/CONSTANC.HTM)(WUD,
1994 p.313)
1415 Jun 13, Henry the Navigator,
the prince of Portugal, embarked on an expedition to Africa. This
marked the beginning of Portuguese dominance of West Africa.
(HN, 6/13/98)
1415 Jul 4, Angelo Correr became
Pope Gregory XII.
(Maggio)
1415 Jul 6, Jan Huss, Bohemian
(Czech) religious reformer, was burned as a heretic at the stake at
Constance, Germany. He had spoken out against Church corruption.
(NH, 9/96, p.23)(HN, 7/6/98)
1415 Aug 13, King Henry V of
England took his army across the English Channel and laid siege on Port
Harfleur.
(ON, 6/08, p.9)
1415 Sep 21, Frederick III, German
Emperor (1440-1493), was born in Innsbruck Austria.
(MC, 9/21/01)
1415 Oct 25, An English army under
Henry V defeated the French at Agincourt, France. The French had out
numbered Henry’s troops, but Welsh longbows turned the tide of the
battle. The French force was under the command of the constable Charles
I d’Albret. Charles I d’Albret, son of Arnaud-Amanieu d’Albret, came
from a line of nobles who were often celebrated warriors. His ancestors
had fought in the First Crusade (1096-99) and his father had fought in
the Hundred Years War himself--first for the English before joining the
side of France. Charles’ own exploits in the ongoing conflict came to
an end at the Battle of Agincourt. The decisive victory for the
outnumbered English saw the death of not only Charles, but a dozen
other high-ranking nobles as well. But Charles’ fate did not end the
Albrets as his descendants went on to become kings of Navarre, and
later, France. In 2005 Juliet Barker authored “Agincourt: The King, the
Campaign, and the Battle.”
(MH, 12/96)(HN, 10/25/98)(Econ, 10/22/05, p.88)(ON,
6/08, p.10)
1415 Oct 25, Edward (b.1373), duke
of York, died at the Battle of Agincourt.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_of_Norwich,_2nd_Duke_of_York)
1415-1439 The city of Angkor Wat (Cambodia) went into
rapid decline as a period of severe drought extended over South East
Asia.
(Econ, 3/14/09, p.82)(http://tinyurl.com/d84z56)
1416 Feb 6, A Samogitian complaint
against the Knights of the Cross was read at the Catholic Church
Council at Constance.
(LHC, 2/6/03)
1416 Apr 2, Ferdinand I (52) the
Justified, king of Aragon and Sicily, died.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1416 May 7, Monk Nicolaas
Serrurier was arrested for heresy at Tournay.
(MC, 5/7/02)
1416 May 30, Jerome of Prague was
burned as a heretic by the Church.
(HN, 5/30/98)
1416 Jun 15, St. Francesco de
Paolo, was born.
(HT, 6/15/00)
1416 Jun 15, Joannes Argyropoulos,
Greek scholar, was born.
(HT, 6/15/00)
1416 Nanni di Banco, guild member
of the Masters of Stone and Wood, installed his “Four Crowned Martyr
Saints” at the Orsanmichele guild center in Florence.
(WSJ, 12/22/05, p.D8)
1416 The Drepung Loseling
Monastery was founded in Lhasa, Tibet, as a center for Buddhist
teaching. It was the home for early Dalai Lamas and a place where
multiphonic singing was nurtured.
(SFC, 10/10/96, p.E1)
1416-1469 Piero de Medici, son of Cosimo de Medici.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R8)
1417 Feb 23, Pietro Barbo, later
Pope Paul II (1464-1471), was born in Venice.
(PTA, 1980, p.418)
1417 Nov 11, Martin V was elected
pope and was regarded as the legitimate pontiff by the church as a
whole.
(www.ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/CONSTANC.HTM)
1418 Feb 25, At the
Constance church synod the Orthodox Metropolitan of Kiev and Lithuania,
Gregory Camblak, proposed a union between the Orthodox and Catholic
church.
(LHC, 2/25/03)
1418 In China a book was published
about this time titled “The Marvelous Visions of the Star Raft.” It
documented some of the exploits of Admiral Zheng He, who roamed the
oceans from 1405-1435.
(Econ, 1/14/06, p.80)
1418 In 2006 Liu Gang, a Beijing
lawyer and amateur map collector, unveiled a map that proclaimed to be
a 1763 copy of an older Chinese map dating to 1418. The map showed the
world in 2 hemispheres, but its authenticity was questioned.
(SSFC, 1/22/06, p.A9)(Econ, 1/14/06, p.80)
1418 In Florence Brunelleschi and
Ghiberti submitted plans for the dome of the Cathedral of St. Mary of
the Flower. The cathedral had been under construction for 125 years and
was designed to be capped by the largest dome since the golden age of
ancient Rome.
(ON, 9/00, p.6)
1418 The Gawhar Shad Mosque in
Meshed, Iran was completed by the wife of Shah Rukh.
(NG, Sept 1939, Baroness Ravensdale, p.353)
1418 The Church Council at
Constance, Germany, begun in 1414, ended.
(WUD, 1994 p.313)
1419 Jul 30, Anti-Catholic
Hussites, followers of executed reformer Jan Hus, stormed the town hall
in Prague and threw 3 Catholic consuls and 7 citizens out the
window. This episode has been called "The Defenestration in Prague."
The out-the-window gentlemen all landed safely in a manure pile.
(NH, 9/96, p.23)(MC, 7/30/02)
1419 Aug 16, Wenceslas (b.1361),
son of Charles IV and King of Germany, died. He served as King
Wenceslas IV of Bohemia (1363) and King of the Romans (1376).
(www.arts.gla.ac.uk/Slavonic/Czech_Hist5.html)
1419 Aug 16, Sigismund, Holy Roman
Emperor, became king of Bohemia following the death of Wenceslaus IV,
but was ejected by the Hussites due to the execution of Jan Huss.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigismund%2C_Holy_Roman_Emperor)
1419 Sep 10, John the Fearless
(48), Burgundy and French warrior, was murdered at Montereau, France,
by supporters of the dauphine.
(HN, 9/10/98)(MC, 9/10/01)
1419 Dec 11, Heretic Nicolaas
Serrurier was exiled from Florence.
(MC, 12/11/01)
1419 The marble Fonte Gaia in
Siena was sculpted by Jacopo della Quercia.
(WSJ, 4/29/03, D5)
1419 An English army under Henry V
captured the duchy of Normandy.
(ON, 6/08, p.11)
1419 Prince Henry (d.1460), as
governor of Portugal’s southernmost province, attracted shipbuilders,
cartographers and other nautical experts. His patronage was
instrumental in stimulating European exploration in the first half of
the 15th century.
(HN, 6/21/01)
1420 Mar 1, Pope Martinus I called
for a crusade against the Hussieten (Bohemia).
(SC, 3/1/02)
1420 May 21, King Charles VI of
France signed the Treaty of Troyes. It recognized all the territorial
gains of King Henry V, gave Henry the daughter of Charles, Catherine of
Valois, in marriage, and acknowledged Henry as the legitimate heir to
the French throne.
(ON, 6/08, p.11)
1420 Jul 14, Jan Zizka
(1360?-1424) led the Taborites in Battle at Vitkov Zizka's hill
(Prague). The Taborites beat forces under Sigismund, the pro-Catholic
King of Hungary and Bohemia. This was part of the Hussite Wars
(1419-1436).
(http://user.intop.net/~jhollis/janzizka.htm)
1420 Jul, The Hussites agreed on
the Four Articles of Prague, which were promulgated in the Latin,
Czech, and German languages. In summery they stated: 1) Freedom to
preach the Word of God. 2) Celebration of the Lord's Supper in both
kinds (bread and wine to priests and laity alike). 3) No profane power
for the clergy. And 4) The same law for laity and priests.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hussite)
1420 Dec 1, Henry V, King of
England and de facto ruler of France, entered Paris.
(http://europeanhistory.about.com/od/famouspeople/a/personhenryveng_4.htm)
1420 Siennese artist Giovanni di
Paolo painted a tiny gold-ground triptych.
(SFEC, 1/11/98, p.D7)
1420 The main character of
Janacek’s opera "The Excursions of Mr. Broucek" was cast into a setting
of religious wars from this time and forced to fight with the Hussite
fanatics in Prague.
(WSJ, 6/13/96, p.A12)
c1420 Francesco di Antonio,
Florentine artist, painted "St. John the Baptist" and "St. Anthony
Abbot." The panels later made their way to St. Philip’s in the Hills
parish in Tucson, Ariz.
(WSJ, 8/9/96, p.A8)
1420 Prince Henry the Navigator
(b.1394) gathered cartographers, navigators and shipbuilders in a
fortress in Sagres, Portugal, to invent navigation technology to reach
India, China and the Americas. He later sailed south of the
Canary Islands to the great eastward curve of West Africa at Sierra
Leone. The search for Prester John as an ally against the Muslims
helped inspire his explorations. Henry began dispatching expeditions
from the nearby port of Lagos. Although dubbed "Henry the Navigator" by
English writers, he never embarked on the voyages of exploration he
himself sponsored. Nevertheless, the prince helped advance European
cartography and the accuracy of navigation tools as well as spurring
maritime commerce.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)(HN, 3/4/98)(WSJ, 1/28/00,
p.A18)(HNQ, 6/21/01)
1420 Portuguese sailors and
soldiers begin fighting the natives of the Canary Islands, 800 miles
southwest of the southern tip of Portugal.
(V.D.-H.K.p.173)
1420 Scotland's Duke of Albany
died. The governorship of Scotland and Doune Castle passed to his son,
Murdoch.
(SSFC, 11/23/03, p.C6)
1420-1433 Time of the Hussite wars in Bohemia.
(WUD, 1994, p.1671)
1420-1480 The Portuguese explored the west coast of
Africa along the Gold Coast, so named because here could be found
plenty of gold to buy pepper.
(V.D.-H.K.p.173)
1420-1492 Piero della Francesca, painter, born in
Borgo Sansepolcro, but trained in Florence. In Urbino under the
patronage of Federico da Montefeltro, he produced some of his best
works including the "Flagellation," the "Resurrection" and "St.
Apollonia." His paintings incorporated the new aspect of perspective
and earthly matters dominate over religious feeling.
(V.D.-H.K.p.130)(AAP, 1964)(WUD, 1994, p.563)
1420-1500 The Paston Letters comprise 1,000 documents
involving an English family over this period. The collection is held by
the Univ. of Michigan and is being made electronically available under
the Humanities Text Initiative (HTI) program that was begun in 1989.
(MT, 6/96, p.8,9)
1421 Mar, Admiral Zheng He of the
Ming dynasty embarked on a voyage that took him to the east coast of
Africa. In 2002 an amateur historian proposed that he continued his
voyage around the world. [see 1431]
(SSFC, 3/17/02, p.A3)
1421 May 11, Jews were expelled
from Styria, Austria.
(MC, 5/11/02)
1421 May 23, Jews of Austria were
imprisoned and expelled.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1421 May 26, Mohammed I, Ottoman
sultan (1413-21), died.
(MC, 5/26/02)
1421 Nov 18-1421 Nov 19, In the
St. Elizabeth flood the Southern sea flooded 72 villages killing
some 10,000 in Netherlands.
(www.rijksmuseum.nl/aria/aria_assets/SK-A-3147-B?lang=en)
1421 Dec 6, Henry VI, the youngest
king of England, was born. He acceded the thrown at 269 days of age.
(HN,
12/6/02)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VI_of_England)
1421 The Republic of Florence
passed a law giving Brunelleschi what is thought to be the first true
patent of an invention. The first recorded patent was granted for a
barge with hoisting gear used to transport marble.
(http://tinyurl.com/c3teab)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)
1421 In Vienna a medieval
synagogue burned with its Jewish occupants. Its remains were found in
1996 in the Judenplaz during preparation work for the installation of a
new statue for the Holocaust Memorial project.
(WSJ, 11/7/96, p.A18)
1422 Mar 30, Ketsugan, a Zen
teacher, performed exorcisms to free the Aizoji temple.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1422 Aug 13, William Caxton
(d.1491), 1st English printer, was born.
(http://en.thinkexist.com/birthday/August_13/)(WSJ,
5/12/05, p.D8)
1422 Aug 31, Henry V (b.1387),
King of England (1413-22) and France (1416-19), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_V_of_England)
1422 Sep 6, Sultan Murat II ended
a vain siege of Constantinople.
(HN, 9/6/98)
1422 Oct 21, Charles VI, King of
France (1380-1422), died at 54.
(MC, 10/21/01)
1422-1482 Federico da Montefeltro, a distinguished
warrior and scholar, commissioned 2 intarsia studiolas (1478-1483). A
history of Federico and his studiola is in the 6/6/96 issue of "The
Bulletin," the NY Met museum’s newsletter for members
(WSJ, 6/6/96, p.A12)
1423 Mar 30, Lithuania and Poland
reached an agreement at Kezmark with Emperor Sigismund, who agreed to
recall Sigismund Kaributa from Poland.
(LHC, 3/30/03)
1423 May 23, Benedict XIII, [Pedro
the Luna], Spanish Pope (1394-1423), died. He had been elected by the
Avignon cardinals during the Great Western Schism.
(MC, 5/23/02)(PTA, 1980, p.402)
1423 Ghiberti’s sculpture of St.
Matthew was installed at the Orsanmichele guild center in Florence.
(WSJ, 12/22/05, p.D8)
1424 Oct 11, Jan Zizka (b.c1370),
Czech army leader (Hussite), died of plague.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Zizka)
1424 Dec 6, Don Alfonso V of
Aragon granted Barcelona the right to exclude Jews.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1424 Masolino sculpted his Pieta.
(WSJ, 1/20/02, p.D8)
1424 A Portuguese navigation chart
showed a land called Antilia in the vicinity of the West Indies.
(SFEC, 5/28/00, Z1 p.2)
1424 James I returned from exile
and was crowned King of Scotland. He tried but failed to ban golf. He
wanted his troops to practice more archery.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R34)(SSFC, 11/23/03, p.C6)
1425 Feb 27, Moscow's
Grand Duke Vasilii died and his brother-in-law, Vytautas, became
guardian of his son, Vasilii, and daughter, Sophia.
(LHC, 2/27/03)
1425 Jul 21, Manuel Palaeologus,
Byzantine Emperor (1391-1425), writer, died. He ended his days after
signing a humiliating peace with the Ottoman Turks.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_II_Palaeologus)(Econ, 9/23/06,
p.59)
1425 Aug 25, Countess Jacoba of
Bavaria escaped from jail.
(chblue.com, 8/25/01)
1425 Robert Campin painted the
altarpiece "The Merode Triptych."
(WSJ, 1/14/00, p.W12)
1425 Dame Juliana Berner described
fly fishing in her "Treatyse of Fysshynge Wyth an Angle." [see 1496]
(SFEM, 11/7/99, p.6)
1426 Sep 18, Hubert [Huybrecht]
van Eyck, painter, died.
(MC, 9/18/01)
1426 Vietnam provided a defeated
Chinese army with boats and horses to carry home its soldiers.
(NG, May, 04, p.94)
1427 May 10, Jews were expelled
from Berne, Switzerland.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1427 Gentile De Fabriano
(b.~1378), Italian painter, died about this time. His work included
“The Adoration of the Kings” (1423).
(WSJ, 12/19/08, p.W9A)(
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06421a.htm)
1428 Feb 5, King Alfonso V ordered
Sicily's Jews to convert to Catholicism.
(MC, 2/5/02)
1428 Dec 22, Richard Neville
Warwick, 2nd earl of Salisbury, was born.
(MC, 12/22/01)
1428 John Wycliffe (1328-1384),
English theologian and biblical translator, was posthumously declared a
heretic and his body was exhumed for burning.
(WSJ, 4/4/01, p.A18)
1428-1430 Andrei Rublev, Russian icon painter, took
part in painting the frescoes of the Andronikov Monastery’s Church of
the Savior.
(DVD, Criterion, 1998)
1429 Jan 9, The conference at Luck
began (Jan 9-29). Vytautas hosted a grand Congress at Luck ostensibly
to unite the region against threats from the Turks to the south.
Emperor Sigismund of Hungary agreed to the formation of the Kingdom of
Lithuania and dispatched a crown from Hungary.
(DrEE, 11/9/96, p.6)(LHC, 1/9/03)
1429 Jan 10, Order of Golden
Fleece was established in Austria-Hungary & Spain.
(MC, 1/10/02)
1429 Jan 23, At the Congress of
Luck Emp. Sigismund of Luxembourg offered to crown Vytautas as King of
Lithuania.
(LHC, 1/23/03)
1429 Apr 29, Joan of Arc led
French troops to victory over the English at Orleans during the Hundred
Years’ War. Legend has it that King Charles VII of France had a suit of
armor made for Joan at a cost of 100 war horses. In 1996 a suit of
armor was found and proposed to be Joan’s armor.
(ATC, p.107)(SFC, 6/19/96, p.A10)(AP, 4/29/98)(HN,
4/29/98)
1429 May 7, English siege of
Orleans was broken by Joan of Arc.
(HN, 5/7/98)
1429 May 8, French troops under
Joan of Arc rescued Orleans.
(MC, 5/8/02)
1429 May 9, Joan of Arc defeated
the besieging English at Orleans.
(HN, 5/9/98)
1429 Jul 16, Joan of Arc led
French army in the Battle of Orleans. [see May 9]
(MC, 7/16/02)
1429 Jul 17, The dauphin, son of
Charles VI, was crowned as king of France.
(PCh, 1992, p.144)(MC, 7/17/02)
1429 Aug 26, Joan of Arc makes a
triumphant entry into Paris.
(HN, 8/26/99)
1429 Nov 6, Coronation of Henry
VI, King of England.
(HN, 11/6/98)
1429 Dec 21, Jacquemart de
Blaharies, Tournay "heretic", was burned to death.
(MC, 12/21/01)
1429 The beginning of coal mining
in the Saarland (Germany) dates to this time.
(Econ, 3/1/08, p.71)
1429 Two monks reportedly went
fishing in Russia’s northern Solovetsky Islands and soon established a
year-round settlement usually referred to as Solovki.
