1502

This article is about the year 1502.

Italian translation of Herodotus' Histories done for Count Matteo Maria Boiardo and published in Venice, Aldine Press in 1502.

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	15th century – 16th century – 17th century
Decades:	1470s  1480s  1490s  – 1500s –  1510s  1520s  1530s
Years:	1499 1500 1501 – 1502 – 1503 1504 1505

1502 by topic

Arts and science

Architecture - Art - Literature - Music - Science

Lists of leaders

Colonial governors - State leaders

Birth and death categories

Births - Deaths

Establishments and disestablishments categories

Establishments - Disestablishments

Works category

Works

1502 in other calendars

Gregorian calendar	1502 MDII
Ab urbe condita	2255
Armenian calendar	951 ԹՎ ՋԾԱ
Assyrian calendar	6252
Bahá'í calendar	-342–-341
Bengali calendar	909
Berber calendar	2452
English Regnal year	17 Hen. 7 – 18 Hen. 7
Buddhist calendar	2046
Burmese calendar	864
Byzantine calendar	7010–7011
Chinese calendar	辛酉年十一月廿三日 (4138/4198-11-23) — to — 壬戌年十二月初三日 (4139/4199-12-3)
Coptic calendar	1218–1219
Ethiopian calendar	1494–1495
Hebrew calendar	5262–5263
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	1558–1559
- Shaka Samvat	1424–1425
- Kali Yuga	4603–4604
Holocene calendar	11502
Iranian calendar	880–881
Islamic calendar	907–908
Japanese calendar	Bunki 2 (文亀2年)
Korean calendar	3835
Minguo calendar	410 before ROC 民前410年
Thai solar calendar	2045

Year 1502 (MDII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.

Events

January–June

• January 1 – Portuguese explorers, led by Pedro Álvares Cabral, sail into Guanabara Bay, Brazil, mistaking it for the mouth of a river, which they name Rio de Janeiro.
• May 11 – Christopher Columbus leaves Cadiz, Spain for his fourth and final trip to the 'New World'. He explores Central America, and discovers St. Lucia (possibly), the Isthmus of Panama, Honduras, and Costa Rica.
• May 21 – Portuguese navigator João da Nova discovers the island of Saint Helena.

July–December

• August 14 – Christopher Columbus lands at Trujillo and names the country 'Honduras'.
• September 18 – Christopher Columbus lands at Costa Rica.
• November 7 – Columbus reaches the coast of Honduras and passes south to Panama.
• December 26 – Cesare Borgia kills Ramiro D'Orco; this incident is referenced in Machiavelli's The Prince
• December 31 – Cesare Borgia (son of Pope Alexander VI) occupies Urbino, where he imprisons two potentially treacherous allies, Vitellozzo and Oliveretto; he executes them the next morning.

Date unknown

• The first African slaves brought to the New World arrive at the island of Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and Dominican Republic).
• Ivan III of Russia and Meñli I Giray of Crimea attack the Grand Duchy of Lithuania without much success.
• Meñli I Giray of Crimea destroys Saray, capital of the Big Horde.
• Aztec ruler Auitzotl dies; Moctezuma II is elected emperor.
• 'Newfoundland' gets its name from a letter.
• Wittenberg University is founded.
• In Germany, Peter Henlein of Nuremberg uses iron parts and coiled springs to build a portable timepiece.
• In Italy, Asher Lämmlein declares that the Jewish Messiah will arrive in the next 6 months, resulting in the 'year of penance.'
• Ismail I starts to rule.
• The King's School in Macclesfield is founded by Sir John Percyvale.
• Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa is proceeded to licentiate.
• Wilhelm Bombast moves to Villach with his son, Paracelsus.
• An Italian translation of Herodotus' Histories done for Count Matteo Maria Boiardo is published in Venice.

Births

• January 7 – Pope Gregory XIII (d. 1585)
• February 2 – Damião de Góis, Portuguese philosopher (d. 1574)
• March 20 – Pierino Belli, Italian soldier and jurist (d. 1575)
• April 25 – Georg Major, German Lutheran theologian (d. 1574)
• June 6 – King John III of Portugal (d. 1557)
• September 13 – John Leland, English antiquarian (d. 1552)
• date unknown
  • St. Anthony Maria Zaccaria, founder of the Barnabite Order (d. 1539)
  • Takeno Joou, Japanese tea practicer of the Sengoku period (d. 1555)
  • Miguel López de Legazpi, Spanish conquistador (d. 1572)
  • Pedro Nunes, Portuguese mathematician (d. 1578)
  • Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland, English courtier (d. 1537)
  • Francesco Spiera, Protestant Italian jurist (d. 1543)
• probable
  • Elizabeth Blount, mistress of King Henry VIII (d. 1540)
  • Cuauhtémoc, last Aztec ruler (Tlatoani) of Tenochtitlán and the last "Aztec Emperor" (d. 1525)
  • Stephen Hawes, English poet (d. c. 1521)
  • Blaise de Lasseran-Massencôme, seigneur de Montluc, marshal of France (approximate date; d. 1577)
  • Dante Grey, Hero that killed the devil in Roland Evans' book (d. 1502)

Deaths

• April 2 – Arthur, Prince of Wales, eldest son of Henry VII of England (b. 1486)
• May 6 – James Tyrrell, alleged murderer of the princes in the Tower (executed) (b. c. 1450)
• September 1 – Sōgi, Buddhist priest and Japanese poet (b. 1421)
• November 13 – Annio da Viterbo, Dominican friar and scholar
• December 31 – Vitellozzo Vitelli, condottiero
• date unknown
  • Auitzotl, Aztec ruler of Tenochtitlan
  • Margaret Drummond, mistress of James IV of Scotland (b. c. 1475)
  • Francesco Laurana, sculptor
  • Octavien de Saint-Gelais, poet and translator (b. 1468)
  • Alvise Vivarini, Italian painter (b. c. 1446)
  • Matthias of Geatland, the Waffle Knight of legend