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The Battle of Pavia south of Milan February 24 gives Spanish and German forces a victory over France's François I and his Swiss mercenaries (see 1524). François has 53 guns and 22,000 men, including 9,000 French and Swiss pikemen; 9,000 French and Italian infantry and arquebusiers; 1,200 men-at-arms; and 2,000 light cavalry. Spain's Carlos I, Charles, duc de Bourbon, and the marquis of Pescara have 17 guns and an army of 23,000, including 12,000 German pikemen under the command of Georg von Frundsberg; 6,500 Spanish and Italian infantry; 800 men-at-arms; and 1,500 cavalry. François orders his artillery to cease fire and leads a charge, only to have his horse shot under him by an arquebus; Pavia's 6,000-man garrison falls upon the attacking army. Some 13,000 of François's men are killed or wounded; 5,000 are captured; and all his guns are lost to the enemy, who suffer only 500 killed and wounded. The 6-hour battle ends the supremacy of armored knights. Some 6,000 Frenchmen are killed, and François, taken to Madrid a prisoner, writes to his mother (Anne of Brittany), "There is nothing left to me but honor, and my life, which is saved" (see 1526; Rome, 1527).
The Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights Albrecht von Brandenburg, 35, assumes the title duke of Prussia April 8. Albrecht has headed the Prussian government since 1510, warring with the Poles, but Martin Luther has advised him to dissolve his order and place his holdings under the Polish crown. Founded in 1198, the Knights will break with the Church of Rome next year, beginning a long association between Lutheranism and the aristocracy controlling the vast estates of East Prussia, but Prussia remains a fief of Poland.
The elector of Saxony Friedrich III (the Wise) dies at Lochau outside Torgau May 5 at age 62, having worked for constitutional reform in the Holy Roman Empire and supported Martin Luther.
The German peasant rebellion is quelled May 14 as Philip, landgrave of Hesse, shoots down 5,000 men and disperses Thomas Müntzer's army with help from Georg von Frundsberg, who uses diplomacy as well as force (see 1524). Augsburg merchant Jakob Fugger II has helped to finance resistance to Müntzer, who is beheaded May 27. Some 150,000 peasants have been killed in the uprising.
China's Ming dynasty government orders the destruction of all oceangoing ships (see 1433). Shutting itself off from contact with the outside world will doom the Middle Kingdom to decline and poverty while more adventurous (or greedier) Western countries prosper.
Spain's Carlos I gives Basque navigator Juan Sebastián de Elcano and Garcia Jofre de Loaia joint command of a seven-vessel fleet with instructions to claim the Moluccas in the Pacific for Spain (see 1522; 1526).
Francisco Pizarro sails from Panama November 1 in two caravels with 112 men and a few natives to explore "Piru," whose natives call it Twwantinsuyu (The Four Corners of the World) (see 1524). Pizarro's chief lieutenant is Diego de Almagro, 50, who arrived in South America last year after having served in the Spanish Navy (see 1526).
Santa Marta is founded by Spanish conquistador Rodrigo de Bastidas, 65. It is the first settlement in the territory that will become New Granada.
Jakob Fugger II dies at Augsburg December 30 at age 66, leaving 2,032,652 guilders (more than seven tons of gold) to his nephew Anton after a life that has seen the Fugger family become Europe's greatest financial power and Antwerp the world's leading port, profiting from the wealth of the Indies and the New World. "Jakob the Rich" has minted his own money; maintained banks in every European capital; traded spices and wool; owned silver, gold, and copper mines; operated silk factories in Asia; and managed the Vatican's finances, collecting money for the remission of sins. He has survived threats to his various monopolies posed by social unrest the Tyrol and in Hungary, attempts by Hungarian noblemen to nationalize his mines, and the recently ended Peasants' Revolt, but the merchants of Augsburg have rejected a scheme that he devised to fix the price of bread at a permanently low level.
Martin Luther marries former nun Katharina von Bora, 26, who ran away from the Cistercian convent of Nimptschen, near Grimma, 2 years ago after adopting Lutheran doctrines. Now 42, Luther has urged some nuns to leave their convent and has helped them find husbands; Katharina's (Käte's) proposed match has fallen through, she has been forced to work as a domestic servant, and Luther makes her his wife, although not out of love and with misgivings that marriage may lose him the respect of some followers. Katharina will bear him six children, operate his farm, and prove efficient in running the former Augustinian monastery at Wittenberg that she and Luther will use as a home (see Nonfiction, 1531).
Painting: Madonna del Sacco by Andrea del Sarto. Mitsunobu Tosa dies at Kyoto at age 91 (approximate).
Theater: Don Duardas by Gil Vicente.
The Fuggerei left by Jakob Fugger II at Augsburg consists of 106 dwellings which Jakob the Rich has built for rental at low rates to the poor of the city. He leaves it as a legacy to the people.
Francisco Pizarro writes in his journal about Peru, "It is very flat country, they live by irrigation, it does not rain here. They raise many llamas, they raise many ducks and rabbits. The meat which they eat they do not roast or cook, and the fish they make into pieces and dry in the sun, and the same thing with the meat. They do not eat bread as we do, the maize they eat toasted and cooked, and that is their bread. They make wine in great quantity from this maize."
Chili (or chile) peppers and cayenne from the Americas are introduced by the Portuguese into India, where they will become the ingredients of the hottest curries. Kari is a Tamil word meaning sauce. Curry (an English word) indicates the Indian way of preparing nearly all food, certain spices and herbs being used to accentuate, rather than smother, the flavor of the dish being cooked. Curries are not always peppery (the traditional spice has been cardamom, the seed of a tropical East Indian plant); they are served with rice or unleavened bread (chapati or parata).
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