(Econ, 12/18/04, p.83)
1429 The kingdom of Ryukyu was
unified under the court at Shuri (later part of Naha, Okinawa).
(NH, 9/01, p.56)
1430 Jan 29, Andrei Rublev,
Russian icon painter, died and was buried in the Andronikov Monastery.
In 1966 the Russian film “Andrei Rublev” was made by Andrei Tarkovsky.
(DVD, Criterion, 1998)
1430 May 5, Jews were expelled
from Speyer, Germany.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1430 May 23, Joan of Arc was
captured by the Burgundians, who sold her to the English.
(AP, 5/23/97)(HN, 5/23/98)
1430 Jul 14, Joan of Arc, taken
prisoner by the Burgundians in May, was handed over to Pierre Cauchon,
the bishop of Beauvais.
(HN, 7/14/98)
1430 Oct 3, Jews were expelled
from Eger, Bohemia.
(MC, 10/3/01)
1430 Oct 27, Lithuanian Grand Duke
Vytautas had been preparing for coronation but Polish forces
interrupted the arrival of his crown to Trakus. He began to ride to
Vilnius but fell from his horse and was returned to Trakus where he
died at the age of 80.
(H of L, 1931, p.58)
1430-1432 In Lithuania Svitrigaila served as Grand
Duke.
(TB-Com, 10/11/00)
1430s Jan van Eyck painted 2 works
titled "St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata." For a time he was
considered the inventor of oil painting, but later lost that
distinction. He is still regarded as the inventor of a type of
landscape painting with figures in realistic scale that influenced the
entire Northern school of painting. Only 9 signed and dated works
survive. In 2001 painter David Hockney and physicist Charles Falco
alleged that Eyck and other artists of this period began using optical
devices to project pictures and produce detailed tracings.
(WSJ, 5/7/98, p.A21)(SFC, 1/5/01, p.C9)
1430 Hans Memling (d.1494),
painter of the Flemish school, was born in Seligenstadt, Germany.
(AAP, 1964)(WUD, 1994, p.894)
1430?-1498? Cosimo Tura, Italian painter. He painted
"Renaissance Nobleman."
(AAP, 1964)(WUD, 1994, p.1525)
1430-1516 Giovanni Bellini, Venetian painter son of
Jacopo. He painted "Portrait of the Doge Loredano."
(AAP, 1964)(WUD, 1994, p.136)
1431 Jan 1, Rodrigo Borgia Lanzol
(d.1503), member of the Borgia family, was born in Xativa, Spain. His
mother was the sister of Pope Calixtus III. He was elected Pope
Alexander VI in 1492 and amassed a fortune by pocketing church funds.
His reign helped inspire the Protestant reformation. He fathered
numerous children including Lucrezia Borgia. Machiavelli based "The
Prince" on him.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R8)(PTA, 1980, 424)
1431 Feb 21, The interrogation of
Joan of Arc (1412-1431) began France.
(Sm, 2/06, p.38)
1431 Mar 3, Bishop Gabriele
Condulmer (1383-1447) was elected as Pope Eugene IV (1431-1447).
(WUD, 1994 p.491)(PTA, 1980, p.410)(SC, 3/3/02)
1431 May 30, Joan of Arc
(19), condemned as a heretic [as a witch], was burned at the stake in
Rouen, France. A silent movie of her life was made in 1927 by Carl
Theodor Dreyer.
(CFA, '96, p.46)WSJ, 1/23/96, p.A-12)(AP,
5/30/97)(HN, 5/30/98)
1431 Dec 16, Henry VI of England
was crowned King of France.
(HN, 12/16/98)
1431 Andrea Mantegna (d.1506),
Italian painter and engraver, was born.
(WUD, 1994, p.1534)(WSJ, 6/6/96, p.A12)(SFEC,
7/13/97, p.T11)
1431 Admiral Cheng Ho of the Ming
dynasty led a fleet of 52 ships with nearly 30,000 men to the east
coast of Africa. Shortly thereafter the Mings halted all voyages and
begin to foster an attitude of antiforeign conservatism.
(V.D.-H.K.p.172)
1431 Thai armies invaded and
plundered the Khmer civilization at Angkor Thom in Cambodia. The court
moved south of the great lake Tonle Sap and later to Phnom Penh.
(SFEC, 7/26/98, p.T6)
1431 Cosimo de Medici was arrested
for seeking to elevate himself higher than others. With bribes he
reduced his sentence from execution to banishment. His absence led to a
financial crises in Florence and he was quickly invited back.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R8)
1431-1463? Francois Villon, French
poet. The 1938 film "If I Were King" starred Ronald
Colman and Basil Rathbone and was directed by Preston Sturges. It was
about the French poet and revolutionary Francois Villon.
(WUD, 1994, p.1593)(SFEC, 8/2/98, DB p.49)
1432 Jan 15, Afonso V "the
African", king of Portugal (1438-1481), was born.
(MC, 1/15/02)
1432 Zeeland became part of the
Low Countries possession of Phillip the Good (1396-1467) of Burgundy.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeeland)
1432-1440 In Lithuania Zygimantas Kestutaitis served
as Grand Duke.
(TB-Com, 10/11/00)
1433 Apr 14, Liduina van Schiedam
(53), Dutch mystic (Christ's Bride), saint, died.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1433 May 31, Sigismund was crowned
emperor of Rome.
(HN, 5/31/98)
1434 Mar 1, Jacoba of Bavaria
married Frank van Borselen.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1434 May 30, The Battle of Lipany
virtually ended the Hussite Wars. Prokopius leader of Taborites, died
in battle.
(http://tinyurl.com/ckgv5)
1434 Nov 24, The Thames River
froze.
(MC, 11/24/01)
1434 Jan van Eyck painted "the
Arnolfini Marriage." It is now at the London National Gallery.
(Cont, 12/97, p.60)(SFEC, 2/1/98, p.T8)
1434 The imperial kiln at
Jungdezhen in south-central China produced 250,000 porcelain pieces.
(SFEC, 10/6/96, DB p.37)
1434 Gil Eannes, Portuguese
explorer, made the first successful rounding of Cape Bojador, off
Western Sahara, in a lug-rigged boat.
(www.enchantedlearning.com/explorers/page/e/eannes.shtml)
1435 Sep 21, Treaty of Atrecht.
Philippe le Bon of Burgundy and French king Charles II signed a treaty
at Arras. Phillipe broke with the English and recognized Charles as
France’s only king.
(MC, 9/21/01)(PCh, 1992, p.145)
1435 Oct 20, Andrea Della Robbia,
sculptor, nephew of Luca, was born in Florence.
(MC, 10/20/01)
1435 A Songhai prince, Sunni Ali,
declared Gao’s independence [West Africa]. Aided by Songhai warriors,
he successfully fought off Mali’s attempt to regain the city.
(ATC, p.122)
1436 Jun 6, Regiomontanus
(Johannes Muller), prepared astronomical tables, was born.
(MC, 6/6/02)
1436 The 350-foot high dome of
Santa Maria del Fiore, the cathedral of Florence, by Filippo
Brunelleschi was completed. The cathedral was consecrated by the Pope
following 140 years of construction. In 2000 Ross King authored
"Brunelleschi’s Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture."
(Hem., 10/97, p.130)(SSFC, 12/24/00, BR p.12)
1436 Emperor Sigismund (1368-1437)
was accepted as king of Bohemia.
(WUD, 1994, p.1672)(WUD, 1994, p.1325)
1436 Johannes Gutenburg of Germany
invented the printing press with movable type.
(SFC, 7/26/04, p.F4)
1437 Sep 18, Farmers revolted in
Transylvania.
(MC, 9/18/01)
1437 Dec 9, Sigismund, Holy Roman
Emperor, died. Major Czech factions had accepted Sigismund as king of
Bohemia prior to his death.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigismund%2C_Holy_Roman_Emperor)
1438 Oct 20, Jacopo di Piero della
Quercia (64), Italian sculptor, died.
(MC, 10/20/01)
1438 Jan van Eyck (1385-1440)
painted his "Portrait of Cardinal Niccols Albergati."
(SFC, 1/5/01, p.C9)
1438 Filippo Lippi created the
painting "Woman with a Man at a Window."
(WSJ, 12/14/01, p.W20)
1438 The Incas established an
imperial state in the Andes (Peru) and Cusco was rebuilt. They went on
to build over 25,000 miles of roads.
(SFC, 3/19/02, p.A2)(NG, Feb, 04, p.72)
1438 The shipbuilding firm of
Camuffo was founded in Portogruaro, Italy.
(SFC, 4/14/06, p.D1)
1439 Jul 16, Kissing was banned in
England in order to stop germs from spreading.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1439 Oct 21, Traversari Ambrosius
(53), Italian humanist and leader, died.
(MC, 10/21/01)
1439 Oct 27, Albrecht II von
Habsburg (42), king of Bohemia, Hungary and Germany, died.
(MC, 10/27/01)
1439-1440 Donatello (1386-1466), Florentine artist,
completed his bronze statue of David about this time. It was
commissioned by Cosimo de Medici.
(WSJ, 1/11/99,
p.R53)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_%28Donatello%29)
1439 Byzantium formally submitted
to Rome. [see 330AD]
(WSJ, 11/14/95, p. A-12)
1439-1448 Felix V served as the last antipope. He was
born as Amadeus VIII, duke of Savoye in 1383.
(MC, 9/4/01)
1440 Jan 22, Ivan III (the Great),
grand prince of Russia, czar from 1462-1505, was born. He conquered
Lithuania.
(HN, 1/22/99)(MC, 1/22/02)
1440 Feb 22, Ladislaus V
Posthumus, King of Hungary and Bohemia, was born.
(MC, 2/22/02)
1440 Jun 29, Florentine troops
fought the Milanese in the Battle of Anghiari. After the battle of
Anghieri, Andrea del Castagno (1421-1457), a Medici protege, painted
effigies of the hanged rebels.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Anghiari_(1440))(http://tinyurl.com/3baplj)
1440 Oct 26, Gilles de Rais,
French marshal, depraved killer of 140 children, was hanged over slow
fire. A brilliant young French knight, he was believed to have cracked
over the torture and death of his true love, Jeanne d'Arc, the Maid of
Orleans (d.1431).
(MC, 10/26/01)
1440 Dec 22, Bluebeard, pirate,
was executed.
(MC, 12/22/01)
c1440 The Book of Hours of
Catherine of Cleves was made.
(SFC, 2/15/97, p.D1)
c1440 Lief Eriksson drew a map of
America about this time. The "Vinland Map" was introduced in 1965 by
Yale University as being the 1st known map of America, drawn about 1440
by Norse explorer Lief Eriksson.
(MC, 10/10/01)
1440 Eton, the top British public
school, was established by Henry VI.
(Hem, 4/96, p.68)
1440-1492 In Lithuania Casimir served as Grand
Duke.
(TB-Com, 10/11/00)
1440-1870 This period is covered in the 1997 book by
Hugh Thomas: "The Slave Trade, The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade:
1440-1870."
(SFEC,11/16/97, BR p.4)(WSJ, 2/26/02, p.A22)
1441 Jun, Jan/Johannes van Eyck
(b.1395), Flemish painter (Lamb Gods), died in Brugge.
(www.wga.hu/tours/flemish/eyck/brothers.html)
1441 In Korea King Sejong called
for better water management in his agricultural based economy and
Yeong-sil Jang responded with the first rain gauge.
(LSA, Spring, 2009, p.17)
1441 Portuguese kidnapped several
noble-born Africans, who in turn offered African slaves to the captors
as ransom. In 1998 John Reader published "Africa: A Biography of a
Continent."
(SFEC, 6/28/98, BR p.12)
1442 Apr 20, Edward IV, King of
England (1461-83), was born. [see Apr 28]
(MC, 4/20/02)
1442 Apr 28, Edward IV was born.
He became king of England (1461-1470) and first king of the House of
York (1471-1483). [see Apr 20]
(HN, 4/28/02)
1442 Jun 12, Alfonso V of Aragon
was crowned King of Naples.
(HN, 6/12/98)
1442 The Pazzi Chapel in Florence
was begun. Its design was suspected to be by Michelozzo di Bortalommeo,
a follower of Brunelleschi.
(SFC, 1/2/97, p.C3)
1443 May 9, Niccolo d'Albergati,
Italian cardinal, died.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1443 Jun 5, Ferdinand, Portuguese
saint, slave to Fez, died.
(MC, 6/5/02)
1443 Dec 5, Giuliano della Rovere,
later Pope Julius II (1443-1513), was born in Liguria.
(www.newadvent.org/cathen/08562a.htm)
1443 After losing a battle near
Nis, Skenderbeg with a group of Albanian warriors defected from the
Ottoman army and return to Kruja. Albanian resistance to Turkish rule
was organized under the leadership of Skander Beg in Kruja. He was able
to keep Albania independent for more than 20 years. A baronial museum
in his honor was later was designed by the daughter of Enver Hoxha.
(CO, Grolier’s Amer. Acad. Enc./ Albania)(WSJ,
4/14/98, p.A21)(www, Albania, 1998)
1444 May 20, Bernardinus van Siena
(63), Italian saint, died.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1444 Aug 26, In the Battle of St.
Jakob an der Birs, fought near Basel in Switzerland, a Swiss force of
some 1,600 soldiers stopped some 30,000 French mercenaries on their way
to relieve a siege of Zurich.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_St._Jakob_an_der_Birs)
1444 Nov
10, During the Hungarian-Turkish War (1444-1456) , Sultan Murad II beat
the Crusaders in the Battle at Varna on the Black Sea.
(DoW, 1999, p.217)
1444 Murad II, Ottoman ruler,
abdicated and Mehmet II (13) briefly succeeded him until 1446.
(Ot, 1993, p.7)
1444 The Albanian people organized
a league of Albanian princes in this year under George Kastrioti, also
known as Skanderbeg. As leader of this Christian league he effectively
repulsed 13 Turkish invasions from 1444 to 1466, making him a hero in
the Western world.
(HNQ, 10/5/98)(www, Albania, 1998)
1444 Cossacks were first mentioned
in Russian history.
(SFC,10/28/97, p.A8)
1444 Slaves from Africa were first
carried to Portugal.
(WSJ, 12/1/97, p.A20)
1445 Giovanni di Paolo, Italian
painter in Siena, painted "The Creation," and the Expulsion of Adam and
Eve from Paradise. In this painting Paolo depicted the universe as a
set of nesting concentric spheres.
(NOHY, Weiner, 3/90, p.244)
1445 The Council of Florence
ended. It established the date for the Great Schism between the Eastern
and Western (Orthodox and Catholic) churches as July, 1054. An official
date was needed so that talks could begin on reunion.
(WSJ, 7/16/97, p.A23)
1445-1510 Sandro Botticelli, Italian painter, was
born in Florence as Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi. His work included
"The Birth of Venus" "Madonna of the Eucharist" (c1472-1475) and
"Portrait of a Man with a Medal." His work "Venus and Mars" is at the
London National Gallery. He belongs to the era of the Quattro cento,
when artists were still struggling to break free of the rigid outlines
of the Middle Ages. His solution was the use of curved lines. Vasari
later claimed that Botticelli was a follower of Savonarola, the
religious zealot.
(AAP, 1964)(WUD, 1994, p.173)(WSJ, 2/5/97,
p.A16)(SFEC, 2/1/98, p.T8)
1446 Apr 16, Filippo Brunelleschi
(69), architect, sculptor and goldsmith, died and was buried in the
Cathedral of St. Mary of the Flower in Florence. In the 1490s Antonio
di Tuccio Manetti authored "The Life of Brunelleschi." In 1974 Isabelle
Hyman authored "Brunelleschi in Perspective."
(ON, 9/00, p.8)(MC, 4/16/02)
1446 Oct 9, The Korean alphabet,
created under the aegis of King Sejong, was first published.
(AP, 10/9/07)
1446 In Scotland Sir William St.
Clair, a grand master in the Knights Templar, founded the Rosslyn
Chapel. It was built in the shape of a cross in the Pentland Hills
outside Edinburgh. It became famous as part of the Dan Brown’s 2003
thriller “The Da Vinci Code.”
(SFC, 5/25/06, p.E2)
1446 Mehmet II, Ottoman ruler, was
deposed and Murad II was recalled to the throne.
(Ot, 1993, p.7)
1446-1521 A Gothic choir with buttresses and
pinnacles was added to the abbey Mont St. Michel off the coast of
Normandy, France. It replaced one that had collapsed.
(WSJ, 10/7/06, p.P18)
1446-1523 The Italian painter Perugino, born as
Pietro di Cristoforo di Vannucci, was a student of Pierro della
Francesca and Andrea Verrochio. He won a papal commission for frescoes
on the sidewalls of the Sistine Chapel along with Botticelli and
Ghirlandaio. His work included the late weird allegory "The Combat
Between Love and Chastity."
(WSJ, 1/6/98, p.16)
1446-1524 Il Perugino (Pietro Vannucci), painter,
worked in Umbria and died of the plague. His work includes: "The
Baptism," "Mary in Glory," "Adoration of the Magi," Martyrdom of St.
Sebastian," " Madonna and Child," and "The Virgin in Glory."
(WUD, 1994, p.1076)(SFEM, 10/12/97, p.49)
1447 The winged altarpiece of
Stephensdom in Vienna, Austria was completed.
(Hem., Dec. '95, p.67)
1448 Oct
31, Johannes VIII Palaeologus (b.1390), Emperor of Byzantium, died.
(www.freeglossary.com/John_VIII_Palaeologus)
1448 In China hyperinflation hit
and paper money lost 97% of its value. China soon abandoned paper money.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)
1448 The Portuguese established
the first European trading post in Africa.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R49)
1449 Jan 1, Lorenzo de Medici [The
Magnificent] of Florence was born.
(MC, 1/1/02)
1449 Albanians, under Skenderbeg,
routed the Ottoman forces under Sultan Murat II.
(www, Albania, 1998)
1449 Ashikaga Yoshimasa (14)
inherited the office of Shogun, the chief military and civic leader of
feudal Japanese society. His leadership focused on the arts and
depleted the national treasury which led to social and political
anarchy.
