1470s

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	14th century – 15th century – 16th century
Decades:	1440s 1450s 1460s – 1470s – 1480s 1490s 1500s
Years:	1470 1471 1472 1473 1474 1475 1476 1477 1478 1479
Categories:	Births – Deaths – Architecture Establishments – Disestablishments

1470s: events by year

Contents: 1470 1471 1472 1473 1474 1475 1476 1477 1478 1479

January–December

• March 12 – Wars of the Roses – Battle of Lose-coat Field: The House of York defeats the House of Lancaster.
• May 15 – Charles VIII of Sweden, who had served three terms as King of Sweden, dies. Sten Sture the Elder becomes Regent of Sweden.
• October – A rebellion orchestrated by King Edward's former ally, the Earl of Warwick, forces the King to flee England to seek support from his brother-in-law Charles the Bold of Burgundy.
• October 30 – Warwick releases Henry VI of England from the Tower and restores him to the throne.

Date unknown

• King Afonso V of Portugal conquers the city of Arzila in North Africa.
• The first contact occurs between Europeans and the Fante nation of the Gold Coast, when a party of Portuguese land and meet with the King of Elmina (see also History of Ghana).
• Johann Heynlin introduces the printing press into France and prints his first book that same year.
• In Tonga, in or around 1470, the Tu'i Tonga dynasty cedes its temporal powers to the Tu'i Ha'atakalaua dynasty, which will remain prominent until about 1600.
• Between this year and 1700, 8,888 witches are tried in the Swiss Confederation; 5,417 of them are executed.
• Sir George Ripley (alchemist) dedicates his book The Compound of Alchemy to the King Edward IV of England.

January–December

• February 20 – Orkney and Shetland are returned by Norway to Scotland, due to a defaulted dowry payment.

Date unknown

• Foundation of the Kingdom of Fez.
• Possible discovery of Bacalao (possibly Newfoundland, North America) by João Vaz Corte-Real.
• An extensive slave trade begins in modern Cameroon, as the Portuguese sail up the Wuori River.
• Fernão do Po claims the central-African islands Bioko and Annobón for Portugal.
• Banca Monte Dei Paschi Di Siena, the world's oldest surviving bank, is founded.
• Leonardo da Vinci is listed as a master in Florence's "Company of Artists".
• Publication of Johannes de Sacrobosco's De sphaera mundi (written c.1230) in Ferrara, the first printed astronomical book.

1473

• February 12 – First complete printed edition of Avicenna's The Canon of Medicine (in Latin translation) published in Milan.

Date unknown

• Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II defeats the White Sheep Turkmens led by Uzun Hasan at Otlukbeli.
• Axayacatl, Aztec ruler of Tenochtitlan, invades the territory of the neighboring Aztec city of Tlatelolco. The ruler of Tlatelolco is killed and replaced by a military governor. Tlatelolco loses its independence.
• Possible discovery of Bacalao (possibly Newfoundland, North America) by Didrik Pining and João Vaz Corte-Real.
• The Almanach cracoviense ad annum 1474 is published.
• The city walls and defensive moat are built in Celje, Slovenia.
• Marsilio Ficino becomes a Catholic priest.

January–December

• December 12 – Upon the death of Henry IV of Castile, a civil war ensues between his designated successor Isabella I of Castile and her sister Juana, who is supported by her husband, Alfonso V of Portugal. Isabella wins the civil war after a lengthy struggle when her husband, Ferdinand II of Aragon, the newly crowned king of Aragon, comes to her aid.

Date unknown

• Marsilio Ficino finishes his work on "Platonic Theology".
• The Republic of Venice enacts a decree that new and inventive devices, once put into practice, have to be communicated to the Republic to obtain the right to prevent others from using them, the first modern patent system.

January–December

• January 10 – Battle of Vaslui: Stephen III of Moldavia defeats the Ottoman Empire, which was led at that time by Mehmed II, the conqueror of Constantinople.
• August 29— The Treaty of Picquigny ends a brief war between France and England.
• November – The Battle on the Planta takes place during the Burgundian Wars.

Date unknown

• Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye is the first book to be printed in English, by William Caxton in Bruges.
• Rashi's commentary on the Torah is the first dated book to be printed in Hebrew, in Reggio di Calabria.
• The Landshuter hochzeit takes place.
• The oldest recorded game of chess is played, between Francesco di Castellvi and Narciso Vinyoles.

