January–June

• January 1 – Portuguese explorers, led by Gonçalo Coelho, sail into Guanabara Bay, Brazil, mistaking it for the mouth of a river, which they name Rio de Janeiro.
• February 12 – Isabella I issued an edict outlawing Islam in the Crown of Castile, forcing virtually all her Muslim subjects to convert to Christianity.
• May 3 – Portuguese navigator João da Nova discovers the uninhabited island of Saint Helena.^[1]
• May 11 – Christopher Columbus leaves Cadiz, Spain for his fourth and final trip to the New World. He explores Central America, and discovers St. Lucia (possibly),^[2] the Isthmus of Panama, Honduras, and Costa Rica.

July–December

• July – Ismail I becomes Shah of Persia.^[3]
• August 14 – Christopher Columbus lands at Trujillo, and names the country 'Honduras'.
• September – A Greek and Italian parallel text edition of Herodotus' Histories, done for Count Matteo Maria Boiardo, is published in Venice by Aldus Manutius.
• September 18 – Christopher Columbus lands at Costa Rica.
• September 29; The Wedding of Vladislaus II of Bohemia and Hungary and Anne of Foix-Candale
• October 1 – An annular solar eclipse occurs.
• November 7 – Columbus reaches the coast of Honduras, and passes south to Panama.
• December 26 – Cesare Borgia kills Ramiro d'Orco; this incident is referenced in Machiavelli's The Prince
• December 31 – Cesare Borgia (son of Pope Alexander VI) occupies Urbino, where he imprisons two potentially treacherous allies, Vitellozzo and Oliveretto; he executes them the next morning.

Date unknown

• The first African slaves brought to the New World arrive at the island of Hispaniola (modern-day Haiti and Dominican Republic).
• Bristol merchants return from Newfoundland (first so named this year from a letter) to England, carrying three native people and cod from the Grand Banks.^[4][5]
• Moctezuma II is elected emperor of the Aztecs, following the death of Ahuitzotl.
• Meñli I Giray defeats the Golden Horde and sacks their capital, Sarai.
• Wittenberg University is founded.
• In Germany, Peter Henlein of Nuremberg uses iron parts and coiled springs to build a portable timepiece.
• In Italy, Asher Lämmlein declares that the Jewish Messiah will arrive in the next 6 months, resulting in the year of penance.
• The King's School, Macclesfield, England, is founded by Sir John Percyvale.
• Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa receives the degree of magister artium from the University of Cologne.^[6]
• Wilhelm Bombast moves to Villach with his son, Paracelsus.

Births

• January 7 – Pope Gregory XIII, born Ugo Boncompagni, Bolognese-born pontiff (d. 1585)
• January 20 – Sebastian de Aparicio, Spanish colonial industrialist and saint in Mexico (d. 1600)
• February 2 – Damião de Góis, Portuguese philosopher (d. 1574)
• March 4 – Elisabeth of Hesse, Hereditary Princess of Saxony (d. 1557)
• March 18 – Philibert of Chalon, French nobleman (d. 1530)
• March 20 – Pierino Belli, Italian soldier and jurist (d. 1575)
• April 2 – Susanna of Bavaria, German noble of the House of Wittelsbach (d. 1543)
• April 10 – Otto Henry, Count Palatine of Neuburg (1505–1559) and Elector Palatine (1556–1559) (d. 1559)
• April 25 – Georg Major, German Lutheran theologian (d. 1574)
• June 2 – Guillaume Bigot, French writer (d. 1550)
• June 7 – King John III of Portugal (d. 1557)
• July 26 – Christian Egenolff, German printer (d. 1555)
• July 27 – Francesco Corteccia, Italian composer (d. 1571)
• August 14 – Pieter Coecke van Aelst, Flemish painter (d. 1550)
• September 14 – Louis II, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken, Duke of Zweibrücken from 1514 to 1532 (d. 1532)
• December 6 – Anna of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Duchess consort of Pomerania (d. 1568)
• December 13 – George III, Landgrave of Leuchtenberg (d. 1555)
• date unknown
  • Takeno Jōō, Japanese Sengoku period master of the tea ceremony and merchant (d. 1555)
  • Miguel López de Legazpi, Spanish conquistador (d. 1572)
  • Pedro Nunes, Portuguese mathematician (d. 1578)
  • Francesco Spiera, Italian Protestant jurist (d. 1543)
  • Anthony Maria Zaccaria, Cremonese founder of the Barnabite Order and saint (d. 1539)
• probable
  • Elizabeth Blount, English courtier, mistress of King Henry VIII of England (d. 1540)
  • Cuauhtémoc, last Aztec ruler (Tlatoani) of Tenochtitlán and the last "Aztec Emperor" (d. 1525)
  • Blaise de Lasseran-Massencôme, seigneur de Montluc, marshal of France (approximate date; d. 1577)
  • Hurrem Sultan, Ruthenian-born Haseki sultan of the Ottoman Empire (d. 1558)
  • Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland, English courtier (d. 1537)

Deaths

January–June

• February 18 – Hedwig Jagiellon, Duchess of Bavaria (b. 1457)
• March – Francesco Laurana, Dalmatian-born sculptor (b. c. 1430)
• March 2 – Jan I Carondelet, Burgundian jurist and politician (b. 1428)
• April 2 – Arthur, Prince of Wales, English prince, eldest son of Henry VII of England (b. 1486)
• April 15 – John IV of Chalon-Arlay, Prince of Orange (1475–1502) (b. 1443)
• April 20 – Maria of Loon-Heinsberg, Dutch noble (b. 1426)
• May 4 – Berthold II of Landsberg, Bishop of Verden (1470–1502) and Hildesheim (1481–1502) (b. 1464)
• May 6 – James Tyrrell, English knight, alleged murderer of the princes in the Tower (executed) (b. c. 1450)
• June 9 – Astorre III Manfredi, Italian noble (b. 1485)

July–December

• July 15 – Luka Radovanović, Catholic priest (b. 1425)
• August 18 – Knut Alvsson, Norwegian nobleman and politician (b. 1455)
• August 31 – Thomas Wode, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas
• September 1 – Sōgi, Japanese Buddhist priest and poet (b. 1421)
• October 14 – Diego Hurtado de Mendoza y Quiñones, Spanish noble (b. 1444)
• November 10 – George I of Münsterberg, Imperial Prince, Duke of Münsterberg and Oels, Graf von Glatz (b. 1470)
• November 13 – Annio da Viterbo, Italian Dominican friar and scholar (b. 1432)
• December 31
  • Oliverotto Euffreducci, Italian politician (b. 1475)
  • Vitellozzo Vitelli, Italian condottiero (b. c. 1458)
• date unknown
  • Ahuitzotl, Aztec ruler of Tenochtitlan
  • Octavien de Saint-Gelais, French churchman, poet and translator (b. 1468)
  • Gwerful Mechain, Welsh erotic poet (b. c. 1460?)

References