(ON, 7/01, p.3)
1449 Rodrigo Borgia Lanzol
(b.1431), father of Cesare and Lucretia, arrived in Rome from Spain and
Italianized his name from Borja to Borgia. His rise in the church was
helped a great deal when his uncle became Pope Calixtus III.
(HN, 8/10/98)(PTA, p.424)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R4)(MC,
8/11/02)
1449 The giant Scottish bombard
known as Mons Meg was built. It was retired from active service in
1680, after splitting her barrel while firing a ceremonial shot. She
can still be seen in Edinburgh castle.
(HNQ, 6/20/02)
1450 May 8, Jack Cade's
Rebellion-Kentishmen revolted against King Henry VI.
(HN, 5/8/98)
1450 Jul 12, Jack Cade was slain
in a revolt against British King Henry VI.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Cade)
1450 Oct 5, Jews were expelled
from Lower Bavaria by order of Ludwig IX.
(MC, 10/5/01)
1450 Oct 23, Juan de Capistrano
(70), Italian saint, died.
(MC, 10/23/01)
1450 Johannes Gutenberg began
printing a bible with movable type in Mainz. He perfected
interchangeable type that could be cast in large quantities and
invented a new type of press.
(NG, March 1990, p. 117)(WSJ, 10/31/96, p.A21)(WSJ,
1/11/99, p.R14)
1450 Johannes Gutenberg was able
to convince financier Johann Fust to loan him 800 guilders, a
considerable sum. Gutenberg's experiments with printing were financed
in large part by Fust, who later won a suit against Gutenberg to recoup
his investment. Fust invested another 800 guilders in 1452, securing a
partnership in Gutenberg's business. By 1455, impatient for results or
perhaps simply due to estrangement from Gutenberg, Fust sued and won a
settlement of just over 2,000 guilders: the sum of the two loans plus
interest. Fust also gained control of Gutenberg's movable type and some
of his printing equipment. Gutenberg was able to continue some printing
and eventually was granted a pension by the archbishop of Mainz in
1465.
(HNQ, 1/12/01)
c1450 In the mid 1400s Berbers
took over the trade and learning centers of Timbuktu and Walata.
(ATC, p.120)
1450 In Mexico City an Aztec
cornerstone ceremony took place about this time intended to dedicate a
new layer of building. In 2005 archeologists found a child found at the
Templo Mayor ruins who was apparently killed as part of a ceremony
dedicated to the war god Huitzilopochtli.
(AP, 7/23/05)
c1450 The Portuguese brought
slaves to the uninhabited Cape Verde Island.
(SFC, 8/5/98, p.A8)
c1450 Legend has it that in
the mid-15th century Vietnam, King Le Loi defeated Chinese invaders
with a magic sword given to him by the gods. After the victory, the
king was said to be boating on the lake when a giant golden turtle rose
to the surface and grabbed the sword in its mouth before plunging deep
into the water to return it to its divine owners. The lake was later
renamed "Ho Hoan Kiem," which means "Lake of the Returned Sword."
(AP, 11/3/03)
c1450 The chiefs of Zimbabwe's
gold producing provinces declared independence from Great Zimbabwe. A
northern group led by King Mwene Mutapa conquered neighboring kingdoms
and a new empire called Monomutapa was formed.
(ATC, p.148)
1450-1455 Dieric Bouts painted "The Annunciation."
The Getty Museum later acquired it for $7 million, but its authenticity
was controversial.
(WSJ, 4/9/99, p.W16)
1450-1460 The German Master E.S. made his drawing
"Girl With a Ring."
(WSJ, 12/8/99, p.A20)
1450-1500 Bartolomeu Dias, Portuguese explorer. He
discovered the Cape of Good Hope.
(WUD, 1994, p.399)
c1450-1500 Nyatsimba, Mwene Matapa or Monomotapa
(Lord of the Plundered People or Ravager of the Lands), Chief of the
Zimbabwe Empire. He conquered the middle Zambezi Valley and built stone
citadels at Great Zimbabwe. He was known to have a corps of over 100
female bodyguards.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R8)
c1450-1516 Hieronymus Bosch, painter was born.
Hieronymous van Aken was born in the small Dutch Brabant city of
's-Hertogenbosch in Flanders.
(AAP, 1964)(WUD, 1994, p.172)(WSJ, 8/25/98,
p.A12)(WSJ, 10/11/01, p.A19)
1450-1532 The period of the Inca Empire. Inca mummies
were later found on Mt. Ampato in 1995 and 1997. In 1998 archeologist
found 6 frozen mummies sacrificed to Inca gods near the crater of the
19,100 foot El Misti volcano, 465 miles southeast of Lima, Peru.
(SFEM, 4/13/97, p.16)(SFC,12/13/97, p.A14)(SFC,
10/3/98, p.C1)
1450-1650AD The Venetians occupied the capital city
Crete, Iraklion. The forests of Crete provided the Venetians with
cedars and firs for their fleets.
(SFEC, 8/17/97, p.T10)
1450-1890 The period of the Little Ice Age.
Temperatures over this period were a few degrees lower than during the
1900s.
(SFC, 11/29/02, p.J6)
1451 Feb 3, Murad II, Ottoman
sultan (1421-51), died of apoplexy. Mehmet II (19) became Sultan of the
Ottoman Empire. He ruled until 1481.
(ON, 10/00, p.10)(Ot, 1993, p.7)(MC, 2/3/02)
1451 Mar 9, Amerigo Vespucci
(d.1512), Italian navigator, was born in Florence.
(http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15384b.htm)
1451 Apr 22, Isabella I of
Castile, Queen of Spain (1479-1504), patron of Christopher Columbus,
was born in Madrigal, Spain.
(HN, 4/22/98)(AP, 4/22/01)(MC, 4/22/02)
1451 Jun 28, An eclipse occurred
that allegedly prevented the outbreak of war between the Mohawk and the
Seneca Indians.
(SCTS, p.6)
1451 Sep 21, Cardinal Nicholas of
Cusa ordered the Jews of Holland to wear a badge.
(MC, 9/21/01)
1451 An Afghan named Buhlul
invaded Delhi, and seized the throne. He founded the Lodi dynasty.
(www.afghan, 5/25/98)
1451 In France Jacques Coeur was
charged with poisoning Agnes Sorel, mistress to King Charles VII. Sorel
had died in childbirth. Charles confiscated Coeur's property and put
him in jail. Coeur escaped and fled to Rome. He died several years
later fighting the Turks.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R6)
1451 The Vatican Library was
founded.
(WSJ, 3/2/00, p.W10)
1451-1506 Christopher Columbus, was born in Genoa. He
was probably the child of Spanish-Jewish parents exiled by the
Inquisition.
(V.D.-H.K.p.174)
1451 March 9, The birthday of
Amerigo Vespucci (d.1512). He was the Italian navigator after whom
America was named. He explored the New World coastline after Columbus.
(CFA, '96,Vol 179, p.42)(AHD, p.1425)
1452 Mar 10, Ferdinand II, the
Catholic King of Aragon (1479-1516) and Sicily (1468-1516), was born.
He bankrolled Columbus and expelled Jews.
(WUD, 1994 p.524)(MC, 3/10/02)
1452 Apr 15, Leonardo da Vinci
(d.1519), Italian painter, sculptor, scientist and visionary, was born
in Vinci near Florence. He apprenticed to the painters Verrocchio and
Antonio Pollaiuolo and was accepted to the Florentine painters' guild
at twenty. Only seventeen surviving paintings can be attributed to him.
These include: "The Last Supper" in Milan, the "Mona Lisa" and "The
Virgin and Child with St. Anne" in the Louvre. He tried to express his
immense knowledge of the world by simply looking at things. The secret
he said was "saper vedere," to know how to see. His final "Visions of
the End of the World" was a sketchbook in which he tried to depict his
sense of the forces of nature, which in his imagination he conceived of
as possessing a unity that no one had ever seen before. His use of a
smoky atmosphere (sfumato) helped create an impression of lifelikeness.
(V.D.-H.K.p.137)(WSJ, 2/5/97, p.A16)(HN, 4/15/98)
1452 Jul 27, Ludovico Sforza
(Ludovico il Moro, "The Moor," d.1508), Italian duke of Milan
(1494-1500), was born. He was the second son of Francesco Sforza, and
was famed as patron of Leonardo da Vinci and other artists.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludovico_Sforza)
1452 Sep 21, Girolamo Savonarola
(d.1498), was born in Ferrara. He became a Dominican monk, reformer,
dictator of Florence (1494-98) and martyr. He was best known for his
bonfires of the vanities in which corrupt books and images were set
alight.
(Hem.,4/97,p.53)(WUD, 1994, p.1272,1672)(WSJ,
7/10/98, p.W11)(MC, 9/21/01)
1452 Oct 2, King Richard III, of
England (1483-85), was born.
(MC, 10/2/01)
1452 The first pawn lender was
founded in Perugia (Italy) by Franciscan monks to combat usury.
(Econ, 5/27/06, p.73)
1452 Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II
began construction of a new fortress called Rumeli Hisar on the
Constantinople side of the Bosporus. He engaged Urban, a Hungarian
engineer, to build a large canon and put him in charge of the canon
foundries at Adrianople.
(SFC, 9/1/96, BR p.8)(ON, 10/00, p.10)
1452-1510 Liu Jin, a court eunuch of the Ming dynasty
in China. He abused his office to amass a great fortune and was
executed for treason.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R8)
1453 Apr 6, Ottoman forces under
Mehmet II opened fire on Constantinople.
(ON, 10/00, p.11)
1453 Apr 22-1453 Apr 23, The
Ottomans hauled 76 warships out of the water and dragged them on wood
rails to bypass the Greek blockade of the Constantinople harbor.
(ON, 10/00, p.12)(Ot, 1993, p.13)
1453 May 29, Constantinople fell
to Muhammad II, ending the Byzantine Empire. The fall of the eastern
Roman Empire, Byzantium, to the Ottoman Turks was led by Mehmed II.
Emperor Constantine XI Dragases (49), the 95th ruler to sit on the
throne of Constantine, was killed. The city of Constantinople fell from
Christian rule and was renamed Istanbul. The Hagia Sophia was turned
into a mosque. Spice prices soared in Europe. Nicolo Barbaro wrote his
"Diary of the Siege of Constantinople." Manuel Chrysophes, court
musician to Constantine XI, wrote a threnody for the fall of
Constantinople. In 2005 Roger Crowley authored “1453 The Holy War for
Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West.”
(NH, 9/96, p.22)(Sky, 4/97, p.53)(SFC, 7/27/98,
p.A8)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R49)(ON, 10/00, p.12)(Ot, 1993, p.6)(WSJ, 1/2/02,
p.A15)(SSFC, 8/14/05, p.F4)
1453 May 29, French banker Jacques
Coeurs had his possessions confiscated.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1453 Jul 4, 41 Jewish martyrs were
burned at stake at Breslau, Poland.
(Maggio)
1453 Jul 17, France defeated
England at the 1st Battle at Castillon, France, ending the 100 Years'
War. [see Oct 19]
(HN, 7/17/98)
1453 Oct 19, In the 2nd Battle at
Castillon: France beat England, ending the hundred year war. [see
Jul 17]
(MC, 10/19/01)
1453 Piero della Francesca
(1415/1420-1492) began work on the "Legenda della Vera Croce" (The
Legend of the True Cross) at the church of San Francesco in Arezzo. He
was commissioned by the Bacci family of Arezzo to complete the work
begun by Bicci de Lorenzo.
(WSJ, 6/02/97, p.A20)(WSJ, 2/2/08, p.W14)
1453 In England Henry VI, of the
house of Lancaster, suffered a nervous breakdown and Richard, the Duke
of York, was named protector.
(AM, 7/01, p.69)
1453 In Rome Agrippa’s Aqua Virgo
was resuscitated as the Acqua Vergine Antica.
(SFEC, 7/2/00, p.T4)
1454 Feb 17, At a grand feast,
Philip the Good of Burgundy took the "vow of the pheasant," by which he
swore to fight the Turks.
(HN, 2/17/99)
1454 Mar 6, Casimir
proclaimed the attachment of Prussia to Polish rule. This began a
13-year war over Prussia (1454-1466).
(LHC,3/6/03)
1454 Apr 9, The city states of
Venice, Milan and Florence signed a peace agreement at Lodi, Italy.
(HN, 4/9/99)
1454 Aug 22, Jews were expelled
from Brunn Moravia by order of King Ladislaus.
(MC, 8/22/02)
1455 Feb 23, Johannes Gutenberg
(Johan Gensfleisch, c1400-1468) printed his 1st book, the Bible.
Gutenberg printed Latin Bibles of which 11 were still extant in 1987.
[see 1450]
(SFC, 2/15/97, p.D1)(MC, 2/23/02)
1455 Mar 18, Fra Angelico, Italian
monk and Renaissance painter born around 1387 as Guido di Pietro, died.
Fra Angelico gained a reputation as a painter under that name before
joining the Dominicans in the 1420s. However, much of the influence
found in his work is thought to come from Dominican teachings. He
stayed at Dominican monasteries in Florence for most of his life doing
a variety of religious painting until being called to Rome in 1445 by
Pope Eugene IV, where he completed several chapel frescoes. Returning
to Florence in the early 1450s, he died on a return visit to Rome in
1455 and is entombed at the church of Santa Maria della Minerva. In
1984 Fra Angelico was beatified by Pope John Paul II.
(HNQ,
3/6/01)(http://gallery.euroweb.hu/bio/a/angelico/biograph.html)(WSJ,
11/9/05, p.D16)
1455 Apr 8, Alfonso de Borgia was
elected as Pope Callistus III.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1455 May 3, Jews fled Spain.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1455 May 22, King Henry VI was
taken prisoner by the Yorkists at the Battle of St. Albans, the 1st
battle in the 30-year War of the Roses. The army of the Duke of York
met the army of Queen Margaret at the Battle of St. Alban’s. The 2nd
Duke of Somerset was killed as Yorkists briefly took possession of King
Henry VI.
(MH, 12/96)(HN, 5/22/99)(MC, 5/22/02)
1455 Aug 2, Johan Cicero, elector
of Brandenburg (1486-99), was born.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1455 Dec 1, Lorenzo Ghiberti (77),
Italian sculptor, died.
(MC, 12/1/01)
1455 The young Ottoman Sultan
Mehmet II mobilized his army to march on Belgrade--and from there,
possibly move on to the European heartland.
(HN, 6/15/98)
1455 Some Portuguese had come to
The Gambia following the expeditions promoted by Prince Henry. They had
introduced groundnuts, tie main cash crop of today, cotton, and some
tropical fruits from Brazil. Their number, however, was never large and
they were soon absorbed by intermarriage.
(www.africanculture.dk/gambia/history.htm)
1455-1485 The War of the Roses. During the war
Margaret of Anjou, wife of the feeble-minded King Henry VI, was head of
the House of Lancaster whose heraldic badge was a red rose. She
struggled against the House of York, whose badge was a white rose, for
the control of the government.
(MH, 12/96)
1456 Mar 1, Wladyslaw Jagiello,
king of Bohemia (1471-1516), Hungary (1490-1516), was born.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1456 Jul 7, Joan of Arc was
acquitted, even though she had already been burnt at the stake on May
30, 1431.
(MC, 7/7/02)
1456 Jul 14, Hungarians defeated
the Ottomans at the Battle of Belgrade, in present-day Yugoslavia. The
1456 Siege of Belgrade decided the fate of Christendom.
(HN, 7/14/98)
1456 Jul 22, At the Battle at
Nandorfehervar (Belgrade), the Hungarian army under prince Janos
Hunyadi beat sultan Murad II. The siege of Belgrade had fallen into
stalemate when a spontaneous fight broke out between a rabble of
Crusaders, led by the Benedictine monk John of Capistrano, and the
city's Ottoman besiegers. The melee soon escalated into a major battle,
during which the Hungarian commander, Janos Hunyadi, led a sudden
assault that overran the Turkish camp, ultimately compelling the
wounded Sultan Mehmet II to lift the siege and retreat.
(MC, 7/22/02)(PC, 1992, p.150)(HNPD, 7/23/98)
1456 Aug 11, Janos Hunyadi (69),
Hungarian Prince and general strategist died of plague at about age 49.
(PC, 1992, p.150)(MC, 8/11/02)
1456 Nov 25, Jacques Coeur, French
merchant and banker, died in battle.
(MC, 11/25/01)
1456 Dec 5, Earthquake struck
Naples and 35,000 died.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1456 Pope Calixtus III appointed
his nephew Rodrigo Borgia Lanzol, later Pope Alexander VI, a cardinal.
(PTA, 1980, p.424)
1456 A comet in the sky caused the
Pope to issue a catchall edict to his followers to pray for deliverance
from "The Devil, the Turk, and the Comet."
(SFC, 3/28/97, p.A12)
1456-1496 Ercole de' Roberti, Italian artist. He was
the predecessor to Dosso Dossi at the Ferrara court.
(SFC, 4/27/99, p.C1)
c1456-1856 Gypsies living in the principalities that
today makeup Romania lived as slaves. [as stated in a work by Isabel
Fonseca titled: "Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey."
(WSJ, 10/19/95, A-18)
1457 Jan 28, Henry Tudor (later
Henry VII), 1st Tudor king of England (1485-1509), was born in Pembroke
Castle, Wales.
(www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/henry_vii_king.shtml)
1457 Nov 23, Ladislaus V (17),
posthumous king of Hungary and Bohemia, died.
(MC, 11/23/01)
1457 Aug 14, Gutenberg's financier
Johann Fust and calligrapher Peter Schoffer published the 2nd printed
book. This is the oldest known exactly dated printed book.
(HN, 8/14/00)(MC, 8/14/02)
1457 Koshamain, an Ainu chieftain
on the island of Hokkaido, led a rebellion against Japanese
encroachment, but it was put down by Nobuhiro Takeda.
(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 214)
1457 Pattani, later southern
Thailand, was declared an Islamic kingdom.
(AP, 9/23/05)
1457 King James II of Scotland
(James of the Fiery Face) banned "Futeball" on the grounds that it
threatened national defense by drawing young men away from archery
practice. He banned "Golfe" for the same reason. "Nocht usit and
utterlie cryit doun."