January–December

• March 2 – Battle of Grandson: A Swiss army defeats the Burgundians under Charles the Bold.
• June 2 – Battle of Morat: The Swiss again defeat Charles.
• July 26 – Battle of Valea Albă: The Moldavians are defeated by the Ottoman army of Mehmed the Conqueror.
• November 26 – Vlad III the Impaler manages to become reigning Prince of Wallachia for the third and last time, before later being killed by the Ottoman Turks at the Battle of Bucharest. His head is sent to his old enemy Sultan Mehmed II of the Ottoman Empire.

January–December

• January 5 – Battle of Nancy: Charles the Bold of Burgundy is again defeated, and this time is killed. This marks the end of the Burgundian Wars.
• February 10 – Mary of Burgundy, the daughter of Charles the Bold, is forced by her disgruntled subjects to sign the Great Privilege, by which the Flemish cities recover all the local and communal rights which had been abolished by the arbitrary decrees of the dukes of Burgundy, in their efforts to create in the Low Countries a centralized state.
• February 27 – The Swedish University of Uppsala is founded, becoming the first university in Sweden and all of Scandinavia.
• August 18 – Mary of Burgundy marries Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor in Ghent, bringing her Flemish and Burgundian lands into the Holy Roman Empire and detaching them from France.
• November 18 – William Caxton produces Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres, the first English book printed on an English printing press.

January–December

• January 14 – Novgorod surrenders to Ivan III, Grand Prince of Moscow.
• January 15 – Richard of Shrewsbury, 1st Duke of York, aged four, is married to five-year-old Anne de Mowbray, 8th Countess of Norfolk.
• February 18 – George, Duke of Clarence, convicted of treason against his older brother Edward IV of England, is privately executed in the Tower of London.
• April 26 – The Pazzi attack Lorenzo de' Medici, and kill his brother Giuliano, during High Mass in the Florence Cathedral.
• November – Eskender succeeds his father Baeda Maryam as Emperor of Ethiopia at the age of six.
• December 28 – Battle of Giornico: Swiss troops defeat the Milanese.

Date unknown

• Lorenzo de' Medici becomes sole ruler of Florence.
• Fourth Siege of Krujë: The Fourth Siege of Krujë by the Ottoman Empire of Krujë in Albania occurred in 1478 and resulted in the town's capture after the failure of three prior sieges.
• Vladislav II of Bohemia makes peace with Hungary.
• Possibly the first reference to cricket, in "criquet", as discovered in France by Rowland Bowen in the 20th century. It has been dismissed by some (most notably John Major) and presaged with Edward II's "Creag" (1300) by others.

January–December

• January 20 – Ferdinand II ascends the throne of Aragon and rules together with his wife Isabella I, Queen of Castile over most of the Iberian peninsula.
• January 25 – Treaty of Istanbul between the Ottoman Empire and Republic of Venice according to which Venice will cede Argo, Negroponte, Lemnos and Shkodër, and pay an annual tribute of 10,000 golden ducati. The surrender of Shkodër, after a fifteen-month siege, brings all of Albania under the Ottoman Empire.
• May 13 – Christopher Columbus, an experienced mariner and successful trader in the thriving Genoese expatriate community in Portugal, marries Felipa Perestrelo Moniz (Italian on her father's side) and receives as dowry her late father's maps and papers charting the seas and winds around the Madeira Islands and other Portuguese possessions in the Ocean Sea.
• August 7 – Battle of Guinegate: A French army sent to invade the Netherlands is defeated by Maximilian of Austria.
• September 4 – The Treaty of Alcáçovas (also known as Treaty or Peace of Alcáçovas-Toledo) is signed between the Catholic monarchs of Castile and Aragon on one side and the King of Portugal on the other side, ending the four-year War of the Castilian Succession.
• October 13 – Battle of Kenyérmező (Turkish: Ekmekotlak): The Hungarian army, led by Pál Kinizsi and István Báthori, defeats the Ottoman army in Transylvania, Hungary.

Ongoing

• Plague in Florence.

Births

• Nicolaus Copernicus, astronomer and mathematician