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Contents: political eventshuman rights, social justice exploration, colonization transportation religion literature art theater, film architecture, real estate agriculture |
Denmark's Jan I dies at Alborg February 20 at age 67 after a 32-year reign. He ruled Sweden as Jan II from 1497 to 1501, and Scandinavian noblemen assemble in the Herredag at Copenhagen to confirm his 32-year-old son as successor; the new king will reign until 1523 as Kristian II of Denmark and Norway, but the Swedes refuse to accept him (see 1520).
Former Lancastrian leader John de Vere, 13th earl of Oxford, dies March 10 at age 70; the lord deputy of Ireland Garret Fitzgerald, 8th earl of Kildare (the Great Gerald), dies, and the title passes to his son Garret Og (Young Gerald), who will hold it until 1534.
Swiss mercenaries in Italy rout the French and their Venetian allies in just 1 hour June 6 in the Battle of Novara; Louis de la Tremoille has commanded the French, but the allies force Louis XII to give up Milan, end his Italian invasion, and restore Milan's duke Maximilian Sforza.
The battle at Guinegate in northern France August 17 will be called a second Battle of the Spurs (the first was in 1302) because the French cavalry under the command of Marshal La Palice took off at almost their first sight of England's Henry VIII and the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian; the emperor broke with Louis XII last year and has joined the Holy League with his powerful Landsknechte mercenary force. English forces under Henry VIII land near Calais and take the French towns of Terouenne and Tournai August 22. Henry made his wife, Catherine of Aragon, regent of England before leaving Dover for France.
The Battle of Flodden Field September 9 just south of the Scottish border in Northumberland ends in victory for a 20,000-man English army sent by Catherine of Aragon under the 40-year-old Thomas Howard, earl of Surrey and lord high admiral, who was wounded at Bosworth Field in 1485 and imprisoned in the Tower of London but has long since obained a reversal of his own and his father's attainders and been restored to his honors. Scotland's James IV has 25,000 men (including 5,000 French) but only 17 guns as compared to 22 for the English. About 4,000 of the English are killed in the battle near Branxton, but Surrey's triumph is decisive: James is killed at age 40 while fighting on foot; 10,000 of his men are killed, as are nearly all of his noblemen (eight earls, 13 barons); and the king's only legitimate son, the duke of Rothesay, succeeds to the throne at age 15 months. He will reign until 1542 as James V, but Scotland ends a quarter-century that has unified the country and given it a prosperity that it will not enjoy again for more than a century; the Scottish Navy on which James IV has lavished so much money is sold to France.
Spanish troops under Ramon de Cardona defeat a Venetian army October 7 at the Battle of La Motta; France's Louis XII makes peace in December with Spain and the new pope Leo X.
Peasant and labor rebellions in Europe spread eastward from Switzerland. They will continue for the next 4 years.
Former Puerto Rican governor Juan Ponce de León obtains royal permission to explore the "island" of "Biminy" noted by Peter Martyr Anglerius 2 years ago; he leaves in mid-March with three small ships, is swept north by strong ocean currents, sights land on Easter Sunday (April 12), calls it Florida after Pascua Florida (the Easter season), but encounters a hostile reception from the natives, some of whom may have escaped from Spanish slavers on Caribbean islands. They kill one of his men, but he finds the natives friendlier farther south at Ponte Vedra, near what later will be Jacksonville and St. Augustine (see 1565). The people there live on venison, wild turkeys and other birds, fish, shellfish, and the corn and beans that they cultivate. Ponce discovers an island his men call Bone Key (Cayo Hueso) because it has piles of bones left by warring tribes who have not buried their dead, and the island will remain under Spanish control (see 1521; Key West, 1821).
Spanish explorer Vasco Nuñez Balboa sights the Pacific Ocean and takes possession September 29 of what he calls the South Sea (El Mar de Sur) in the name of Spain (see Magellan, 1520). Now 38, Balboa has joined an expedition from Santo Domingo as a stowaway, taken command of the 190-man force supported by 1,000 natives, crossed the 45-mile-wide thickly forested Isthmus of Darien (Panama) in 25 days to reach a peak overlooking the sea, and sent three men including Francisco Pizarro to reconnoiter (see 1514).
A Portuguese caravel reaches Guangzhou (Canton)—the first European ship to land in China.
Portuguese explorers discover uninhabited Pacific islands that will be called Mauritius and Réunion.
Juan Ponce de Léon gives the first description of the Florida Current that will later be considered part of the Gulf Stream, a warm ocean current that is fed by the westward-flowing North Equatorial Current that moves from North Africa to the West Indies. The swift current will prove a bane and a blessing to navigators, depending on how well they understand it (see Franklin, 1769).
Pope Julius II dies at Rome February 21 at age 69 after a reign of nearly 10 years in which he has led military efforts to block French domination of Italy. The Florentine Giovanni Cardinal de' Medici, 37, second son of the late Lorenzo the Magnificent, is elected pope March 11 and will reign until 1521 as Leo X. His younger brother Giuliano is a cardinal and leaves Florence to join the new pope at Rome, having been appointed gonfalonier of the Holy Roman Church. The former Florentine gonfalonier Piero di Tommaso Soderini is summoned to Rome and heaped with papal favors.
Nonfiction: The Prince (Il Principe) by Florentine public servant Niccolo Machiavelli is an analysis of the means by which a man may rise to power. Now 44, Machiavelli has served for 14 years as vice chancellor and secretary of Florence and has observed the intrigues and machinations of the late Cesare Borgia of Romana. "Men are always wicked at bottom, unless they are made good by some compulsion," writes the cynical Machiavelli. "It is much more secure to be feared than to be loved." "Only those means of security are good, are certain, are lasting, that depend on yourself and your own vigor." "Hate is gained through good deeds as well as bad ones." "A prudent ruler cannot and should not observe faith [i.e. keep his word] when such observance is to his disadvantage." "The crowd is always caught by appearance and the crowd is all there is in the world." "One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived." "Human nature causes men to feel as much obligation when they confer benefits as when they receive them." "It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles." "Success or failure lies in conformity to the times." "The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him." "One who is not wise himself cannot be well advised."
The Italian painter Pinturicchio (Bernardino di Betto di Biago) dies at Siena December 11 at age 59.
Theater: Cassandra the Sibyl (Auto de la Sibila Casandra) by Portuguese poet-playwright Raymond Gil Vicente, 43, 12/25 at the Convent of Euxobregas.
Chartres Cathedral is completed 60 miles southwest of Paris after nearly 400 years of construction. The new north tower gives the Gothic cathedral a magnificence matched only by its blue stained-glass windows (see 1260).
Juan Ponce de León plants orange and lemon trees in Florida.
Spaniards in this century will plant several varieties of peaches in Florida, and the trees will spread up the Atlantic Coast and westward to the Mississippi.
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