1490s

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	14th century – 15th century – 16th century
Decades:	1460s 1470s 1480s – 1490s – 1500s 1510s 1520s
Years:	1490 1491 1492 1493 1494 1495 1496 1497 1498 1499
Categories:	Births – Deaths – Architecture Establishments – Disestablishments

This is a list of events occurring in the 1490s, ordered by year.

January–December

• January 4 – Anne of Brittany announces that all those who would ally with the king of France will be considered as guilty of the crime of lese-majesty.
• March 13 – Charles II becomes Duke of Savoy at age 1; his mother Blanche of Montferrato is regent.
• July 13 – John of Kastav finishes a cycle of frescoes in the Holy Trinity Church in Hrastovlje (now southwestern Slovenia).
• December 19 – Anne of Brittany is married to Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor by proxy.

Date unknown

• Ashikaga Yoshitane becomes Ashikaga shogun of Japan.
• Perkin Warbeck claims to be the son of King Edward IV of England at the court of Burgundy.
• Traditional date of the Battle of Glendale (Skye) between the Scottish clans MacDonald and MacLeod.
• Catholic missionaries arrive in the African Kingdom of Kongo.
• Pedro de Covilham arrives in Ethiopia.
• Regular postal service connects the Habsburg residences of Mechelen and Innsbruck, the first in Germany.
• Leonardo da Vinci observes capillary action in small-bore tubes.
• Leonardo da Vinci develops an oil lamp: the flame is enclosed in a glass tube placed inside a water-filled glass globe.
• All Saints' Church, the Schlosskirche in Wittenberg is begun.
• The Chinese scholar and printer Hua Sui invents bronze-metal movable type printing in China, although the earlier Wang Zhen had experimented with tin movable type in 1298 and the Koreans had separately innovated bronze movable type.^{[citation needed]}
• Tirant Lo Blanc by Joanot Martorell and Martí Joan De Galba is published.
• Aldus Manutius moves to Venice.
• John Colet receives his M.A. from Magdalen College, Oxford.
• Johann Reuchlin meets Giovanni Pico della Mirandola.
• Merchants carry coffee from Yemen to Mecca, Arabia (approximate date).

January–December

• February 20 – The "Comet of 1491" comes 873,784 miles (1,406,219 km) away from earth, the closest ever recorded.
• May 3 – The ruler of the Kingdom of Kongo, Nkuwu Nzinga, is baptised by Portuguese missionaries, adopting the baptismal name of João I.
• November – Perkin Warbeck begins a campaign to take the English throne with a landing in Ireland.
• November 16 – An auto-da-fé held in Brasero de la Dehesa (outside Ávila) concludes the case of the Holy Child of La Guardia with the execution of several Jewish and converso suspects.
• November 25 – The siege of Granada, last stronghold of the Moors in Spain, begins.
• December 6 – King Charles VIII of France marries Anne of Brittany, forcing her to break her marriage with Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, thus incorporating Brittany into the kingdom of France.
• December 21 – Truce of Coldstream secures a 5-year peace between Scotland and England.

Date unknown

• Bread and Cheese Revolt breaks out in North Holland.
• A major fire breaks out in Dresden.
• In the Russian territory of Komi (now the Komi Republic), annexed by Russia in 1478, copper and silver ores are discovered, and the territory gains importance as a mining and metallurgical center.
• Nicolaus Copernicus enters the University of Kraków.

January–December

Muhammad XII, the last Moorish Emir of Granada, surrenders his city to the army of Ferdinand and Isabella Granada, 1492

