1529
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The Ottoman Empire reaches the height of its imperial expansion May 27 as ad-Din Barbarossa completes his conquest of Algeria. Suleiman I arrives at Buda September 3 with 250,000 troops and 300 cannon, taking the city after 6 days. John Zápolya is officially proclaimed king, and the sultan marches against Vienna, slaughtering Hungarians en route. His main army arrives September 27 and lays siege to the city. Vienna's garrison of 20,000 men and 22,000 cavalry is far outmatched, but the Turks have supply problems. Thousands die of cold and hunger. Early-rising Viennese bakers hear the sound of Turkish sappers mining the city's fortifications in preparation for a final assault and alert the defenders. An infantry charge October 14 is driven back, and Suleiman's army returns to Constantinople, taking children home as slaves.
The Peace of Cambrai signed August 5 settles the conflict between France and Spain's Carlos I (the uncrowned Holy Roman Emperor Charles V). Louise of Savoy signs in behalf of François I, who gives up all claims in Italy, Flanders, and Artois and agrees to pay a ransom of 2 million crowns; Margaret of Austria signs in behalf of her nephew Carlos, who renounces any claims to Burgundy. Henry VIII accedes to the treaty August 27.
The Mughal emperor Babar gains victory over the Afghan chiefs of Bihar and Bengal May 6 at the Battle of Ghagra, extending his realm from Kabul to Bengal (see Bengal, 1519).
Chinese scholar-statesman Wang Yangming (Wang Yang-ming) falls ill of a respiratory ailment and coughs himself to death at Nan-en in Kiangi Province at age 57 while en route home, having been sent in June 1527 to suppress a rebellion in Kwangsi Province. The animosity of a rival minister at Beijing (Peking) results in the revocation of his earldom and other hereditary privileges, his two sons are disinherited, his teachings are proscribed, and many who protest this posthumous treatment are dismissed from office or even banished (but see 1567).
The Songhai king Askia Mohammed dies at age 86 after a 36-year reign that has raised the empire to new heights, extending it east of the Niger (see 1517; 1591).
French housewife Desle la Mansenée, 22, is hanged at Anjeux December 18 after being convicted of murder, heresy, and renouncing the Catholic faith. She has been accused of witchcraft and tortured by squassation (tied with weights and dropped from a height) until she confessed to her prosecutors that the devil has promised her wealth if she will turn from Jesus, has made love to her, made her attend witches' sabbaths, and given her powers not only to poison cattle but actually to alter the weather.
Carlos I cedes Spanish rights in the Spice Islands to Portugal for 250,000 ducats.
Francisco Pizarro returns to Spain to claim the territory that he has explored in Peru (see 1526). Carlos I names Pizarro governor for life and captain-general of New Castile with a salary of 725,000 maravedis and nearly all the prerogatives of a viceroy, and he sends Pizarro back to Peru with 200 men and 27 horses in a fleet of three ships (see 1531).
South American territories of New Granada that will later be called Venezuela and Colombia are colonized by the Welser family of Augsburg, whose agents explore the Andes and the valley of the Orinoco River (see 1528; Felderman, 1539).
The name New France (Gallia Nova) is recorded for the first time on a map prepared by the brother of explorer Giovanni de Verrazano, who 5 years ago explored the coasts of North America for the French crown from what later will be the Carolinas north to what will be Acadia (Nova Scotia) (see Cartier, 1534).
London has a severe epidemic of the sweating sickness (the last was in 1518) and the disease spreads within 2 months to Hamburg, Lübeck, and Bremen, reaches Mecklenburg a month later (August), reaches Königsberg and Danzig in September, and then strikes Göttingen, where it rages so fiercely that corpses must be buried eight to a grave. The epidemic moves on to Marburg, where it interrupts the Council of the Reformation, to Augsburg, to Vienna, where it has some influence in raising the Ottoman siege, and to Switzerland, but the sweating sickness somehow spares the French (see 1551).
Protestantism gets its name April 16 as followers of Martin Luther protest a ruling by the Diet of Speyer forbidding the teaching of Luther's ideas in Catholic states while letting Catholics teach in Lutheran states. Legal scholar Justus Jonas (originally Jodocus Koch), now 36, has introduced Greek and Hebrew into the curriculum at the University of Erfurt, where he has been rector since 1519, and he plays a prominent role in support of Luther's position at the Council of the Reformation at Marburg (see Augsburg, 1530).
Henry VIII removes Cardinal Wolsey as his lord chancellor October 17 for failing to secure a papal annulment of his marriage; Wolsey turns over his possessions to the king October 22. Henry replaces Wolsey with Thomas More, and he moves into Wolsey's palatial London house November 1, renaming it White Hall (it will later be called Whitehall and remain the seat of monarchical power for nearly 200 years; see architecture [Banqueting House], 1622).
Japanese monks from the Tendai monasteries on Mount Hiei sweep down on Kyoto and massacre adherents of Buddhism's Nicheren sect.
Nonfiction: On the Nobility and Excellence of Women by Henricus Agrippa von Nettesheim, now 45, whose work is finally published (see 1509). He aroused hostility at Cologne nearly a decade ago by defending a woman charged with witchcraft but has since been doctor and astrologer to France's queen mother Louise of Savoy and historian to Margaret of Austria at Antwerp. "Woman does not have a soul of a different sex from that which animates man," he writes. "Both received a soul which is absolutely the same and of an equal condition."
Writer-diplomat Baldassare Castiglione dies at Toledo February 2 at age 50.
Painting: The Madonna with St. Margaret and Other Saints by Il Parmigianino; The Battle of Alexander by Albrecht Altdorfer.
Playwright-poet John Skelton dies at Westminster, London, June 21 at age 69 and is buried in his parish churchyard of St. Margaret's.
Hymns: "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God!" and "Away in a Manger" by Martin Luther.
Architect-sculptor Andrea Sansovino dies at his native Monte San Savino in the Republic of Florence at age 62 (approximate).
The Turks plant capsicums from the New World at Buda and use them to make paprika (see Columbus, 1492). Peasants in the Mediterranean countries will find the peppers easy to grow and capable of giving spice to their dishes at little cost, whereas imported spices are far beyond their reach. Hungarians will develop capsicums in a vast variety of colors and degrees of pungency, and use of heavy spices will decline in the next few decades, even among the rich, partly because peppers have gained acceptance (see nutrition, 1928).
Vast fields of maize from America are grown in Turkey whence the grain will come to England as "turkey corn."
Sweet oranges from the Orient reach Europe in Portuguese caravels and will forever be called portugals in the Balkans, in parts of Italy, and in the Middle East (see 1332; Chinese orange, 1635).
The croissant has its beginnings by some accounts in the crescent-shaped Gipfebroetchen roll created by Viennese bakers to celebrate the city's resistance to the Turkish siege, but the roll that will become the French croissant may in fact date to 1217 (see 1683).
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