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Contents: political eventshuman rights, social justice exploration, colonization religion art marine resources agriculture |
Forces of the Holy League that was renewed last year by Julius II meet with defeat in an Easter battle at Ravenna. French troops under the command of Gaston de Foix have taken Brescia by storm with help from the 39-year-old knight Pierre Terrail, seigneur de Bayard (known as chevalier sans peur et sans reproche), who uses espionage and reconnaisance to obtain information about the enemy's plans and position. While other knights seek to enrich themselves with plunder, Bayard remains aloof from such concerns and has gained a reputation for heroism and generosity, but a coalition of Swiss, papal, and imperial forces drive the French and their 5,000 German mercenaries out of Milan in May, returning the Sforzas to power in the duchy (see 1500; 1536).
The Swiss take Locarno, Lugano, and Ossola as their reward for helping to drive the French out of Milan.
Pope Julius II strips Ferrara of Reggio and excommunicates Alfonso I d'Este for opposing him (see 1510; 1523). The pope demands that Florence oust its gonfalonier Piero di Tommaso Soderini and other leaders, permit the exiled Medici family to return, and enter the Holy League. A Spanish army forces the Florentines to submit, sacking Prato; Soderini is deposed and driven into exile (he takes refuge at Ragusa in Dalmatia), and Giuliano de' Medici, 33, returns with his family in September. Younger brother of the late Piero, he uses harsh measures to suppress a conspiracy against the Medicis (see religion, 1513).
Spanish troops conquer Navarre, annexing it to Castile and León.
An English naval force attacks the French fleet at Brest August 10; cannonballs from the heavy guns of Henry VIII's 3-year-old ship Mary Rose bring down the mast of the French flagship and inflict 300 casualties (see 1545).
Polish forces under the command of Jan Tarnowski defeat a Tatar army at Wishniowiec. Poland and Muscovy begin a 10-year war over the White Russian region (see 1514).
The Ottoman sultan Bayazid II is deposed by his Janissaries April 12 at age 65 and dies under suspicious circumstances. His 47-year-old eldest son has Bayazid's other sons strangled in November and will reign until 1520 as Selim I (the Grim), conquering Syria and Egypt and ending the Abbasid caliphate.
Golconda gains independence in India and will remain independent for 175 years.
The Songhai Empire's Mohammed I Askia conquers the Hausa states Kano, Katsina, and Zaria in West Africa (see 1493; 1517).
Spanish colonists import black slaves into Hispaniola's western settlement to replace Indian slaves, who have died in great numbers from disease and from being worked to death in the Spaniards' quest for gold (see Ovando, 1503). By 1550 gold from the New World will be reaching Spain at the rate of 3,000 pounds per year (see Las Casas, 1516).
Burgos enacts laws December 27 protecting West Indian natives from abuse and authorizing use of black slaves.
Explorer Amerigo Vespucci dies at Seville at age 57, having served since 1508 as the city's master navigator (piloto mayor). While that position has been influential, Vespucci has had no idea that his great influence on history would be to have two continents bear his name.
Pope Julius II convenes a council at the Lateran to counter a Church council summoned at Pisa last year by France's Louis XII. The Lateran Council will remain in session until 1517, undertaking the first reforms of abuses in the Church of Rome (but see Luther, 1517).
France's Louis XII imposes a tax on converted Jews from the Spanish states and Portugal.
Painting: The Creation of Adam and TheProphet Jerome by Michelangelo for the Sistine Chapel at Rome; Madonna and Saints by Fra Bartolommeo.
The Newfoundland cod banks provide fish for English, French, Portuguese, and Dutch vessels whose sailors use the island as a base, drying the catch there for shipment back to Europe (see 1504).
Portuguese explorers find nutmeg trees to be indigenous to the island of Banda in the Moluccas. The Portuguese establish trading factories on islands such as Amboina, Ternate, and Tidore; they will dominate the nutmeg and mace trade until 1602, but natives of Sumatra and Java will resist their efforts to take over the lucrative pepper trade.
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