• January 2 – Fall of Granada: Muhammad XIIl, the last Moorish Emir of Granada, surrenders his city to the army of the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, after a lengthy siege, ending the 10-year Granada War and the centuries-long Reconquista and bringing an end to 780 years of Muslim control in Al-Andalus. Christopher Columbus is in Alhambra, and sees the Moorish king come out of the city gates and kiss the hands of the Spanish king, queen and prince.
• January 6 – Ferdinand and Isabella enter into Granada.
• January 23 – The Pentateuch is first printed.
• March 31 – Ferdinand and Isabella sign the Alhambra decree, expelling all Jews from Spain unless they convert to Roman Catholicism.
• April 17 – The Capitulations of Santa Fe were signed.
• July 31 – The Jews are expelled from Spain; 40,000–200,000 leave. Sultan Bayezid II of the Ottoman Empire, learning about the expulsion of Jews from Spain, dispatches the Ottoman Navy to bring the Jews safely to Ottoman lands, mainly to the cities of Thessaloniki (currently in Greece) and İzmir (currently in Turkey).
• August 3 – Christopher Columbus sails on his first voyage across the Atlantic Ocean, intending to reach Asia.
• August 11 – Pope Alexander VI succeeds Pope Innocent VIII as the 214th pope, after the 1492 papal conclave, the first held in the Sistine Chapel.
• October – English army besieges Boulogne-sur-Mer.
• October 11 – Several members of the first voyage of Christopher Columbus witness an unusual light.
• October 12 – Christopher Columbus' expedition makes landfall in the Caribbean and lands on Guanahani, but he believes he has reached the East Indies.
• October 28 – Christopher Columbus lands in Cuba.
• November 3 – Peace of Etaples signed between England and France, ending French support for the pretender to the English throne Perkin Warbeck. All English-held territory in France with the exception of Calais is returned to France.
• November 7 – The Ensisheim meteorite, a 127-kg meteorite, lands in a wheat field near the village of Ensisheim in Alsace.
• December 5 – Christopher Columbus becomes the first known European to set foot on the island of Hispaniola.
• December 31 – About 100,000 Jews are expelled from Sicily.

Date unknown

• Antonio de Nebrija publishes the first grammar text for the language of Castile in Salamanca, which he introduces to Ferdinand and Isabella as "a tool of empire."
• Martin Behaim constructs the first surviving globe of Earth, the Erdapfel. As Columbus would only return from his voyage in 1493, this globe does not show the New World yet.
• Casimir IV Jagiello, of the Jagiello Royal House, ends his reign (1427–1492).
• The first arboretum to be designed and planted is the Arboretum Trsteno, near Dubrovnik in Croatia.
• Russians build a fortress in Ivangorod, on the eastern banks of the Narva river.
• In Ming Dynasty China, the commercial transportation of grain to the northern border in exchange for salt certificates is monetized.
• Ermysted's Grammar School, Skipton, North Yorkshire, founded.
• Marsilio Ficino publishes his translation and commentary of Plotinus.

January–December

• January 19 – Treaty of Barcelona: Charles VIII of France returns Cerdagne and Roussillon to Ferdinand of Aragon.
• March 15 – Christopher Columbus returns to Spain from his first voyage of discovery.
• May 4 – In the papal bull Inter caetera, Pope Alexander VI decrees that all lands discovered west of the Azores are Spanish.
• August 19 – Maximilian I succeeds his father, Frederick III, as Holy Roman Emperor.
• September 9 – Battle of Krbava field was fought between the Kingdom of Croatia and Ottoman forces in southern Croatia.
• September 26 – Pope Alexander VI issues the bull Dudum siquidem to the Catholic Monarchs, extending the grant of new lands he made them in Inter caetera
• September 29 – Christopher Columbus leaves Cadiz on his second voyage of exploration.
• November 19 – Columbus lands on the coast of the island of Borinquen, which he renames San Juan (present day, Puerto Rico).
• England imposes sanctions on Burgundy for supporting Perkin Warbeck.

January–December

• January 25 – Alfonso II becomes King of Naples.
• May – Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, recognises Perkin Warbeck as rightful King of England.
• May 3 – Christopher Columbus first sights Jamaica.
• May 31 – First Battle of Acentejo: Natives of the island of Tenerife, known as Guanches, defeat the invading Spanish forces.
• June 7 – Treaty of Tordesillas: Spain and Portugal divide the New World between themselves.
• June 25 – The first hurricane ever observed by Europeans strikes the Spanish settlement of La Isabela on Hispaniola.
• October 22 – Ludovico Sforza becomes Duke of Milan, and starts a chain of events that leads to the First Italian War.
• November 10 – Fra Luca Pacioli's Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalità is published in Venice, containing the first printed account of algebra in the vernacular and the first published description of the double-entry accounting system.
• November 17 – Armies of Charles VIII of France enter Florence.
• December 25 – Second Battle of Acentejo: The Spanish crush the native forces of the island of Tenerife, leading to the subjugation of this last bastion of resistance in the Canary Islands.

Date unknown

• Amda Seyon II succeeds his father Eskender as Emperor of Ethiopia.
• Na'od succeeds his nephew Amda Seyon II as Emperor of Ethiopia.
• Aztec forces conquer and sack Mitla.
• Italy is invaded by Charles VIII of France.
• Aldus Manutius prints Pietro Bembo's De Aetna in Venice, considered to be the first book to include the semicolon.
• Johann Reuchlin publishes De verbo mirifico.