(SFC, 8/10/96, p.E4)(Hem., 1/97, p.47)
1458 Jan 24, Matthias Corvinus
(1440-1490), the son of John Hunyadi, was elected king of Hungary.
Under his rule Hungary was the most important state in central Europe.
For his fighting force he ordered every 20 houses to provide one horse
soldier. "Husz" is 20 in Hungarian and so the light cavalryman became
know as a Hussar. His illuminated breviary is held by the Vatican
library.
(WUD, 1994, p.1672)(Sky, 9/97, p.26)(HN, 1/24/99)
1458 Mar 2, Hussite George van
Podiebrad was chosen king of Bohemia.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1458 Jun 27, Alfonso V of Aragon
died. Ferdinand I succeeded to the throne of Naples, but Pope Calixtus
III declared the line of Aragon extinct and the kingdom a fief of the
church.
(Wikipedia)
1458 Filippino Lippi, painter, was
born. His father was the Carmelite friar Fra Filippo and his mother was
a nun. His work includes the drawing "Kneeling Male Saint," and the
color painting "Male Saint Holding the Body of the Dead Christ." One of
his students was Raffaellino del Garbo.
(WSJ, 12/3/97, p.A20)
1458 Benedetto Cotrugli published
the first known work on double-entry bookkeeping. It was invented in
Italy around 1340.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R55)(WSJ, 11/10/99, p.A20)
1459 Mar 2, Adrian VI [Adriaan F
Boeyens], Netherlands, Pope (1522-23), was born.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1459 Mar 3, Ausias March, Catalan
poet, died.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1459 May 2, Pierozzi Antoninus,
Italian archbishop of Florence, saint, died.
(MC, 5/2/02)
1459 May 12, Sun City, India, was
founded by Rao Jodhpur.
(MC, 5/12/02)
1459 Oct, The Lancastrians
defeated the Yorkists at Ludford.
(AM, 7/01, p.69)
1459 The Serbs fell under Turkish
rule and all of Serbia became the property of the sultan and all Serbs
became bond-slaves to the land. Serbian national identity survived with
the restoration in 1557 of the Serbian patriarchate at Pec.
(HNQ, 3/25/99)
1459-1519 Maximilian I. Holy Roman Emperor from
1493-1519.
(WUD, 1994, p.886)
1459-1525 Jakob Fugger II, German banker. He minted
his own money and maintained banks in every European capital. He held a
contract for managing the Pope's money and collected cash for the
remission of sins. He bankrolled the election of Charles V.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R8)
1459-1912 The Ottoman Empire ruled over the Kosova
region of Serbia.
(SFC, 3/3/98, p.A8)
1460 Apr 4, University of Basle,
Switzerland, formed.
(MC, 4/4/02)
1460 Apr 8, Ponce de Leon was born
in Spain. He searched for fountain of youth and found Florida.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1460 May 9, In the Netherlands the
courtyard Episcopal palace at Atrecht had witch burnings.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1460 Jun, English Yorkist earls
returned and met Henry VI’s Lancastrian army at Northampton. Henry was
captured and taken to London to serve as a figurehead.
(AM, 7/01, p.69)
1460 Jul 10, Wars of Roses:
Richard of York defeated King Henry VI at Northampton.
(MC, 7/10/02)
1460 Sep, The Duke of York
returned to England from Ireland. The nobility would not allow his
usurption of the crown but agreed to pass it to him on Henry’s demise.
(AM, 7/01, p.69)
1460 Nov 13, Prince Henry the
Navigator (b.1394), Portuguese prince and patron of explorers, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_the_Navigator)
1460 Dec 30, The English Duke of
York was killed by Lancastrians at the Battle of Wakefield and Queen
Margaret hung his head over the gate of the city.
(MH, 12/96)(HN, 12/30/98)
1460 The Ottomans conquered
southern Greece.
(AM, May/Jun 97 p.56)
1460s Benozzo Gozzoli, a pupil of
Fra Angelico, painted a portrait of Christ titled "The Holy Face."
(SFEC, 8/8/99, p.D7)
1460 Rogier van der Weyden painted
his "Portrait of a Lady."
(WSJ, 12/14/01, p.W20)
1460 In 2009 academic Julian
Luxford found a note written in Latin by a medieval monk about this
time that read when translated into English: "Around this time,
according to popular opinion, a certain outlaw named Robin Hood, with
his accomplices, infested Sherwood and other law-abiding areas of
England with continuous robberies."
(AP, 3/14/09)
1460-1464 Rogier van der Weyden painted "The
Lamentation Over the Body of the Dead Christ."
(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.C17)
1460-1470 Machu Pichu was built under the Inca King
Pachacuti in the Peruvian Andes. It was occupied for about 50 years
before 180 Spanish conquistadors wiped out a 40,000-man Inca army. In
2003 a nearby complex of structures called Llactapata (high city) was
discovered.
(SFC, 11/8/03, p.A2)
1460?-1526? Pedro Alvarez Cabral, Portuguese
navigator, discovered and claimed Brazil for Portugal on April 22, 1500.
(AHD, p.185)(HFA, '96, p.28)
1460-1550 Jack Eddy, solar physicist, examined tree
ring data in the 1970s and found a dearth of solar activity during this
period.
(NG, 7/04, p.28)
1461 Feb 2-3, The English houses
of York and Lancaster battled at Mortimer’s Cross, the Battle of the
Three Suns. In the War of the Roses Edward of York defeated the Welsh
Lancastrians in the 2nd battle of St Alban's.
(MH, 12/96)(AM, 7/01, p.69)(MC, 2/2/02)
1461 Feb 17, The Houses of York
and Lancaster battled again at St. Alban’s. Queen Margaret defeated the
Earl of Warwick and freed Henry VI.
(MH, 12/96)(AM, 7/01, p.69)
1461 Mar 4, Henry VI was deposed
and the Duke of York was proclaimed King as Edward IV. He tried to
settle once and for all the dynastic struggle between York and
Lancaster. At the Battle at Towton Duke Edward of York beat English
queen Margaretha.
(HN, 3/4/99)(SC, 3/4/02)
1461 Mar 14, In Edward, son of the
Duke of York, claimed the crown and was proclaimed King Edward IV in
Westminster Abbey.
(MH, 12/96)
1461 Mar 29, Edward IV secured his
claim to the English thrown in defeating Henry VI’s Lancastrians at the
battle of Towdon (Towton). Some 50,000 fought and an estimated 28,000
were killed.
(HN, 3/29/99)(AM, 7/01, p.69)(AM, 7/01, p.68)
1461 Jun 28, Edward IV was crowned
king of England.
(www.richardiiiworcs.co.uk/months/june.html)
1461 Aug 10, Alfonso ed Espina,
bishop of Osma, urged an Inquisition in Spain.
(MC, 8/10/02)
1461 The Pope's godson discovered
a source of alum, used in dyes. This led to a booming business for the
Catholic Church.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)
1462 Jun 27, Louis XII, King of
France (1498-1515), was born.
(HN, 6/27/02)
1462-1464 Piero della Francesca, Italian artist,
painted “The Resurrection” about this time.
(WSJ, 12/17/05, p.P14)
1462-1524 Vasco da Gama, Portuguese explorer.
(V.D.-H.K.p.174)
1463 Jan 5, French poet Francois
Villon was banished from Paris.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1463 Oct 29, Alessandro Achillini,
Italian physician and philosopher, was born.
(MC, 10/29/01)
1463 The Venetians regained
southern Greece for a short period.
(AM, May/Jun 97 p.56)
1463 The Ottomans conquered Bosnia.
(www.bartleby.com/67/314.html)
1463-1494 Pico della Mirandola, born in the duchy of
Ferrara and died in Florence. He studied Aristotelian philosophy at
Padua, and canon law at Bologna. He learned Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic
before he was twenty. He became acquainted with the Hebrew Kabbala and
was the first to use cabalistic doctrine to support Christian theology.
(V.D.-H.K.p.138)
1464 May 15, The English Houses of
York and Lancaster battled at Hexham. Among the Lancastrians the 3rd
Duke of Somerset was killed.
(MH, 12/96)
1464 Jun 19, French King Louis XI
formed a postal service.
(MC, 6/19/02)
1464 Aug 1, Piero de Medici
(1416-1469) succeeded his father, Cosimo, as ruler of Florence. He was
nicknamed Il Gottoso (the Gouty One) and squandered the family fortune.
(HN, 8/1/98)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R8)
1464 Mino da Fiesole sculpted the
altar for Rome’s Santa Maria Maggiore.
(WSJ, 10/22/96, p.A20)
1464 Desiderio da Settignano
(b.~1439), Renaissance sculptor, died in Florence.
(WSJ, 9/11/07, p.D6)
1464 Under the guidance of Sunni
Ali, the Songhai began to conquer their neighbors and expand their
kingdom. Goa became the capital of the Songhai empire. When Sunni Ali
died rule was passed to his son, a non-Muslim.
(ATC, p.121)
1464-1471 Pope Paul II, Pietro Barbo, succeeded Pius
II. He was responsible for a Papal Bull that established a 25-year
interval between Holy Years.
(PTA, 1980, p.418)(SFC, 12/24/99, p.A15)
1465 Feb 11, Elizabeth of York,
consort of King Henry VII, was born in London.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1465 The Nevill Feast at Cawood
Castle in Yorkshire, England. 2,500 people were entertained. The guests
ate over several days, 113 oxen, sic wild bulls, 1,000 sheep, 2,000
each of geese, pigs, and chickens, 12 porpoises, and 4,000 cold venison
pasties. Such a feast would show how many fighting men a family could
muster.
(N.G., Nov. 1985, M. Girouard, p.74)
1465 King Henry VI was captured
and imprisoned in the Tower of London.
(MH, 12/96)
1465-1487 In China during the Chenghua reign blended
enamels over a blue underglaze decoration reached a classic stage of
development. Lady Wan, consort of the emperor, was intimately
associated with porcelains and their design.
(SFEC, 10/6/96, DB p.37)
1466 Mar 8, Francesco Sforza
(b.1401), Italian condottiere, duke of Milan, died. He was the founder
of the Sforza dynasty in Milan, Italy, and the brother of Alessandro,
with whom he often fought.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Sforza)
1466 Oct 19, The peace of Torun
ended the 13-year War of the Cities (1454-1466), between the Teutonic
knights and their own disaffected subjects in Prussia. The Peace of
Thorn (Torún) ended the war between the Teutonic knights (a
German military and religious order) and their subjects in Prussia, led
by King Casimir IV (1427-1492) of Poland. Poland was given
Pomerelia and West Prussia, and the knights retained East Prussia, with
a new capital at Königsberg (Kaliningrad). The knights, formerly
strictly a German order, were forced to accept Poles as members and
their grand master became a vassal of the Polish king.
(HN,
10/19/98)(http://reference.allrefer.com/encyclopedia/T/TeutonKn.html)
1466 Oct 26, Desiderius Erasmus
(d.1536), scholar and author (In Praise of Folly), was born in
Rotterdam. He was of illegitimate birth, but became a priest and a
monk. He excelled in philology, the study of ancient languages, namely
Latin and Greek and worked on a new translation of the New Testament.
The more he studied it, the more he came to doubt the accuracy of the
Vulgate, St. Jerome's translation into Latin, dating from around 400.
"In Praise of Folly" is his most famous work... In it Erasmus had the
freedom to discourse, in the ironic style of Lucian (the Greek author
whose works he translated), concerning all the foolishness and
misguided pompousness of the world.
(V.D.-H.K.p.159-160)(MC, 10/26/01)
1466 Nov 30, Andrea Doria, Genoese
statesman and admiral, was born.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1466-1520 Montezuma II, Aztec emperor. He amassed
great wealth through taxation in Mexico and Central America. He used
his wealth to build his capital at Tenochtitlan.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R8)
1466?-1530 Quentin Massys, Flemish painter. He
painted "The Moneylender and His Wife."
(AAP, 1964)(WUD, 1994, p.882)
1466-1772 Danzig (Gdansk) was occupied by German
religious-knights.
(Voruta #27-28, Jul 1996, p.10)
1467 May, In Japan the 11-year
Onin War began in Kyoto. In 1967 H. Paul Valery authored "The Onin War."
(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 215)(ON, 7/01, p.5)
1467 Jun 15, Philip the Good, Duke
of Burgundy, died.
(HT, 6/15/00)
1468 Feb 3, Johannes Gutenberg
(Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg b.c1400), German inventor
of movable type, died.
(SFC, 2/15/97, p.D1)(WSJ, 9/14/00, p.A24)
1468 Feb 29, Pope Paul III was
born.
(SFC, 2/29/00, p.A1)
1468 Dec 3, Lorenzo the
Magnificent and his brother Giuliano succeeded their father, Piero de
Medici, as rulers of Florence, Italy.
(HN, 12/3/98)
1468 Juan Reixach created his
panel of St. Vincent Ferrer in the Hispano-Flemish style.
(WSJ, 3/2/05, p.D9)
1468 Skanderbeg of Albania died
and the Turks absorbed Albania into the Ottoman Empire. Over the next
five centuries most Albanians converted to Islam.
(CO, Grolier’s / Albania)(www, Albania, 1998)
c1468 The area around Bosnia was
occupied by the Turks in the late 15th cent.
(SFC, 4/15/97, p.A10)
1469 Apr 15, The guru Nanak
(d.1539), 1st guru of Sikhs, was born to Hindu parents in Lahore. Nanak
assimilated tenets of pantheistic Hinduism and monotheistic Islam and
founded Sikhism in the Punjab. He refused to accept the caste system
and the supremacy of the Brahmanical priests and forbade magic,
idolatry and pilgrimages. Brahma is the Hindu god of creation. Turbaned
followers would sport the main of the lion, Singha or Sikh. The sacred
Sikh book, Granth Sahib, was compiled by the 5th guru, Arjun, in 1605.
(WUD, 1994, p.1326)(Hem., 3/97, p.28)(SFEM, 9/19/99,
p.74)(SFC, 9/22/99, p.E1)(WSJ, 10/12/01, p.W17)(MC, 4/15/02)
1469
May 3, Nicolo Machiavelli (d.1527), political advisor and author, was
born. He was a historian and author of "The Prince." He saw in Cesare
Borgia, the bastard son of Pope Alexander VI, the prospect of an Italy
free of foreign control. "Men are more apt to be mistaken in their
generalizations than in their particular observations."
(V.D.-H.K.p.109)(AP, 11/15/98)(HN, 5/3/99)
1469 May 19, Giovanni della
Robbia, Italian sculptor, was born.
(MC, 5/19/02)
1469 May 31, Manuel I, king of
Portugal (1495-1521), was born.
(HN, 5/31/98)
1469 Oct 17, Crown prince Fernando
of Aragon married princess Isabella of Castile.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1469 Dec 3, Piero de' Medici (53),
ruler of Florence, died.
(MC, 12/3/01)
1469 Fra Filippo Lippi, a
Carmelite friar and painter and father of Filippino Lippi, died. Sandro
Botticelli was one of his students.
(WSJ, 12/3/97, p.A20)
1469-1472 The islands of Sao Tome and Principe were
discovered by Portuguese navigators and settled by 1500.
(AP, 7/18/03)
1469 Apr 15, The guru Nanak
(d.1539), 1st guru of Sikhs, was born to Hindu parents in Lahore. Nanak
assimilated tenets of pantheistic Hinduism and monotheistic Islam and
founded Sikhism in the Punjab. He refused to accept the caste system
and the supremacy of the Brahmanical priests and forbade magic,
idolatry and pilgrimages. Brahma is the Hindu god of creation. Turbaned
followers would sport the main of the lion, Singha or Sikh. The sacred
Sikh book, Granth Sahib, was compiled by the 5th guru, Arjun, in 1605.
(WUD, 1994, p.1326)(Hem., 3/97, p.28)(SFEM, 9/19/99,
p.74)(SFC, 9/22/99, p.E1)(WSJ, 10/12/01, p.W17)
1470 Mar 2, In England at Lose
Coat Field, canon under Edward IV turned a group of Lincolnshire rebels
into a panicked mob.
(MH, 12/96)
1470 Jun 30, Charles VIII, King of
France (1483-98), invaded Italy, was born. One of his feet had 6 toes
which prompted his wearing broad, square tip shoes.
(HN, 6/30/98)(SFC, 3/13/99, p.E6)
1470 Oct 9, Henry VI of England
was restored to the throne.
(HN, 10/9/98)
1470 Nov 1, Edward V, King of
England, was born. [see Nov 3]
(HN, 11/1/98)
1470 Nov 3, Edward V, King of
England (Apr 9-Jun 25 1483), was born. [see Nov 1]
(MC, 11/3/01)
1470 The earliest documented work
by Botticelli was made. "Fortitude" was an allegory portraying a woman
who embodies the virtue of inner strength.
(SFC, 6/20/97, p.A9)
1470 The first book printed in
France was an ornate ninth-century transcript produced for the grandson
of Charlemagne. It is held by the Bibliotheque Nationale de France.
(WSJ, 9/26/95, p.A-20)
1470 In Portugal Princess Juana
popularized the farthingale, a wide-hipped skit stiffened by whale bone.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R40)
c1470 The Quechua-speaking Incas
came to dominate what is now Bolivia a mere 75 years before the
Spaniards arrived.
(NH, 11/96, p.37)
1470-1650 The period of the second of four waves of
rising prices over the last 800 years as described by David Hackett
Fisher in his 1996 book: "The Great Wave: Price Revolutions and the
Rhythm of History."
(WSJ, 12/19/96, p.A16)
1471 Mar 22, George van Podiebrad,
king of Bohemia (1458-71), died.
(MC, 3/22/02)
1471 Mar, Edward IV returned to
England.
(MH, 12/96)
1471 Apr 11, King Edward IV of
England captured London from Henry VI in the War of the Roses.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1471 Apr 14, On Easter Sunday
Edward IV led an army of mercenaries and Yorkists at the Battle of
Barnet and defeated the Lancastrians under the Earl of Warwick. Richard
Neville Warwick (42), 2nd earl of Salisbury, was killed in battle.
