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1480s

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Through Africa, Crusades and Icon

Lab · Class 6–12Data Visualization Lab

Events

1480

January–December

Date unknown

  • The Lighthouse of Alexandria's final remains disappear when Qaitbay, Sultan of Egypt, builds the Citadel of Qaitbay on its site.
  • Magdalen College School, Oxford, is established by William Waynflete.

1481

January–December

  • May 3
  • May 21 – Christian I, King of Denmark and Norway, dies and is succeeded by his son John (1481–1513).
  • June 21 – The papal bull Aeterni Regis grants all land south of the Canary Islands to Portugal.
  • July 24 – Fire destroys the roof and the spires of Reims Cathedral.
  • August 29 – John II of Portugal starts to rule in his own right.
  • September 10 – Alphonso II of Naples recaptures the city of Otranto.
  • December 10 – With the death of Duke Charles IV of Anjou, Anjou reverts to the French crown under Louis XI of France, as does the Provence, which until then was part of the Holy Roman Empire.
  • December 26 – Battle of Westbroek: Holland defeats the troops of Utrecht.

Date unknown

1482

January–December

Date unknown

  • Ivan III renounces the Mongol Khanate rule over Russia.
  • Johannes Trithemius becomes a novice, at the abbey of St. Martin at Sponheim, in the Diocese of Mainz.
  • The first edition of Euclid's Elements (Latin translation) is printed, by German printer Erhard Ratdolt in Venice, incorporating geometric diagrams.
  • Schreierstoren is erected in Amsterdam (from which Henry Hudson will set sail on April 4, 1609, on the vessel Halve Maen, to bring him to the harbor of New York and the Hudson River).

1483

January–December

  • January 1 – The Jews are expelled from Andalusia.
  • February 11 – The General Council of the Inquisition is created in Spain.
  • April 9 – Edward V becomes King of England.
  • April 29 – Gran Canaria, the main island of the Canary Islands, is conquered by the Kingdom of Castile, a very important step in the expansion of Spain.
  • April 30 – Pluto moves inside Neptune's orbit until July 23, 1503, according to modern orbital calculations.
  • April – King Edward V of England and his younger brother Richard, Duke of York reside in the Tower of London. Later this year, rumors of their murders start circulating. By December the rumors have reached France. This is the beginning of the mystery concerning the fates of the two Princes in the Tower.
  • June 13 – William Hastings, 1st Baron Hastings, is executed, in the first recorded execution at the Tower of London.
  • June 20 – The powerful Fernando II, Duke of Braganza is executed in Portugal, followed by more than 80 other noblemen, for his plot against the royal crown.
  • June 25 – Before his coronation, King Edward V of England is deposed by his uncle, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who becomes King as Richard III of England.
  • July 6 – Richard III and Anne Neville are crowned king and Queen of England, at Westminster Abbey.
  • July 20 – John of Denmark is crowned King of Norway.
  • August 15 – The Sistine Chapel opens in the Apostolic Palace in Rome.
  • September 3 – The Princes in the Tower, uncrowned 12-year-old Edward V of England and his 10-year-old brother, Richard, Duke of York, are perhaps murdered this night in the Tower of London.
  • October – A rebellion by the Duke of Buckingham is crushed by Richard III of England.
  • October 29 – Battle of Una: Forces of the Kingdom of Croatia defeat the army of the Ottoman Empire.

Date unknown

  • Isaac Abravanel flees Portugal, after being implicated in a plot against the king.
  • The Prince of Moscow builds the fortress of Ivangorod, facing Narva.
  • Giovanni Bellini is named official painter of the Republic of Venice.
  • Flavio Biondo publishes his Historiarum ab inclinatione romanorum imperii.

1484

January–December

  • March 26 – William Caxton, the first printer of books in English, prints his translation of Aesop's Fables in London.
  • May 30 – Charles VIII of France (Charles l'Affable) is crowned.
  • June 22 – The first known book printed by a woman, Anna Rügerin, is an edition of Eike of Repgow's compendium of customary law, the Sachsenspiegel, produced in Augsburg.
  • July 6 – Portuguese sea captain Diogo Cão finds the mouth of the Congo River.
  • July 22 – Battle of Lochmaben Fair: A 500-man raiding party led by Alexander Stewart, Duke of Albany, and James Douglas, 9th Earl of Douglas, is defeated by forces loyal to Albany's brother James III of Scotland; Douglas is captured.
  • August 29 – Pope Innocent VIII succeeds Pope Sixtus IV, as the 213th pope.
  • September 21 – Treaty of Nottingham: A three-year truce between the kingdoms of England and Scotland is signed.
  • December 5 – Pope Innocent VIII issues the Papal bull Summis desiderantes affectibus, giving the inquisition a mission to hunt heretics and witches in Germany, led by Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger.