January–December

• February – King's College, Aberdeen, predecessor of the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, is founded on the petition of William Elphinstone, Bishop of Aberdeen. It is the first English-speaking university to teach medicine.
• February 22 – King Charles VIII of France enters Naples to claim the city's throne. A few months later, he decides to return to France, and leaves Naples with most of his army, leaving a force under his cousin Gilbert, Count of Montpensier as viceroy. Syphilis is first definitely recorded during this invasion.
• May 26 – A Spanish army under Gonzalo de Córdoba lands in Calabria with the purpose of ousting the French and restoring Ferdinand II of Naples to the throne.
• June 1 – Friar John Cor records the first known batch of Scotch whisky.
• June 28 – Battle of Seminara: Córdoba and Ferdinand are defeated by a French army under Bernard Stewart, Lord of Aubigny.
• July 3 – Perkin Warbeck's troops land in Kent, in support of his claim to the English crown, backed by Margaret of York, Duchess of Burgundy. They are routed before Warbeck himself can disembark, and he retreats to Ireland and then to Scotland.
• July 6 – Battle of Fornovo: The French army under King Charles secures its retreat from Italy, by defeating a combined Milanese-Venetian force under Giovanni Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua.
• October 25 – King Manuel I of Portugal begins his reign.
• November 30 – An explosion at Vyborg Castle deters the Russian forces who have invaded Sweden through Karelia.

Date unknown

• Poynings' Law comes into effect, placing the Parliament of Ireland under the authority of the Parliament of England.
• The Reichskammergericht of the Holy Roman Empire is founded in Frankfurt.
• Henry VII of England commissions the world's first dry dock at Portsmouth.

January–December

• January 3 – Leonardo da Vinci unsuccessfully tests a flying machine.
• February – Pietro Bembo's Petri Bembi de Aetna Angelum Chalabrilem liber is published in Venice by Aldus Manutius, the first book printed in the old style serif or humanist typeface cut by Francesco Griffo and known from the 20th century as Bembo.
• February 24 – King Henry VII of England signs the commercial treaty Magnus Intercursus with Venice, Florence, and the villes of the Hanse and Pays-Bas.
• March 5 – Henry VII of England issues letters patent to John Cabot and his sons, authorizing them to discover unknown lands.
• March – Santo Domingo is discovered.
• March 10 – Christopher Columbus leaves Hispaniola for Spain, ending his second visit to the Western Hemisphere. During his time here he has forcibly subjugated the island, enslaved the Amerindians and laid the basis for a system of land grants tied to the Amerindians' labor service.
• July – Spanish forces under Gonzalo Hernandez de Cordoba capture Atella after a siege. Among the prisoners is the French viceroy of Naples, the Comte de Montpensier. Ferdinand II of Naples is restored to his throne.
• August 5 – Bartholomew Columbus, brother of Christopher Columbus, founds the city of Santo Domingo, now part of the Dominican Republic, making it the oldest American City and permanent settlement in the New World.
• September 21–25 – James IV of Scotland invades Northumberland in support of the pretender to the English throne Perkin Warbeck.
• October 20 – Joanna, second daughter of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, heiress to Castile, marries the archduke Philip, heir through his mother to the Burgundian Netherlands, and through his father to the Holy Roman Empire.

Date unknown

• Jesus College, Cambridge, is founded.
• Jan de Groote, a Dutchman, obtains a grant for the north ferry from the mainland of Scotland to Orkney from King James IV of Scotland.