Margaret of Anjou returned from France. With her son, the Prince of
Wales, she planned to join with Jasper Tudor, a Welsh ally, and attack
Edward west of London.
(MH, 12/96)(HN, 4/14/00)
1471 May 4, The Yorkists defeated
the Lancastrians in the Battle of Tewkesbury between the English House
of Lancaster and House of York. King Edward IV routed the forces of
ex-queen Margaret. The Lancastrian forces were led by Edmund Beaufort,
4th Duke of Somerset. Edward, the 17-year-old prince of Wales, was
killed at the battle of Tewkesbury.
(MH, 12/96)(HN,
5/4/99)(www.britainexpress.com/History/battles/tewkesbury.htm)
1471 May 6, The 4th Duke of
Somerset and other Lancastrian nobles were beheaded at the Tewkesbury
marketplace after trial presided over by the Duke of Gloucester,
Constable of England.
(MH, 12/96)
1471 May 21, Henry VI, king of
England (1422-61, 70-71) and France (1431-71), was killed in the tower
of London and Edward IV took the throne.
(HN, 5/21/98)
1471 Jul 15, Eskender (d.1494),
Emperor of Ethiopia, was born. Eskender was killed at age 22 fighting
the Maya, a vanished ethnic group known for using poisoned arrows.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskender)
1471 Jul 25, Thomas A. Kempis
(91), [Thomas Hammerken von Kempen], German writer, monk, died. His
popular "Imitation of Christ" went through 99 editions by the end of
the century.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R34)(Internet)
1471 Jul 26, Pope Paul II died.
(PTA, 1980, p.418)
1471 Aug 7, Francesco Della Rovere
succeeded Paul II as Pope Sixtus IV.
(PTA, 1980, p.420)
1471 In Pec, Kosovo, the Qarshise
Mosque was built. It was destroyed by Serbs in 1999.
(SFC, 9/7/99, p.A12)
1471-1474 A particular Spanish, copper-based coin
called a blanca was issued.
(NH, 10/96, p.24)
1471-1528 Albrecht Durer, German artist. He is
particularly known for his woodcuts for book illustrations.
(SFEC, 2/9/97, DB p.6)(WSJ, 11/7/00, p.A24)
1472 Mar 28, Fra Bartolommeo
(d.1517), Florentine Renaissance painter, was born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fra_Bartolommeo)
1472 Apr 15, Leon Battista Alberti
(b.1404), Italian humanist, architect (Philodoxis), died. He wrote the
1st Italian grammar, the 1st theory of painting as an art, and the
treatise "On the Art of Building." In 1970 Joan Gadol authored a
biography. In 2000 Anthony Grafton authored the biography "Leon
Battista Alberti."
(WSJ, 11/30/00, p.A20)(MC, 4/15/02)
1472 Hans Memling painted “The
Virgin and Child With St. Anthony Abbot and Donor.”
(SFC, 10/18/05, p.D2)
1472 In Siena the Monte dei Paschi
began taking deposits and making loans to the poor at better rates than
the moneylenders. As of 2009 this was the oldest existing bank.
Clerical groups had already established "monti di pieta" (mounds of
money for charity). In Siena the original capital came from taxes.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R48)(Econ, 11/3/07, p.101)(Econ,
1/10/09, p.74)
1472 The Orkney Islands were part
of Norway until this year.
(SFEC, 3/23/97, p.T3)
1472-1553 Lucas Cranach the Elder, German painter and
graphic artist. He painted "Cardinal Albrecht as St. Jerome."
(AAP, 1964)(WUD, 1994, p.339)
1473 Feb 19, The astronomer
Copernicus (1473-1543) was born in Torun, Poland. He promulgated the
theory that the earth and the planets move around the sun.
(WUB, 1994, p. 322)(HN, 2/19/98)(AP, 2/19/98)
1473 Lorenzo de Medici, Italian
banker and poet, wrote: "It is hard to live in Florence if you do not
control the state."
(WSJ, 1/19/04, p.A12)
1473 The game of golf was played
in Scotland at the Old course at St. Andrews.
(SFC, 6/25/95, p.T-7)
1473-1474 The book "Recuyell of the Historyes of
Troye" was translated and printed from the French by William Caxton. A
copy sold in 1998 for $1.2 million.
(SFC, 7/9/98, p.A12)
1474 Mar 21, Angela Merici,
Italian monastery founder, saint, was born.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1474 May 9, Peter van Hagenbach,
Elzasser knight, land guardian, was beheaded.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1474 Sep 8, Ludovico Ariosto,
Italy, poet (Orlando Furioso), was born.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1474 Nov 27, Guillaume Dufay
(b.1399), French-Flemish composer, died. His work included "Ecclesiae
militantis," a 5-part motet on Pope Eugenius IV’s short-lived supremacy
over the Eastern Orthodox Church.
(WSJ, 1/2/02, p.A15)(MC, 11/27/01)
1474 Dec 12, Isabella crowned
herself queen of Castilia & Aragon.
(MC, 12/12/01)
1474 Bartolome de Las Casas
(d.1566), “Apostle to the Indians,” was born in Seville, Spain.
(http://tinyurl.com/brzzu)
c1474 Ercole de' Roberti, Italian
artist, painted "St. Jerome in the Wilderness."
(SFC, 4/27/99, p.C1)
1474 By this year Venice passed a
patent statute that included many of the elements of modern patent laws.
(www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-23-4-a-the-origins-of-patent-and-copyright-law.html)
c1474-1478 Leonardo da Vinci created his portrait
"Ginevra de Benci."
(WSJ, 12/14/01, p.W20)
1474-1515 Mariotto Albertinelli, painter. He painted
"The Visitation."
(AAP, 1964)
1474-1556 Bartolome de Las Casas, a Dominican priest,
made a copy of the original log of Columbus’ voyage from a copy given
to Columbus before his 2nd voyage. It is the only surviving copy.
(NH, 10/96, p.23)
1475 Mar 6, Michelangelo
Buonarroti (d.1564), painter, sculptor and architect, was born. His
early mentor was Bertoldo di Giovanni, a pupil of Donatello. His work
included "The Creation of Adam" and the "Pieta Rondanini." He at one
time proposed to sculpt the 5,000 foot Monte Sagro in Carrara into the
statue of a giant.
(WUB, 1994, p. 904)(WSJ, 2/29/96, p.A-14)(AAP,
1964)(SFEC, 7/13/97, p.T11)(SFEC,10/19/97, p.T4)(HN, 3/6/98)
1475 Cesare Borgia, illegitimate
son of Rodrigo Borgia Lanzol, later Pope Alexander VI (1492-1503), was
born. He was made a church cardinal before his 20th birthday.
(SFC, 3/16/02, p.A3)
c1475 Andrea del Verrochio created
his sculpture "Sleeping Youth."
(WSJ, 1/29/02, p.A18)
c1475 Dieric Bouts, Flemish
painter, created his painting "Virgin and Child."
(SFEC, 12/19/99, DB p.42)
1475 Pope Sixtus IV celebrated the
Holy Year by building the Sistine Chapel and the Sixtus Bridge over the
Tiber River.
(SFC, 12/24/99, p.A15)
1475-1476 Petrus Christus (b. c1415), Netherlandish
painter, died in Brugge.
(www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/art.asp?aid=2806)
1475 In China’s Yunnan province
the old Jihong Bridge over the Lancang River was reinforced with 18
iron chains over the 280-foot chasm.
(SFEC, 10/6/96, T5)
1475 British fishermen lost access
to fishing grounds off Iceland due to a war in Europe. The cod catch
did not go down and it is presumed that they had discovered the
cod-rich waters off Newfoundland, whose discovery was later attributed
to John Cabot.
(SFEM, 11/15/98, p.23)
1475 The Olavinlinna castle was
founded by the governor of Viipuri on the border between Sweden-Finland
and Russia.
(SFEC, 4/11/99, p.T4)
1475-1495 An 11-piece set of tapestries were created
with scenes from the Trojan War. They included "The Death of Troilus,
Achilles and Paris." They were later housed at the Museo Catedralicio,
Zamora, Spain.
(WSJ, 4/11/02, p.AD7)
1475-1509 Italian architects invited by Ivan III
built the Kremlin Cathedrals of the Assumption and the Archangel.
(DVD, Criterion, 1998)
1476 Aug 4, Jacob van
Armagnac-Pardiac, French duke of Nemours, was beheaded.
(MC, 8/4/02)
1476 Aug 13, Christopher Columbus
swam ashore to Portugal from a burning ship. He believed that Cathay,
i.e. China, lay about 3,900 miles west of the Canary Islands.
(V.D.-H.K.p.174)
1476 Dec 24, Some 400 Burgundy
soldiers froze to death during the siege of Nancy.
(MC, 12/24/01)
1476 Dec 26, Galeazzo Maria Sforza
(Il Sforza del Destino), duke of Milan, was murdered.
(MC, 12/26/01)
1476 The Swiss overcame Burgundy’s
Charles the Bold at the Battle of Murten.
(SSFC, 5/26/02, p.C5)
1476/1477 The first edition of Chaucer’s Canterbury
Tales (1387-1400) was printed by William Caxton. A copy of the red,
leather-bound edition sold at auction in 1998 for $7.5 million. In 1905
the Caxton Club in Chicago published the leaf book “William Caxton” by
E. Gordon Duff. Each book contained one of 148 leaves from a Caxton 1st
edition of the Canterbury Tales.
(SFC, 7/9/98, p.A12)(WSJ, 5/12/05, p.D8)
1476-1507 Cesare Borgia, Italian cardinal, military
leader and politician.
(WUD, 1994, p.171)
1477 Jan 5, Swiss troops defeated
the forces under Charles the Bold of Burgundy at the Battle of Nancy.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1477 Nov 18, William Claxton
published the first dated book printed in England. "Dictes &
Sayengis of the Phylosophers," by Earl Rivers. It was a translation
from the French. [see 1473/1474]
(HN, 11/18/99)
1477 Future Holy Roman Emperor
Maximilian I, a member of the Habsburg family of Austria, married Mary
of Burgundy, heiress of all the Netherlands. Maximilian had given Mary
a diamond engagement ring, a practice that soon spread. In 1996 Andrew
Wheatcroft wrote a history of the Habsburgs: "The Habsburgs."
(WSJ, 1/19/96, p.A-12)(SFEM, 6/28/98, p.6)(SFC,
5/28/08, p.G2)
1477 The Seventeen Provinces, a
personal union of states in the Low Countries in the 16th century,
became the property of the Habsburgs. They roughly covered the current
Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, a good part of the North of France
(Artois, Nord) and a small part of Germany.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeeland)
1477 Joao II (John II) served as
king of Portugal for a short time when his father retired to a
monastery. He succeeded his father as king in 1481.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_II_of_Portugal)
1477-1576 Titian (Titziano Vecellio), Italian
painter. He painted "Venus and Adonis and Allegory" with subjects
Alfonso d’Este and Laura Diante.
(AAP, 1964)(WUD, 1994, p.1488)
1478 Feb 7, Sir Thomas Moore
(d.1535), English humanist, statesman and writer, was born in London.
He was best friend of Erasmus, and called by Erasmus: "a man for all
seasons." He studied law and rose to the post of lord chancellor after
the fall of Cardinal Wolsey. More would not accept Henry VIII's divorce
from Catherine of Aragon nor his subsequent marriage to Anne Boleyn.
The king had charges of treason filed and More was beheaded on July 6,
1535. He was canonized in 1935. The 1966 film "A man for All Seasons"
was based on his life. He is famous for "Utopia."
(V.D.-H.K.p.160)(CU, 6/87)(WUD, 1994, p.931)(HN,
2/7/99)
1478 Feb 18, George, the Duke of
Clarence, who had opposed his brother Edward IV, was murdered in the
Tower of London. George underwent forced drowning in a wine barrel ("A
butt of Malmsey").
(HN, 2/18/99)(MC, 2/18/02)
1478 Apr 26, Pazzi conspirators
attacked Lorenzo de'Medici but killed Giuliano de'Medici (~24),
Medeheerser of Florence.
(HN, 4/26/98)(MC, 4/26/02)
1478 Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510)
painted "La Primavera" about this time.
(WSJ, 4/14/07, p.P11)
c1478 Giorgione (d.1510), Italian
painter, was born.
(T&L, 10/80, p. 58)(WSJ, 12/4/97, p.A20)
1478 Ten years after the death of
Skanderbeg, his citadel at Kruje was finally taken by the Ottoman Turks
and Albania fell into obscurity during several centuries of Turkish
rule.
(HNQ, 10/5/98)(www, Albania, 1998)
1478 In Japan the Onin War ended
after rival warlords died of natural causes. Shogun Yoshimasa
disinherited his brother and abdicated in favor of his son.
(ON, 7/01, p.5)
1478 The Swiss began annexing the
southern approaches to the strategic and lucrative St. Gothard Pass
over the Alps.
(SFEC, 6/14/98, p.T4)
1478-1483 The Gubbio Studiola was constructed in the
shop of the Florentine woodworker Giuliano da Maiana. The wood inlay
art of intarsia was used whereby the carving was done by knife rather
than with saws. It was purchased by the NY Metropolitan in 1939.
(WSJ, 6/6/96, p.A12)
1478-1529 Baldassare Castiglione, Italian diplomat
and author. He wrote the "Book of the Courtier," in which the term
sprezzatura was coined. It described the art of making the difficult
seem effortless.
(WUD, 1994, p.230)(WSJ, 8/22/97, p.A12)
1478?-1533? Jan Gossaert (Mabuse), Flemish painter.
He painted "St Luke Drawing the Virgin Mary."
(AAP, 1964)(WUD, 1994, p.858)
1479 Mar 26, Vasili III, great
prince of Moscow (1505-33), son of Ivan III, was born.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1479 Sep 4, After four years of
war, Spain agreed to allow a Portuguese monopoly of trade along
Africa's west coast and Portugal acknowledged Spain's rights in the
Canary Islands.
(HN, 9/4/98)
1479 Nov 6, Johanna, the Insane,
Queen of Castilia (1504-20), was born.
(MC, 11/6/01)
1479 Shkodra fell to the Ottoman
Turks. Subsequently, many Albanians fled to southern Italy, Greece,
Egypt, and elsewhere; many remaining were forced to convert to Islam.
(www, Albania, 1998)
1479 Gentile Bellini (1429-1507),
Italian artist, was selected by the Venetian Republic to work at the
court of the Ottoman sultan, Mehmed II, in Istanbul.
(WSJ, 12/20/05, p.D8)
1479 In Bosnia the Turks erected a
mosque in the center of Banja Luka. It was leveled by the Serbs in 1993.
(WSJ, 8/26/98, p.A1)
1479 Venice signed a peace treaty
with Ottoman Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror (1432-1481) ending 16 years of
war.
(WSJ, 3/16/06, p.D8)(www.fsmitha.com/h3/h13zt.htm)
1479 Jorge Manrique (b.1440),
Spanish military hero and poet, died.
(SSFC, 9/3/06,
p.M3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Manrique)
1480 Feb 13, Hieronymus Alexander,
[Girolamo Aleandro], Italian diplomat, cardinal, was born.
(MC, 2/13/02)
1480 Apr 18, Lucretia Borgia
(d.1519), murderess, was born. Lucrezia Borgia, Duchess of Ferrara, was
the daughter of Pope Alexander VI, and the sister and political pawn of
Cesare Borgia. She was also considered a patroness of the arts.
(HN, 4/18/98)(WUD, 1994, p.171)
1480 Giovanni Bellini painted "St.
Francis in the Desert."
(WSJ, 1/14/00, p.W12)
1480 Sandro Botticelli painted
"The Birth of Venus."
(WSJ, 2/5/97, p.A16)
1480 Bartolomeo Saachi de Platina
had a cookbook printed titled: "De honesta voluptate et valetudine." In
1997 it was valued at $37,000.
(SFC, 2/19/96, zz-1 p.2)
1480 The Spanish Inquisition was
introduced by Ferdinand and Isabella to enable the crown to control the
inquiries into whether or not converted Jews were really secret
"Judaizers" who kept their original faith. "The Spanish Inquisition," a
history of the Inquisition was written by Henry Kamen and a new edition
was published in 1998.
(WSJ, 4/16/98, p.A1)
1480 In Hamburg a pioneering labor
market appeared for hiring day workers.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R25)
1480-1520 In France the fortress at Bonaguil in the
Quercy province was built by a baron as a bulwark against his vassals.
(SFEC, 7/11/99, p.T4)
1480-1521 Ferdinand Magellan, Portuguese navigator.
He was assigned the task of finding a route to the Spice Islands.
(V.D.-H.K.p.177)
1480-1533 A huge Inca cemetery was active in Lima at
this time. It was uncovered in 2002 with some 2,200 mummies.
(SFC, 4/18/02, p.A4)
1480-1538 Albrecht Altdorfer, German painter. He
painted "Martyrdom of St. Florian." He also painted a depiction of
Alexander’s 333BC defeat of Darius at Issus.
(AAP, 1964)(WUD, 1994, p.43)(WSJ, 5/15/98, p.W11)
1480-1557 Lorenzo Lotto, Italian painter, celebrated
as a realist and a man of religious fervor.
(WSJ, 1/15/98, p.A17)
1481 Mar 2, Franz von Sickingen,
German knight, was born.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1481 Aug 29, Joao II (John II)
became king of Portugal.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_II_of_Portugal)
1481 Aug 30, Two Latvian monarchs
were executed for conspiracy to murder Polish king Kazimierz IV.
(MC, 8/30/01)
1481 Sandro Botticelli painted
"The Annunciation."
(SFC, 10/7/03, p.D8)
1481 Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II died
at age 60. Kritovoulos authored "History of Mehmet the Conqueror" in
the 15th century.
(ON, 10/00, p.12)
1481-1512 Beyazid II followed Mehmed II in the
Ottoman House of Osman.
(Ot, 1993, xvii)
1481-1530 In Spain the first burnings of 8 people
occurred as a result of the Inquisition trials. Over this period some
2000 people were burned.
(WSJ, 4/16/98, p.A20)
1482 Sep 1, Krim-Tataren plundered
Kiev.
(MC, 9/1/02)
1482 The border town of
Berwick-upon-Tweed ended up in English hands after changing hands 13
times in wars between England and the Scots.