Date unknown

1485

January–December

Date unknown

  • Leon Battista Alberti's De Re Aedificatoria (written 1443–1452 and published posthumously) becomes the first printed work on architecture.
  • From about this date, Leonardo da Vinci produces a number of designs for flying machines, including the aerial screw or helicopter (probably unworkable).

1486

January–December

  • January 18 – King Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York are married, uniting the House of Lancaster and the House of York, after the Wars of the Roses.
  • February 16 – Archduke Maximilian I of Habsburg is elected King of the Romans at Frankfurt (crowned April 9 at Aachen).
  • February 18 – Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is born in the town of Nadia, West Bengal, India, just after sunset. He is regarded as an incarnation, or avatar, of Lord Krsna, and later comes to inaugurate the sankirtana movement, or the chanting of the Holy Names of the Lord. This chanting, or mantra meditation, is first brought to the United States in 1965, by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.
  • April 21 – The adoption of the Sentència Arbitral de Guadalupe ends the War of the Remences, in the Principality of Catalonia.

Date unknown

  • Tízoc, Aztec ruler of Tenochtitlan, dies. Some sources suggest that he was poisoned, others that he was the victim of "sorcery" or illness. He is succeeded by his brother Āhuitzotl.
  • Sigismund, Archduke of Tyrol, issues Europe's first large silver coin, the guldengroschen, which will later become the thaler.
  • Giovanni Pico della Mirandola returns to Florence, and writes Oration on the Dignity of Man.
  • The Medici giraffe arrives in Florence.
  • Johann Reuchlin begins studying the Hebrew language.
  • The first written use of the word football to describe the ball.

1487

January–December

  • January 29 – Richard Foxe becomes Bishop of Exeter.
  • March – Sigismund, Archduke of Austria, largely on the poor advice of his counselors, declares war on Venice, and seizes silver mines in and around the Sugana Valley.
  • May 24 – Lambert Simnel is crowned King "Edward VI of England" in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, Ireland. He claims to be Edward Plantagenet, 17th Earl of Warwick, and challenges Henry VII for the throne of England, where he lands on June 5.
  • June 16 – Battle of Stoke Field: The rebellion of pretender Lambert Simnel, led by John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, and Francis Lovell, 1st Viscount Lovell, is crushed by troops loyal to Henry VII.
  • August – Bartolomeu Dias leaves Lisbon, on his voyage to the Cape of Good Hope.
  • August 13 – The Siege of Málaga (1487) ends, when the Spanish take the city.
  • September 9 – Hongzhi becomes Emperor of China (Ming Dynasty).
  • November 30 – Albert IV, Duke of Bavaria promulgates the Reinheitsgebot, specifying three ingredients – water, malt and hops – for the brewing of beer.

Date unknown

1488

January–December

  • January 8 – The Royal Netherlands Navy is formed, by the decree of Maximillian of Austria.
  • February 3 – Bartolomeu Dias of Portugal lands in Mossel Bay, after rounding the Cape of Good Hope at the tip of Africa, becoming the first known European to travel this far south, and entering the Indian Ocean.
  • February 28 – Choe Bu (1454–1504), the Korean Commissioner of Registers for the island of Cheju, shipwrecks on the south east coast of China in Taizhou, Zhejiang.
  • June 11 – Battle of Sauchieburn: James IV of Scotland becomes king after his father is killed in action.
  • July 12 – Joseon Dynasty official Choe Bu returns to Korea, after months of shipwrecked travel in China.
  • July 28 – Battle of Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier: Troops loyal to King Charles VIII of France defeat rebel forces, led by the Dukes of Orleans and Brittany, in the main engagement of the Mad War.
  • September 9 – Anne of Brittany becomes Duchess of Brittany at the age of 11. Her marriage to King Charles VIII in 1491 effectively ends Breton independence from France.

Date unknown

1489

January–December

Date unknown

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