January–December

• February 7 (Shrove Tuesday) – Followers of Girolamo Savonarola burn thousands of "immoral" objects at the Bonfire of the Vanities in Florence.
• May – Cornish Rebellion in England incited by war taxes.
• May 10 – Amerigo Vespucci allegedly leaves Cádiz for his first voyage to the New World.
• May 13 – Pope Alexander VI excommunicates Girolamo Savonarola.
• May 20 – John Cabot sets sail from Bristol on the ship Matthew (principally owned by Richard Amerike), looking for new lands to the west (some sources give a May 2 date).
• June 13 – the Catholic monarchs issue the ordinance of Medina del Campo, creating a money system based on the copper maravedi, creating the peso of 34 maravedis. In the next three centuries, this system dominated international payments. It was used in almost all parts of the Americas and large parts of Asia. It is the basis for a number of modern currencies, including the US dollar.
• June 17 – Cornish rebels under Michael An Gof are soundly defeated by Henry VII at the Battle of Deptford Bridge near London.
• June 24 – John Cabot lands in North America (near present day Bonavista, Newfoundland).
• July 8 – Vasco da Gama's fleet departs from Lisbon, beginning his expedition to India.
• September 7 – Second Cornish Uprising in England: Perkin Warbeck lands near Land's End; on September 10 he is proclaimed as King in Bodmin.
• September 28 – John, King of Denmark defeats Sten Sture the Elder at the Battle of Rotebro.
• September 30 – Treaty of Ayton establishes a seven-year peace between England and Scotland.
• October 4 – Leaders of the Second Cornish Uprising surrender to the King at Taunton; the following day, Warbeck, having deserted his army, is captured at Beaulieu Abbey in Hampshire.
• October 6 – Sten Sture the Elder is forced to resign and end his 27-year term as Regent of Sweden. King John of Denmark and Norway is acknowledged by the estates as King of Sweden and formally elected on October 18.
• December 5 – King Manuel I of Portugal proclaims an edict in which he demands that Jews convert to Christianity or leave the country.

Date unknown

• Ivan the Great issues his law code, the Sudebnik.
• The Ottomans give Russian merchants freedom of trade within the empire.
• Iamblichus De mysteriis Aegyptorum edited by Marsilio Ficino is published.

January–December

• January 25 – Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama visits Quelimane and Mozambique in southeastern Africa.
• February – Da Gama reaches Malindi in modern-day Kenya.
• May
  • John Cabot leaves Bristol on an expedition, never to be seen again.
  • The English Merchant Adventurers are granted a trade monopoly with the Netherlands.
• May 20 – Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama arrives at Calicut (now Kozhikode), India, becoming the first European to get there by sailing around Africa, thus discovering the maritime route to India. He finds a local Arab merchant who is able to interpret for him.
• May 23 – Girolamo Savonarola, ruler of Florence, is executed for criticizing the Pope.
• June – Niccolò Machiavelli is elected by the Great Council as the second chancellor of the Republic of Florence.
• Summer – The final Welsh revolt of the medieval era breaks out in Meirionydd, North Wales; Harlech Castle is captured by the rebels before the revolt in suppressed.
• July 31 – On his third voyage to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus becomes the first European to discover the island of Trinidad.
• August 1 – Columbus discovers the mouth of the Orinoco.
• August 4–12 – Columbus explores the Gulf of Paria.
• Voyage of João Fernandes Lavrador and Pedro Barcelos to Greenland during which they discover the land which they name Labrador.
• Probable date at which Leonardo da Vinci completes painting The Last Supper on the refectory wall of Santa Maria delle Grazie (Milan).

January–December

• January 8 – Louis XII of France marries Anne of Brittany, in accordance with a law set by his predecessor, Charles VIII.
• April 14 – By the Treaty of Krakow, Poland and Hungary recognize the independence of Moldavia.
• July 22 – Battle of Dornach: The Swiss decisively defeat the army of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor.
• July 28 – First Battle of Lepanto: The Turkish navy wins a decisive victory over the Venetians.
• August – Polydore Vergil completes De inventoribus rerum, the first modern history of inventions.
• August 24 – Lake Maracaibo is discovered.
• September 18 – Vasco da Gama arrives at Lisbon, returning from India, and is received by King Manuel of Portugal.
• September 22 – Treaty of Basel: Maximilian is forced to grant the Swiss de facto independence.
• October 25 – The Pont Notre-Dame in Paris, constructed under Charles VI of France, collapses into the Seine.
• November 5 – The Catholicon is published in Treguier (Brittany). This Breton-French-Latin dictionary had been written in 1464 by Jehan Lagadeuc. It is the first dictionary of either French or Breton.
• November 23 – Perkin Warbeck, pretender to the throne of England, is hanged for reportedly attempting to escape from the Tower of London.
• November 28 – Edward, Earl of Warwick, last male member of the House of York, is executed for reportedly attempting to escape from the Tower of London.

Date unknown

• The French under Louis XII seize Milan, driving out Duke Ludovico Sforza. Leonardo da Vinci flees to Venice.
• Montenegro, the last free monarchy in the Balkans, is annexed by the Ottoman Empire as part of the sanjak of Shkodër.
• Johannes Trithemius inadvertently reveals interests in magic by writing a letter to a Carmelite monk about a treatise he was writing on steganography.
• Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa matriculates at Cologne University.