(WSJ, 7/8/08, p.A14)
1482 A Milanese Duke commissioned
Leonardo da Vinci to make an equine statue that would have been the
largest in the world. A clay cast was made over 16 years but the
appropriated bronze was used for cannons and the clay cast was
destroyed when the Duke’s castle fell to French invaders.
(Hem., 12/96, p.19)
1482 Luca della Robbia (b.1400),
Italian artist, died. Luca developed the art of enameled relief
sculpture. Andrea della Robbia (1435-1525), his nephew and student,
continued the work.
(SFC, 11/23/05, p.G2)
1482 In Ghana Elmina Castle was
built by Portuguese traders. It later became a slave holding castle.
(SFEC, 11/22/98, p.T10)
1482 Captain Diogo Cao sailed
south along the African coast and became the first Portuguese sailor to
reach the equator. He4 landed at the mouth of the Zaire (Congo) River.
He left four servants and took four Africans hostage back to his king,
John, in Portugal. This was the first European encounter with the vast
kingdom of the Kongo.
(ATC, p.149)(ON, 11/07, p.1)
1482 The Ginkaku Temple, also
known as the Silver Pavilion was built in Kyoto, Japan. The Shogun who
built it died before its completion and it remains without silver.
(Hem., 2/96, p.58)
1483 Feb 14, Zahir al-Din Mohammed
Babur Shah, prince, founder Mughal dynasty in India (1526-30), was born.
(MC, 2/14/02)
1483 Apr 6, Raphael (Raffaello
Sanzio, d.1520), Dutch painter (Sistine Madonna), was born to an
unremarkable painter in the Duchy of Urbino. He went on to paint famous
works in the Vatican. After an apprenticeship in Perugia, he went to
Florence, having heard of the work da Vinci and Michelangelo were
doing. His last 12 years were spent on numerous commissions in Rome. He
died on his 37th birthday, his funeral mass being celebrated in the
Vatican. .
(HN, 4/6/98)(HNQ, 11/17/00)
1483 Apr 9, Edward IV (b.1442),
King of England (1461-70, 71-83) died. His young sons, Edward and
Richard, were left in the protection of their uncle Richard, Duke of
Gloucester. He housed them in the Tower of London where they were
probably murdered on his orders.
(www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/edward_iv_king.shtml)
1483 Jun 25, Edward V, king of
England (Apr 9-Jun 25, 1483), was murdered.
(MC, 6/25/02)
1483 Jun 26, Richard III, Duke of
Gloucester, usurped himself to the English throne.
(HN, 6/26/98)(MC, 6/26/02)
1483 Jul 6, England's King Richard
III was crowned.
(AP, 7/6/97)
1483 Aug 9, Pope Sixtus IV
celebrated the first mass in the Sistine Chapel, which was named in his
honor.
(HN, 8/9/98)
1483 Oct 17, The Reverend Dr.
Tomas de Torquemada, OP, was appointed inquisitor-general of Spain.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1483 Nov 2, Henry Stafford
(b.1454), earl of Buckingham and constable of England, was beheaded at
Salisbury for his rebellion against King Richard III (1452-1485).
(DoW, 1999, p.71)
1483 Nov 10, Martin Luther, leader
of the Protestant Reformation, was born in Eisleben, Germany. He was a
monk in the Catholic Church until 1517, when he founded the Lutheran
Church. He died in 1546.
(V.D.-H.K.p.163)(Voruta #27-28, Jul 1996, p.10)(SFC,
7/21/97, p.A11)(AP, 11/10/97)
1483 Dec 24, Leaders of the
English rebels swore fealty to Henry Tudor in the Cathedral of Rennes
in Brittany.
(ON, 12/06, p.1)
1483 Felice della Rovere (d.1536),
illegitimate daughter of Pope Julius II (r.1503-1513), was born about
this time. Her mother was a member of the Normanni, an illustrious
Roman family long in decline. In 2005 Caroline P. Murphy authored “The
Pope’s Daughter: The Extraordinary Life of Felice della Rovere.”
(www.jsonline.com/enter/books/reviews/jul05/339335.asp)
1483 When King Vladislav restored
Catholic dominion, a dissident band of Hussites threw the Catholic
mayor [Prague?] out of the window.
(NH, 9/96, p.24)
1483-1505 Trithemius, author and monk, served as the
abbot of a Benedictine monastery. His work included "De Laude
Scriptorium" (In Praise of Scribes).
(SSFC, 2/22/04, p.M6)
1484 Mar 4, Casimir
(Kazimierz), the son of Lithuania's Grand Duke Casimir, died in Grodno
at age 25. In 1602 he was declared a saint and protector of Lithuania.
St. Casimir was born Oct 3,1458, in Cracow.
(LHC, 3/4/03)
1484 Aug 12, Pope Sixtus IV died.
His rule was marked by nepotism and he was involved in a conspiracy to
overthrow the Medici in Florence.
(PTA, 1980, p.420)
1484 Aug 29, Cardinal Cibo was
crowned as Pope Innocent VIII.
(http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08562a.htm)
1484 Dec 5, Pope Innocent VIII
issued a bull deploring the spread of witchcraft and heresy in Germany.
He ordered that all cats belonging to witches scheduled to be burned,
be also burned. Kraemer and Sprenger, two Dominican friars, had induced
Pope Innocent VIII to issue a bull authorizing them to extirpate
witchcraft in Germany. [see 1486]
(SFEC, 1/5/97, Z1 p.2)(HN, 12/5/98)(HNQ, 10/31/99)
1484 Bartolomeo di Giovanni
Corradini, Italian painter who joined the Dominican order as Fra
Carnevale, died.
(Econ, 12/11/04, p.82)
1484-1768 The Nepalese city-states of Kathmandu,
Patan and Bhaktapur, were each ruled by its own Malla king after the
Malla dynasty divided up the Kathmandu Valley.
(SSFC, 9/21/03, p.C8)
1485 Aug 1, Henry (VII) Tudor's
army set sail from Harfleur to Wales.
(ON, 12/06, p.1)
1485 Aug 7, Henry (VII) Tudor's
army landed in Milford Haven, South-Wales.
(ON, 12/06, p.1)
1485 Aug 22, Henry Tudor defeated
Richard III (32) at Bosworth. England's King Richard III (1483-1485),
the last of the Plantagenet kings, was killed in the Battle of
Bosworth. This victory established the Tudor dynasty in England and
ended the War of the Roses. 12 miles west of Leicester, the forces of
Richard III met the forces under Henry Tudor (later to become Henry
VII). Henry Tudor had returned from French exile on August 7 at Milford
Haven and assembled forces including two Yorkist defectors, Thomas
Stanley and his brother Sir William. These allies, plus the defection
of Henry Percy, the 4th earl of Northumberland helped decide the
outcome of the battle. Richard, whose forces had taken position on
Ambien Hill, died fighting in an attempt to get at Henry Tudor himself.
(AP, 8/22/97)(HN, 6/26/98)(HN, 8/22/98)(HNQ, 8/22/00)
1485 Sep 3, Henry Tudor entered
London following his Aug 22 victory at Bosworth.
(ON, 12/06, p.4)
1485 Oct 30, Henry Tudor
(1457-1509) of England was crowned as Henry VII. This followed his
defeat of King Richard III at Bosworth Field on Aug 22.
(HN, 10/30/98)(DoW, 1999, p.66)
1485 Dec 16, Katherine of Argon,
first wife of Henry VIII, was born.
(HN, 12/16/98)
1485 Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510)
painted "Venus and Mars" about this time.
(WSJ, 6/16/07, p.P16)
1485 William Caxton, the first
printer in Britain, published "Le Morte Darthur" by Sir Thomas Mallory
(c1400-1471).
(WUD, 1994, p.868)(SFC, 2/15/97, p.D1)
1485 The medical encyclopedia
"Gart der Gesundheit" described the female mandrake, thought to stop
bleeding, and to scream when pulled by its roots.
(WSJ, 7/7/98, p.A14)
1485 Yeoman Warders, all men,
began patrolling the parapets and passages of the Tower of London. They
became known colloquially as Beefeaters because of the rations of meat
they were given during medieval times. In 2007 the 1st woman joined
their ranks.
(AP, 1/3/07)
1485 Diogo Cao, Portuguese
explorer, sailed south beyond Cape Palmas, beyond Cape St. Catherine,
until he reached Cape Cross (Namibia) at 22’ south latitude. His
expedition returned to Portugal in 1486.
(V.D.-H.K.p.124)(ATC, p.149)(ON, 11/07, p.1)
1485-1545 Jean Clouet, French painter. He painted
"Francis I, King of France."
(AAP, 1964)(WUD, 1994, p.280)
1485-1547 Hernando Cortes, Spanish conqueror of
Mexico. He is credited with naming California after an island in
"Sergas de Esplandian," a popular romance in the early 1500s.
(HFA, '96, p.65)
1485-1603 The Tudor family ruled over England.
(WUD, 1994, p.1523)
1486 Jan 18, King Henry VII
(1457-1509) married Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV. This
ended the Wars of the Roses.
(HN, 1/18/99)(ON, 12/06, p.4)
1486 Feb 12, In Toledo, Spain,
some 750 lapsed Christians were paraded through the streets of Toledo
from the Church of San Pedro Martir to the cathedral in order to be
reconciled to the Christian faith. In the Auto Da Fe at Toledo the Jews
were forced to recant, fined 1/5 of their property and permanently
forbidden to wear decent clothes or hold office.
(SSFC, 11/13/05,
p.M3)(www.jewishhistory.org.il/1480.htm)
1486 Mar 4, Jogaila was crowned
king of Poland.
(LC, 1998, p.12)
1486 May 1, Christopher Columbus
convinced Queen Isabella to fund expedition to the West Indies.
(HN, 5/1/98)
1486 Jul 14, Andrea del Sarto
(d.1531), aka Vanucchi or di Francesco, Italian Renaissance artist
(Recollets), was born. He represented what Vasari called the terza
maniera, the third or modern manner of painting.
(WUD, 1994, p.55)(WSJ, 10/29/96, p.A21)(MC, 7/14/02)
1486 Sep 14, Heinrich Agrippa von
Nettesheim (d.1535), German occultist, alchemist, royal astrologer, was
born in Cologne.
(www.britannica.com)
1486 Pico Mirandola challenged the
scholars of all of Europe that he would defend a list of nine hundred
thesis drawn from various Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Arabic authors. His
list came to the attention of the Vatican, which found thirteen of the
theses heretical. Pico was stunned and issued an immediate recantation
but was imprisoned for a short time anyway. Later in Florence he wrote
"On the Dignity of Man," where he implied that man is the spiritual
center of the universe, or that perhaps he is one focus and God the
other.
(V.D.-H.K.p.139)
1486 Heinrich Kramer and Jacob
Sprenger, Dominican friars, published Malleus Maleficarum (The Witches‘
Hammer) or (Hexenhammer in German), which became the authoritative
encyclopedia of demonology throughout Christendom. It was first
published in Germany in 1487. The authority of their work, which was a
synthesis of folk beliefs that had until then been manifested in local
outbursts of witch finding, lasted through the European witch craze of
the next three centuries [see Dec 5, 1484].
(HNQ,
10/31/99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malleus_Maleficarum)
1486 King Joao II of Portugal
chose Bartolomeu Dias (~1450-1500 to attempt to find a route to India
around Africa. Diaz departed with 3 ships in the fall of 1487.
(ON, 11/07,
p.2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartolomeu_Dias)
1487 Jun 16, Battle at Stoke:
Henry VII beat John de la Pole & Lord Lovell.
(MC, 6/16/02)
1487 Aug, Bartolomeu Dias,
Portuguese explorer, set out from Lisbon in August, and sailed south to
the Cape Verde Islands and past Cape Cross. Storms forced him out to
sea and when the winds moderated he continued east but found nothing.
He turned north and then sighted land.
(V.D.-H.K.p.173)
1487 Sep 10, Julius III, Italian
counter-Reformation Pope (1550-1555), was born. He was also a poet and
promoted the Jesuits.
(WUD, 1994, p.773)(HN, 9/10/98)(MC, 9/10/01)
1487 Hans Memling (c.1440-1494),
Flemish painter, painted the diptych “Virgin and Child” and “Maarten
van Nieuwenhove” (1463-1500), who was his patron.
(SFC, 10/18/05, p.D2)(SFC, 12/23/06, p.E12)
1487 Heinrich Kramer and Jacob
Sprenger, Dominican inquisitors, authored “Malleus Maleficarum” (The
Hammer of Witches), which spoke of supernatural horrors that witches
performed and provided advice on identifying them. In 2006 Christopher
Mackay provided a critical translation in English.
(WSJ, 1/19/08, p.W8)
1487 Lorenzo the Magnificent
ordered a giraffe from Africa and a cardinal’s hat for his 13-year-old
son from Pope Innocent VIII. In return for the hat Lorenzo promised the
hand of his eldest daughter for the Pope’s illegitimate son along with
a nice loan. The giraffe was procured from Sultan Qaitbay, the Ottoman
ruler of Egypt. Pope Innocent promised to get Queen Anne of France to
hand over Djem, the exiled brother of Qaitbay, for use as a pawn.
Lorenzo promised to give the giraffe to Anne. In 2006 the story was
covered by Marina Belozerskaya in her book “The Medici Giraffe.”
(WSJ, 8/19/06, p.P9)
1488 Feb 3, Bartolomeu Dias,
Portuguese explorer, sighted the coast of Africa sailing north and made
landing at Mossel Bay (South Africa) and realized that they had rounded
the continent. He saw the southern tip on his return journey in May and
named it Cabo Tormentoso (Cape of Storms). He continued north to the
Great Fish River near present day Port Elizabeth, and then returned
home in December. King Jaoa changed the cape’s name to Cape of Good
Hope to encourage future explorers.
(V.D.-H.K.p.173)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartolomeu_Dias)(ON,
11/07, p.2)
1488 Jun 11, James III, king of
Scotland, died in the battle of Sauchieburn, Scotland.
(SC, 6/11/02)(PC, 1992, p.157)
1488 Oct 7, Andrea del Verrocchio,
sculptor, painter, goldsmith, died at 52.
(MC, 10/7/01)
1489 Feb 14, Henry VII and Holy
Roman Emperor Maximilian I ally to assist the Bretons in the Treaty of
Dordrecht.
(http://tudors.crispen.org/chronology/index.html)
1489 Apr 6, Hans Waldmann, Swiss
military, mayor (Zurich), was beheaded.
(MC, 4/6/02)
1489 Jul 2, Thomas Cranmer, first
Protestant archbishop of Canterbury (1533-1556), was born.
(HN, 7/2/01)
1489 A sculpture St. George and
the Dragon, created by Bernt Notke, was unveiled in Stockholm, Sweden.
He composed the dragon entirely of elk horns.
(SSFC, 8/19/07, p.G4)
1489-1490 The plague ravaged the Netherlands.
(WSJ, 10/12/98, p.A17)
1490 Mar 23, 1st dated edition of
Maimonides "Mishna Torah" was published.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1490 Apr 6, Matthias Corvinus
(b.1443), king of Hungary and Croatia (1458-1590), died. He has
assembled one of Europe’s finest libraries, 2nd in size only to that in
the Vatican. When Hungary later fell to the Turks the library was lost.
In 2008 Marcus Tanner authored “The Raven King: Matthias Corvinus and
the Fate of His Lost Library.”
(Econ, 7/19/08,
p.93)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthias_Corvinus_of_Hungary)
1490 Francois Rabelais (d.1553),
French physician, satirist and humorist, was born. [see 1494]
(WUD, 1994, p.1183)(V.D.-H.K.p.143)(SSFC, 2/10/02,
p.G5)
1490 In Venice the Aldine Press
opened and went on to publish the first pocket editions of poetry and
Greek classics.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R34)
1490 A version of the legal
handbook "Statham’s Abridgement" was printed. A copy later became part
of the collection of the SF law library and was stolen by a city
bookbinder. The text is classed as part of the "incunabula," or books
printed in the first 50 years after the introduction of movable type by
Gutenberg in 1450.
(SFC, 5/15/97, p.A26)
1490 Anne of Brittany married by
proxy the recently widowed Maximilian of Hapsburg who had inherited
Burgundy and Flanders from his first wife. Brittany was under siege by
France and Maximilian failed to send troops in its defense. Anne had
her marriage annulled and married the French Dauphin who had been
engaged to marry Margaret of Austria, the daughter of Maximilian and
Mary of Burgundy. Anne’s portrait was later painted by Jan Mostaert
(WSJ, 7/30/97, p.A13)
1490 Christopher Columbus was
permitted to make his proposal to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of
Spain. He asked to be made a noble with eternal title in the family,
and to receive 10% commission on all transactions from his found
domain. He was initially turned down and left for France and England,
but was then called back and his requests were met.
(V.D.-H.K.p.175)
1490 Linz became the capital of
the province of Upper Austria.
(StuAus, April '95, p.39)
1490 Ashikaga Yoshimasa (55),
former Shogun of Japan (1449-1478), died.
(ON, 7/01, p.5)
1490 The Portuguese king sent
teachers and missionaries to Mani-Kongo in southwest Africa. Mani-Kongo
converted to Christianity and later his son became king with the
Christian name of Affonso I.
(ATC, p.152)
1490-1491 Chinese, Japanese, and Korean astronomers
reported a bright comet for 48 nights during the mid-winter weeks of
these 2 years. An Italian astronomer again saw its sunlit debris in
1825 and it became known as the Quadrantid meteor shower. It was later
cataloged as 2003EH_1. In 2003 it was related to a star explosion over
500 million earlier.
(SFC, 12/31/03, p.A2)
c1490s Muslims of the Songhai
Empire in West Africa supported Askia Muhammad, who overthrew Sunni
Ali’s son, and declared Islam the state religion. Songhai grew and
expanded to become the greatest trade empire of West Africa.
(ATC, p.121)
c1490s Civil wars weakened Monomutapa in East Africa
and by the 1500s the empire was split in two.
(ATC, p.148)
c1490s The Medici went bankrupt.
(Wired, 8/96, p.118)
1490-1495 Tullio Lombardi created his sculpture
"Adam."
(WSJ, 5/18/00, p.A24)
1490-1500 Hieronymus Bosch, Dutch artist, painted
"Christ Mocked (The Crowning With Thorns)."
(WSJ, 6/19/00, p.A42)
1490-1700 This period was covered in 2003 by Diarmaid
MacCulloch in the book "Reformation: Europe's House Divided 1490-1700."
(Econ, 12/13/03, p.82)
1491 Jun 28, Henry VIII, King of
England (1509-1547) and founder of the Church of England, was born at
Greenwich. He later divorced four times. An inventory of his wealth in
1547 estimated his wealth at £300,000 and his military equipment
at another £300,000.
(CFA, '96, p.48)(AP, 6/28/99)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R8)
1491 Nov 15, 6 Jews and 5
Conversos (Jews who pretend to be Catholic converts) were accused of
killing Christians in La Guardia, Spain.
(MC, 11/15/01)
1491 Dec 24, Ignatius Loyola
(d.1556), Spanish soldier and ecclesiastic, was born. He founded the
Society of Jesus, i.e. the Jesuits, wrote Spiritual Exercises, and
introduced a new flexibility that enabled a worldwide ministry.
(CFA, '96, p.60)(CU, 6/87)
1491 Perkin Warbeck appeared in
Ireland and claimed to be the missing Duke of York, thought by many to
have been murdered by Richard III. After winning support in France and
Scotland, Warbeck's fortunes turned and he was captured and executed in
1497.
(HNQ, 4/17/02)
1491 William Caxton (b.1422), 1st
English printer (Histories of Troy), died.
(http://tinyurl.com/cj5dn)(WSJ, 5/12/05, p.D8)
1491 Pietro Roccabonella, doctor
of medicine and lecturer at the Univ. of Padua, died.
(SFEC, 2/15/98, BR p.8)
1492 Jan 2, Boabdil, the leader of
the last Arab stronghold in Spain surrendered to Spanish forces loyal
to King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella I. Sultan Muhammad XI
surrendered, ending Muslin rule in Spain. The combined Catholic forces
of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile drove out the last of
the Berbers from Spain. The Moors were expelled. King Ferdinand and
Queen Isabella took the town of Grenada, the last Moslem kingdom in
Spain. The event became marked by an annual festival that began around
1516.
(ATC, p.73,100)(AP, 1/2/98)(SFEC, 3/22/98,
p.T11)(HN, 1/2/99)(WSJ, 1/2/02, p.A6)(SSFC, 1/27/02, p.C20)
1492 Jan 23, "Pentateuch," a
Jewish holy book, was first printed.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1492 Mar 30, King Ferdinand and
Queen Isabella signed a decree expelling all Jews from Spain. Jews
numbered about 80,000 and it was estimated that about half chose to
convert. [see Mar 31]
(HN, 3/30/98)(WSJ, 4/16/98, p.A20)
1492 Mar 31, King Ferdinand and
Queen Isabella of Spain issued an edict expelling Jews from Spanish
soil, except those willing to convert to Christianity. In 2002 Claudia
Roden authored "The Ornament of the World," a collection of stories of
Sephardic Jews in Spain from 750 to 1492. [see Mar 30]
(AP, 3/30/97)(WSJ, 4/26/02, p.W12)
1492 Apr 8, Lorenzo I de' Medici
("il Magnifico"), ruler of Florence (1469-92), died.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1492 Apr 17, A contract was signed
by Christopher Columbus and a representative of Spain's King Ferdinand
and Queen Isabella, giving Columbus a commission to seek a westward
ocean passage to find the Indies [to Asia].
(AP, 4/17/97)(HN, 4/17/98)
1492 Apr 30, King Ferdinand and
Queen Isabella granted Christopher Columbus specific privileges and
prerogatives regarding the discovery and conquest of islands and a
continent in the (western) ocean.
(DAH, 1946, p.1)
1492 May 15, Cheese and Bread
rebellion: German mercenaries killed 232 Alkmaarse.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1492 Jun 16, Jan Coppenhole,
Flemish rebel leader, was beheaded.
(MC, 6/16/02)
1492 Aug 2, Jews were expelled
from Spain by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. [see Mar 31]
(MC, 8/2/02)
1492 Aug 3, Christopher Columbus,
set sail from the port of Palos de la Frontera, in southern Spain
and headed for Cipangu, i.e. Japan. The voyage took him to the
present-day Americas. His squadron consisted of three small ships, the
Santa Maria, the Pinta, and the Nina. The 2nd ship was owned by
Cristóbal Quintero, and was named Pinta. The 3rd ship was owned
by Juan Niño, and was named the Santa Clara, but became known by
its nickname, the Nina.
(http://tinyurl.com/774v3)(SFEC, 8/8/99, Z1 p.8)(ON,
8/09, p.2)
1492 Aug 11, Cardinal Rodrigo
Borgia Lanzol (61), father of Cesare and Lucretia, became Pope
Alexander VI (d.1503). He siphoned off untold riches from Church funds.
Borgia arrived in Rome from Spain in 1449 and Italianized his name from
Borja to Borgia. His rise in the church was helped a great deal when
his uncle became Pope Calixtus III.
(HN, 8/10/98)(PTA, p.424)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R4)(MC,
8/11/02)
1492 Sep 6, Columbus' fleet sailed
from Gomera, Canary islands.
(http://tinyurl.com/774v3)
1492 Sep 25, Crew members aboard
one of Christopher Columbus' ships, the Pinta, shouted that they could
see land, but it turned out to be a false sighting.
(AP, 9/25/99)
1492 Oct 7, Columbus changed
course to the southwest. As a result he missed Florida.
(http://tinyurl.com/774v3)
1492 Oct 11, Rodrigo de Triana, a
sailor on the Pinta, sighted land (the Bahamas) on the horizon.
(http://tinyurl.com/774v3)
1492 Oct 12, (Old Style calendar;
Oct. 21 New Style), Christopher Columbus sited land, an island of the
Bahamas which he named San Salvador, but which was called Guanahani by
the local Taino people. Seeking to establish profitable Asian trade
routes by sailing west, Columbus seriously underestimated the size of
the Earth--never dreaming that two great continents blocked his path to
the east. Even after four voyages to America, Columbus believed until
the end of his life in 1506 that he had discovered an isolated corner
of Asia.
(NH, 10/96, p.22)(AP, 10/12/97)(HNPD,
10/12/98)(http://tinyurl.com/774v3)
1492 Oct 16, Columbus' fleet
anchored at "Fernandina" (Long Island, Bahamas).
(http://tinyurl.com/774v3)
1492 Oct 17, Columbus sighted the
isle of San Salvador (Watling Island, Bahamas).
(http://tinyurl.com/774v3)
1492 Oct 19, Columbus sighted
"Isabela" (Fortune Island, Bahamas).
(http://tinyurl.com/774v3)
1492 Oct 21, Columbus landed on
San Salvador Island (Bahamas-Watling Island).
(http://tinyurl.com/774v3)
1492 Oct 26, Columbus' fleet
anchored on Ragged Island Range, Bahamas.
(MC, 10/26/01)
1492 Oct 26, Lead pencils were 1st
used.
(MC, 10/26/01)
1492 Oct 28, Christopher Columbus
discovered Cuba and claimed it for Spain.
(http://tinyurl.com/dfzzk)
1492 Nov 5, Christopher Columbus
learned of maize (corn) from the Indians of Cuba.
(MC, 11/5/01)
1492 Nov 7, A meteorite landed in
Ensisheim, Germany. Emperor Maximilian visited Ensisheim 15 days after
the fall and ordered that the Ensisheim meteorite be preserved in the
local church. A piece of the stone was put up for auction in 2007.
(www.meteorite.fr/en/basics/history.htm)(Econ,
10/27/07, p.96)
1492 Nov 15, Christopher Columbus
noted the 1st recorded reference to tobacco.
(MC, 11/15/01)
1492 Nov 21, Pinta under
Martin Pinzon separated from Columbus' fleet.
(MC, 11/21/01)
1492 Dec 5, Columbus discovered
Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic).
(http://tinyurl.com/dfzzk)
1492 Dec 24-1492 Dec 25, The Santa
Maria under Columbus ran aground on a reef off Espanola on Christmas
eve, and sank the next day. With the remains of the Santa Maria,
Columbus built a fort and called it La Navidad.
(http://tinyurl.com/dfzzk)
1492 Dec 31, 100,000 Jews were
expelled from Sicily.
(MC, 12/31/01)
c1492 Andrea Montegna, Italian
painter, created his "Descent Into Limbo," a depiction of Christ
descending into limbo to liberate the souls of the righteous. In 2003
the work sold for $28 million.
(SFC, 1/24/03, p.D2)
c1492 Research in 2003
indicated that the Kuikuro people in the Amazon basin had a "complex
and sophisticated" civilization with a population of many thousands
prior to 1492.
(AP, 9/19/03)
1492 Leonardo da Vinci drew a
flying machine.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)
1492 Piero della Francesca
(b.1415/1420), Italian artist, died. His work included “The Virgin and
child with Saints, angels and Federigo da Montefeltro” (1472-1474).
(WSJ, 2/2/08, p.W14)
1492 Jews began arriving in
Morocco after their expulsion from Spain.
(SFEC, 7/25/99, p.T11)
c1492 In Portugal about this time
King Manuel I, bedazzled by the Moorish tiles at the Alhambra in Spain,
brought home enough to decorate his palace in Sintra.
(SFEC, 4/26/98, p.T6)
1492 Sephardic Jews were welcomed
by the Ottoman Empire after their expulsion from Spain.
(SFEC, 3/28/99, p.T4)
1492-1870 Some 11 million African people were brought
to the New World as slaves during this period.
(SFEC,11/16/97, BR p.4)
1493 Jan 4, Columbus departed La
Navidad, Hispaniola, and sailed eastward along the coast. He left
behind 38 men, all of whom were later killed in disputes with the local
Indians.
(ON, 8/09, p.2)
1493 Jan 4, Ivan III, Grand Duke
of Moscow, announced the 1st war with Lithuania. In fact the war had
begun in 1487.
(LHC, 1/4/03)
1493 Jan 6, Columbus encountered
the Pinta along the north coast of Hispaniola.
(ON, 8/09, p.2)
1493 Jan 9, Christopher Columbus
1st sighted manatees.
(MC, 1/9/02)
1493 Jan 12, This was the last day
for all Jews to leave Sicily.
(MC, 1/12/02)
1493 Jan 16, Columbus aboard the
Nina departed Hispaniola along with the Pinta to return to Spain.
(ON, 8/09, p.2)
1493 Feb 18, Columbus landed on
the island of Santa Maria, the southernmost island of the
Portuguese-controlled Azores.
(ON, 8/09, p.3)
1493 Mar 15, Christopher Columbus
returned to Spain, concluding his first voyage to the Western
Hemisphere.
(AP, 3/15/97)(HN, 3/15/98)
1493 Apr 15, Columbus met with
King Ferdinand and Isabella in Barcelona.
(MC, 4/15/02)
1493 May 1, Phillippus Paracelsus
(d.1541), physician and alchemist, was born in Switzerland. He was
christened as Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim.
(HN, 5/1/98)(NH, 6/00, p.30,34)(MC, 5/1/02)
1493 May 3-1493 May 4, Pope
Alexander VI issued 3 papal bulls that divided the discoveries of
Columbus between Spain and Portugal. By the Bulls of May 3 and 4 he
drew an imaginary line one hundred leagues west of the Cape Verde
Islands. The May 4 Bull, “Inter Caetera,” was amended in Sep. granting
Spain the right to hold lands to the “western regions and to India.”
(DAH, 1946, p.2)(www.kwabs.com/bull_of_1493.html)
1493 Aug 19, Maximilian succeeded
his father Frederick III as Holy Roman Emperor. Frederick III of
Innsbruck (77), German Emperor (1440-1493), died.
(HN, 8/19/98)(MC, 8/19/02)
1493 Sep 25, Christopher Columbus
set sail from Cadiz, Spain, with a flotilla of 17 ships on his 2nd
voyage to the Western Hemisphere. He was accompanied by 13 clerics;
Alvarez Chanca, a physician who left valuable accounts of the voyage;
Juan Ponce de Leon; Juan de la Cosa, a cartographer; and Columbus’s
younger brother Bartholomew.
(AP, 9/25/97)(AM, 7/97, p.58)
1493 Oct 13, Christopher Columbus
left the Canary Islands with 16 ships and over 1000 men on his 2nd
voyage to the New World.
(http://tinyurl.com/dfzzk)(http://www1.minn.net/~keithp/v2.htm)
1493 Nov 3, Christopher Columbus
discovered the Caribbee Isles (Dominica) during his second expedition.
He and his crew of 1,500 built the town of La Isabela on the northern
coast of the Dominican Republic. It was abandoned within 5 years due in
part to poor relations with the Taino Indians. This area was part of
the chiefdom of Higuey.
(AM, 7/97,
p.54,60)(http://www1.minn.net/~keithp/v2.htm)
1493 Nov 4, Christopher Columbus
discovered Guadeloupe during his second expedition.
(HN, 11/4/98)
1493 Nov 10, Christopher Columbus
discovered Antigua during his second expedition.
(HN, 11/10/98)
1493 Nov 11, Columbus discovered
Saba, North Leeward Islands (Netherland Antilles).
(WUD, 1994 p.1257)(MC, 11/11/01)
1493 Nov 12, Christopher Columbus
discovered the island of Redonda during his second expedition. It was
about 34 miles WSW of Antigua.
(www.redonda.org/redonda.html#1869)
1493 Nov 19, Christopher Columbus
discovered Puerto Rico on his 2nd voyage. Juan Ponce de Leon was
a member of Columbus’ crew.
(HT, 4/97, p.28)(MC, 11/19/01)
1493 Nov 22, Christopher Columbus
arrived at Hispaniola on his 2nd voyage.
(AM, 7/97, p.54,60)(www.jeanrabel.com/history1.html)
1493 Nov 28, Christopher Columbus
arrived La Navidad, Hispaniola. He found the fort burned and his men
from the 1st voyage dead. According to the account of Guacanagari, the
local chief who had befriended Columbus on the first voyage, the men at
Navidad had fallen to arguing among themselves over women and gold.
(http://www1.minn.net/~keithp/v2.htm)
1493 Dec 8, Christopher Columbus
and his crew of 1,500 built the town of La Isabela on the northern
coast of the Dominican Republic. It was abandoned within 5 years due in
part to poor relations with the Taino Indians. This area was part of
the chiefdom of Higuey.
(AM, 7/97,
p.54,60)(http://www1.minn.net/~keithp/v2.htm)
1493 The 600-page "World
Chronicle" by physician Hartmann Schedel (1440-1513) was first
published in Nuremburg. One copy is held at the Library of the Academy
of Fine Arts in Vienna, Austria. Anton Koberger, a Nuremberg publisher,
published 2,500 copies of the "Nuremberg Chronicle" by Hartmann
Schedel. It included woodcuts by Michael Wohlgemuth and Wilhelm
Pleyenwurff.
(StuAus, April '95, p.49)(SFC, 3/1/02,
p.D18)(www.newadvent.org/cathen/13525a.htm)
1493 Columbus landed a small herd
of swine on the island of Cuba.
(ON, 4/01, p.4)
1493 Columbus named Montserrat
after the monastery near Barcelona. He did not bother to land on the
island.
(NH, Jul, p.20)
1493 Columbus sailed into St.
Croix’s Salt River Bay.
(NG, Jan, 1968, C. Mitchell, p. 73)
1493 Columbus discovered a group
of islands, now called the Virgin Islands, that he christened Las Once
Mil Virgenes, in memory of St. Ursula and her 11,000 martyr virgins who
were slaughtered by the Huns at Cologne in the 5th century.
(SFEC, 2/15/98, p.T8)
1493 Pavia’s pawn bank was
founded. It was later absorbed by Italy’s Banca Regionale Europea.
(Econ, 5/27/06, p.73)
1493 In Russia after a major fire
in Moscow, Ivan III forbade the construction of wooden buildings in the
old city.
(AM, Jul/Aug ‘97 p.33)
1493-1519 Maximilian I (1459-1519), Holy Roman
Emperor over this period.
(WUD, 1994, p.886)
1494 Jan 6, The 1st Roman Catholic
Mass in the New World marked the official establishment of La Isabela.
(AM, 7/97, p.58)
1494 Jan 25, Ferdinand I (b.1423),
cruel king of Naples, died. He was also called Don Ferrante and was the
natural son of Alfonso V of Aragon.
(MC, 1/25/02)(Wikipedia)
1494 Jan, In the Dominican
Republic there was a failed rebellion against Columbus. The revolt was
organized by Bernal de Pisa, the royal accountant, who was unhappy with
the poor return of gold. Pisa was jailed and several others were hanged.
(AM, 7/97, p.57,59)
1494 Feb 2, Columbus began the
practice using Indians as slaves.
(HN, 2/2/01)
1494 Feb 20, Johan Friis,
chancellor (Denmark, helped formed Lutheranism), was born.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1494 Apr 20, John Agricola,
[Schneider], German theologian, prime minister, was born.
(MC, 4/20/02)
1494 Apr 24, Columbus departed
Isabela, Hispaniola, with 3 ships in an effort to reach China, which he
believed was nearby.
(http://www1.minn.net/~keithp/v2.htm)
1494 Apr 30, Christopher Columbus
arrived at Cuba on his 2nd voyage to the Americas.
(http://www1.minn.net/~keithp/v2.htm)
1494 May 5, During his second
voyage to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus first sighted
Jamaica and commented on the daily rains. Columbus landed on the island
of Jamaica, which he names Santa Gloria.
(NOHY, 3/90, p.183)(AP, 5/5/97)(HN, 5/5/98)
1494 May 13, Columbus found the
natives on Jamaica hostile and left for Cuba.
(http://www1.minn.net/~keithp/v2.htm)
1494 May 25, Jacopo Pontormo
(d.1557), Italian painter (Sepulture of Christ), was born. He
represented what Vasari called the terza maniera, the third or modern
manner of painting.
(WUD, 1994, p.1118)(WSJ, 10/29/96, p.A21)(SC,
5/25/02)
1494 Jun 7, Spain and Portugal
divided the new lands they had discovered between themselves. King Joao
II signed the Treaty of Tordesillas in which he conceded to Spain a
monopoly on Columbus’ western route in exchange for a Portuguese
monopoly on the eastern route.
(HN, 6/7/98)(ON, 11/07,
p.2)(www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1028.html)
1494 Aug 11, Hans Memling
(b.1435), German-born master of Flemish painting, died in Brugge.
(www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/memling/)
1494 Aug 20, Columbus returned to
Hispaniola. He had confirmed that Jamaica was an island and failed to
find a mainland.
(http://www1.minn.net/~keithp/v2.htm)
1494 Sep 12, Francois I of
Valois-Angoulome, king of France (1515-47), was born.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1494 Nov 5, Hans Sachs, cobbler,
poet, composer, was born in Nuremberg. He was also the prototype for
Wagner's "Die Meistersinger."
(MC, 11/5/01)
1494 Nov 6, Suleiman I (d.1566),
the Great, Ottoman sultan (1520-66), was born. Suleiman the
Magnificent, ruler of the Ottoman Empire, was reported to have a harem
of 2,000 women.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R8)(MC, 11/6/01)
1494 Nov 8, Uprising against Piero
de' Medici in Florence, Italy.
(MC, 11/8/01)
1494 Lodovico il Moro, the duke of
Milan, commissioned Leonardo da Vinci to paint "The Last Supper"
(Cenacolo).
(WSJ, 6/2/99, p.A24)
1494 Luca Pacioli, considered the
father of accounting, published a book on bookkeeping.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R55)
c1494 Father Ramon Pane wrote an
account of the Taino religion at the request of Christopher Columbus.
(AM, 7/97, p.61)
1494 Carol Verardi in Basel
published an illustrated report of the first expedition to the new
world by Christopher Columbus.
(HNPD, 10/12/98)
1494 The earliest report of Scots
making whiskey was made. [see 1495]
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R49)
1494 Eskender (b.1471), Emperor of
Ethiopia, was killed at age 22 fighting the Maya, a vanished ethnic
group known for using poisoned arrows.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskender)
1494 Piero Medici, son of Lorenzo
and head of the Medici family, fled Florence in the face of a French
invasion. Savonarola took the opportunity to lead Florence in restoring
a representative government.
(WSJ, 7/10/98, p.W11)(Econ, 4/23/05, p.82)
1494 In Italy humanist philosopher
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and writer Angelo Ambrogini, better known
as Poliziano, both died. In 2007 their bodies were exhumed from
Florence's St. Mark's Basilica. The men were thought to be lovers. Both
Pico and Poliziano tutored Lorenzo de Medici's son Giovanni, who as
Pope Leo X helped make Rome a cultural center of Renaissance Europe.
(AP, 7/27/07)
1494-1547 In France the time of King Francois I. The
stench along the Seine drove him from the Hotel des Tournelles.
Cesspools and the guild that emptied them, the Maitres Fy-Fy, developed
at this time.
(Hem., 3/97, p.132)
1494-1553 Francois Rabelais, French satirist: "If
you wish to avoid seeing a fool you must first break your mirror." [see
1490, 1553]
(AP, 2/23/98)
1494-1576 Hans Sachs, German Meistersinger. He
authored stories, songs, poems and dramatic works. He later became the
central figure in Wagner’s Meistersinger.
(WUD, 1994 p.1258)(WSJ, 10/2/01, p.A17)
1495 Jan 28, Pope Alexander VI
gave his son Cesare Borgia as hostage to Charles VIII of France.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1495 Feb 5, The 1st Lithuanian
Russian war ended with the signing of a peace treaty in Moscow.
(LHC, 2/5/03)
1495 Mar 8, Juan de Dios,
Portuguese-Spanish saint, founder (Brothers of Mercy), was born.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1495 Jun 1, The first
written record of Scotch Whiskey appeared in the Exchequer Rolls of
Scotland. Friar John Cor was the distiller. The later J&B brand
stood for Justerini and Brooks. [see 1494]
(DTnet, 6/1/97)(SFEC,12/28/97, Z1 p.2)
1495 Oct 25, Portugal’s King Joao
II died without leaving male issue. He was succeeded by his
brother-in-law Manuel I.
(www.nndb.com/people/561/000095276/)
1495 Nov 27, Scottish king James
IV received Perkin Warbeck (21), a pretender to the English throne.
James gave Warbeck, a Walloon, Lady Catherine Gordon in marriage.
(MC, 11/27/01)(PCh, 1992, p.160)
1495 Leonardo da Vinci sketched a
design of a parachute.
(SFEC, 9/8/96, zone 1 p.6)
1495 The Taino Indians on
Hispaniola staged an organized attack on the Spaniards, but it was
easily crushed.
(AM, 7/97, p.59)
1495 In Korea King Yonsan-gun
succeeded King Songjong. His reign was noted for his unscrupulous
suppression of the literati. In 2005 the South Korean film industry
produced “The King and the Clown.” It was based on the 15th century
monarch and a troupe of entertainers invited to his court.
(www.asianinfo.org/asianinfo/korea/history/early_choson_period.htm)(Econ,
2/18/06, p.44)
c1495 The 500-year-old body of a
young Inca girl was found frozen near the summit of Mt. Ampato, Peru,
by American archeologist Johan Reinhard in 1995. The girl was killed by
a crushing blow to the head probably in a ritual sacrifice.
(SFC, 5/22/96, p.A8)
1495-1498 Leonardo da Vinci worked on "The Last
Supper" in Milan under commission for Duke Ludovico Sforza. The 15 by
28 foot work was undergoing a 20 year restoration in 1998 by Dr. Pinin
Brambilla Barcilon.
(SFEC, 4/12/98, Par p.4)
1496 Mar 5, English king Henry VII
hired John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto) to explore.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1496 Mar 9, Jews were expelled
from Carinthia, Austria.
(MC, 3/9/02)
1496 Mar 10, Christopher Columbus
concluded his 2nd visit to the Western Hemisphere as he left Isabela,
with 2 ships for Spain. He returned to Spain to ask for more support
for his colony on Hispaniola.
(AM, 7/97, p.59)(http://www1.minn.net/~keithp/v2.htm)
1496 Mar 12, Jews were expelled
from Syria.
(HN, 3/12/98)
1496 cApr, Bartolome Columbus
moved the colony to a new settlement on the south coast, named Isabela
La Nueva. It was established on the east bank of the Ozama River.
Columbus established Santo Domingo in what is now the Dominican
Republic.
(SFC, 5/17/96, p.A-14)(AM, 7/97, p.59)(SFEC,
2/14/99, p.T10)
1496 Dec 5, Jews were expelled
from Portugal by order of King Manuel I.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1496 Juan de Flandes painted
“Christ Calming the Storm,” a commission by Spain’s Queen Isabel.
(WSJ, 12/16/04, p.D8)
1496 The "Treatyse of Fyshynge
wyth an Angle" by Dame Juliana Berner was published. It was the first
book on fishing ever written. [see 1425]
(WSJ, 7/29/96, p.A11)
1496 La Laguna was founded on the
island of Tenerife by Alonso Fernandez de Lugo, who conquered the
Canary Islands for Spain. It served as Tenerife’s 1st. capital.
(SSFC, 4/16/06, p.F7)
1496 Banca del Monte was founded
in Milan. It was later absorbed by Italy’s Banca Regionale Europea.
(Econ, 5/27/06, p.73)
1496 A Polish edict, pushed by
Krakow’s gentile bakers, banned Jews from selling bagels within the
city limits.
(www.nextbook.org/cultural/feature.html?id=1075)
1496-1497 Michelangelo sculpted "Bacchus," considered
his first masterpiece.
(WSJ, 2/29/96, p.A-14)
1496-1498 Albrecht Durer made his woodcut "The Four
Avenging Angels" from the Apocalypse.
(LSA, fall/96, p.23)
c1496-1544 Clement Marot, early vernacular French
writer.
1497 Jan 6, Jews were expelled
from Graz, Syria. [see Mar 12, 1496]
(MC, 1/6/02)
1497 Feb 7, Followers of the
priest Girolamo Savonarola collected and publicly burned thousands of
objects in Florence, Italy, on the Shrove Tuesday festival. Tom Wolfe's
1997 novel, “The Bonfire of the Vanities,” makes reference to the
original event, but is not a retelling of the story.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonfire_of_the_Vanities)
1497 Feb 16, Philip Melanchthon,
German Protestant reformer (Augsburgse Confessie), was born.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1497 Mar 9, Nicolaus Copernicus
(1473-1543), Polish astronomer, made the 1st recorded astronomical
observation.
(WUD, 1994 p.322)(MC, 3/9/02)
1497 May 2, John Cabot departed
for North America. [see Jun 24]
(MC, 5/2/02)
1497 May 10, Italian navigator
Amerigo Vespucci left for his 1st voyage to New World.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1497 May 13, Pope Alexander VI
excommunicated Girolamo Savonarola for heresy. In Florence the
Dominican monk Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498) had led the Feb 7
burning of musical instruments, books and priceless works of art. He
preached against corruption in the Church and civil government.
(Hem., 4/97, p.53)(WUD, 1994,
p.1672)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girolamo_Savonarola)
1497 Jun 24, Italian explorer John
Cabot (1450-1498?), (aka Giovanni Caboto), on a voyage for England,
landed in North America on what is now Newfoundland or the northern
Cape Breton Island in Canada. He claimed the new land for King Henry
VII. He documented the abundance of fish off the Grand Banks from Cape
Cod to Labrador.
(NH, 5/96, p.59)(WUD, 1994, p.206)(AP, 6/24/97)(HN,
6/24/98)
1497 Jul 8, Vasco da Gama,
Portuguese explorer, departed on a trip to India. He sailed from Lisbon
enroute to Calicut, India. His journey took him around South Africa and
opened the Far East to European trade and colonial expansion.
(V.D.-H.K.p.143)(WUD, 1994,
p.1672)(www.indhistory.com/vasco-da-gama.html)
1497 Jul 22, Francesco Botticini
(c52), Italian painter, died.
(MC, 7/22/02)
1497 Jul 26, "Edward IV's son"
Perkin Warbeck's army landed in Cork.
(MC, 7/26/02)
1497 Aug 6, John Cabot returned to
England after his first successful journey to the Labrador coast.
(HN, 8/6/98)
1497 Aug 10, John Cabot told King
Henry VII of his trip to "Asia."
(MC, 8/10/02)
1497 Sep 7, Sailor Perkin Warbeck
became [briefly] England’s King Richard I. Warbeck had invaded Cornwall
after failing to find support in Ireland. He was soon forced to
surrender and was imprisoned in the Tower of London.
(MC, 9/7/01)(PCh, 1992, p.161)
1497 Sep, Henry VII defeated the
Cornishmen at Blackheath. An insurrection in Cornwall had developed
over taxes to support English defenses against Scottish invasion
forces.
(PCh, 1992, p.161)
1497 Nov 18, Vasco da Gama reached
the Cape of Good Hope.
(MC, 11/18/01)
1497 Nov 22, Portuguese navigator
Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1497 Hans Holbein the Younger
(d.1543), painter, was born in Augsburg, Bavaria.
(WSJ, 12/30/06,
p.P10)(www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/holbein/)
1497 Sandro Botticelli painted
"The Calumny." It showed King Midas with donkey ears.
(SFC, 10/7/03, p.D8)
1497 Portuguese Jews were forced
to convert to Christianity and were known as "New Christians," though
many continued to practice their original faith in secret.
(WSJ, 6/8/98, p.A21)
1497 In Scotland the Declaration
of Education Act required children to go to school.
(SFEC, 12/27/98, Z1 p.8)
1498 Mar 2, Vasco da Gama's fleet
visited Mozambique Island.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1498 Apr 7, A crowd stormed
Savonarola's convent of San Marco in Florence, Italy.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1498 Apr 7, Vasco da Gama,
Portuguese explorer, arrived at Mombasa, Kenya, where the Arabs
repelled him. He sailed on to Malindi and came to terms with the local
sultan, who supplied a pilot that knew the route to Calicut
(Kozhikode), the most important commercial port in Southwest India at
the time.
(Econ, 9/30/06,
p.58)(www.kenyalogy.com/eng/info/histo4.html)
1498 Apr 8, Charles VIII (27),
King of France (1483-98), died while preparing a new expedition to
invade Italy. He was succeeded by his Valois cousin the Duc d’Orleans
(36), who reigned until 1515 as Louis XII.
(PC, 1992 ed, p.161)
1498 May 20, Portuguese explorer
Vasco da Gama arrived at Calicut (Kozhikkode) in Kerala, India.
(www.indhistory.com/vasco-da-gama.html)
1498 May 23, The body of Girolamo
Savonarola (45), moral scourge of Florence (1494-98), was burned along
with 2 Dominican companions. An enraged crowd burned the previously
hanged body of Savonarola at the same spot where he had ordered
cultural works burned the year before. In 2006 Lauro Martines authored
“Fire in the City,” an account of Savonarola’s life.
(WUD, 1994,
p.1672)(www.historyguide.org/intellect/savonarola.html)(WSJ, 5/19/06,
p.W6)
1498 May 30, Columbus departed
Spain with 6 ships for his 3rd trip to America. He took 30 women along
on his third trip to the New World.
(V.D.-H.K.p.143)(http://www1.minn.net/~keithp/v3.htm)
1498 May, John Cabot began his 2nd
transatlantic voyage. Richard Ameryk (1445-1503), a wealthy Welsh
merchant, was the chief investor in Cabot's second transatlantic
voyage. Five ships set sail for Newfoundland, but en route one ship was
forced to return after being damaged in a storm. The rest were never
heard from again. A theory, not widely held, suggests the Americas are
named after his surname.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cabot)(Econ,
9/22/07, p.23)
1498 May, Vasco da Gama reached
Calicut, the chief Indian trading port , at 11 north latitude. He was
not welcomed by the Muslim traders who saw him as a Christian and
competitor. He returned to Lisbon swearing revenge.
(V.D.-H.K.p.174)
1498 Jun 21, Jews were expelled
from Nuremberg, Bavaria, by Emperor Maximillian.
(MC, 6/21/02)
1498 Jun 26, Toothbrush was
invented. In China the first toothbrushes with hog bristles began to
show up. Hog bristle brushes remained the best until the invention of
nylon.
(SFC, 6/6/98, p.E3)(MC, 6/26/02)
1498 Jul 31, During his third
voyage to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus arrived at an
island he named Trinidad because of its 3 hills.
(AP, 7/31/98)(http://www1.minn.net/~keithp/v3.htm)
1498 Aug 4-1498 Aug 12,
Christopher Columbus explored the Gulf of Paria (Venezuela) between
Trinidad and South America.
(http://www1.minn.net/~keithp/v3.htm)
1498 Aug 14, Columbus landed at
the mouth of the Orinoco River in Venezuela.
(MC, 8/14/02)
1498 Aug 16, Christopher Columbus
reached the island of Margarita (Venezuela).
(http://www1.minn.net/~keithp/v3.htm)
1498 Aug 17, French King Louis XII
made Cesare Borgia (1475-1507) the Duke of Valentinois. Borgia resigned
his position as cardinal, which had been bestowed on him at age 18 by
his father, Pope Alexander VI.
(Econ, 8/16/08,
p.16)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesare_Borgia)
1498 Sep 16, Tomas de Torquemada,
notorious for his role in the Spanish Inquisition, died in Avila, Spain.
(AP, 9/16/06)
1498 Albrecht Durer made his
woodcut titled "The Bath House."
(WSJ, 10/29/99, p.W1)
1498 Emperor Maximilian I
relocated his court from Innsbruck to Vienna and brought along the
court musicians. He also decided to include boy singers which gave rise
to The Vienna Boys School and Choir. In 1918 the Austrian government
took control of the court musicians, but not the boys choir, which
became a private institution. The boys choir began to give public
concerts in 1926. In 2007 the choir accepted its first African-born
member, Jens Ibsen (12) of Daly City, Ca.
(SFC, 12/8/07, p.A8)
1498 The Shore Porters’ Society
was founded as a semi-public body controlled by the town of Aberdeen,
Scotland.
(Econ, 12/18/04, p.104)
1498 Niccolo Machiavelli began
working as a diplomat for the city-state of Florence. His employment
ended in 1512 when he was dismissed by Giuliano de Medici.
(ON, 11/04, p.3)
1498 Columbus sailed by Grenada
and named the island Concepcion.
(www.geographia.com/grenada/gdhis01.htm)
1498 The first pawnshop reportedly
opened in Nuremberg, Germany.
(SFEC, 2/22/98, Z1 p.8)
1499 Mar 31, Pius IV (Gianangelo
de' Medici), Italian lawyer, pope (1559-65), was born.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1499 Aug 25, Battle at Sapienza:
An Ottoman fleet beat Venetians.
(chblue.com, 8/25/01)
1499 Sep 10, The French marched on
Milan.
(Hem., 12/96, p.19)
1499 Nov 12, Perkin Warbeck,
Flemish sailor, was hanged for conspiring to escape from the tower of
London with the imprisoned earl of Warwick. [see Nov 23]
(PCh, 1992, p.162)
1499 Nov 23, Perkin Warbeck,
Flemish sailor, was hanged. [see Nov 12]
(MC, 11/23/01)(AP, 11/23/02)
1499 Nov 28, Edward Plantagenet,
18th Count of Warwick, was beheaded.
(MC, 11/28/01)
1499 Michelangelo completed his
"Pieta" for the Vatican. The marble was from Carrara.
(www.abcgallery.com/)(WSJ, 8/1/05, p.D10)
1499 The Spanish play "Celestine"
was published.
(WSJ, 11/19/98, p.A21)
1499 Anne of Brittany initiated
the white wedding gown.
(SFEM, 6/28/98, p.7)
1499 In India Guru Nanak Dev Ji
(1469-1539) started Sikhism. The monotheistic religion rejected most of
the tenets of Hinduism, but teaches rebirth and liberation through the
spiritual path and also accepts yoga practice.
(www.sikhism.com/singh/articles/clean_shaven)
Go to 1500AD