January–March •
January 13 – In Austria, the
siege of Wiener Neustadt by the
Kingdom of Hungary begins and will last for more than a year and a half before the city is surrendered to Hungary and is renamed Biencújhely. As part of the terms of peace, Austria cedes much of the territory of
Lower Austria to the Hungarian King Matthias Corvinus. •
January 18 – King
Henry VII of England and
Elizabeth of York are married, uniting the
House of Lancaster and the
House of York, and ceremonially ending the
Wars of the Roses. •
February 16 – Archduke
Maximilian I of Habsburg is elected
King of the Romans at
Frankfurt. •
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. • At a meeting of six electors of the Holy Roman Empire at
Frankfurt-am-Main, the
Archduke Maximilian of Austria, is elected as the
King of the Romans and ruler of the Germans, as the son of
Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor. •
March 1 – King
James III of Scotland gives
royal assent to
acts passed by the
Scottish Parliament, including the Tallow Act, the Hides Act and the Currency Act. •
March 4 – The first English Parliament of King Henry VII is dissolved after more than four months. •
March 6 –
John Morton is appointed by King Henry VII as the Lord Chancellor of England and chief justice of the Court of Chancery. •
March 10 – The government of the Free Imperial City of
Köln (Cologne), now part of
Germany, begins the removal of all prostitutes from the city. •
March 11 – In
Berlin,
Johann von Hohenzollern becomes the new
Elector of Brandenburg, the independent Electorate within the Holy Roman Empire, upon the death of his father, the Elector
Albrecht III Achilles. •
March 23 – After getting into a war with the Kingdom of Naples by siding with rebels in the Barons' Conspiracy,
Pope Innocent VIII sends the Papal Legate,
Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere (who will become later become Pope Julius II), as an envoy to the Kingdom of France to seek assistance from
King Charles VIII. King Charles sends a delegation to Rome two months later, with no resolution made.
April–June •
April 9 – The coronation of Maximilian the First as "King of the Romans" takes place at
Aachen, in that the Holy Roman Imperial capital of
Vienna was captured by Hungary. •
April 21 – The adoption of the
Sentència Arbitral de Guadalupe ends the
War of the Remences, in the
Principality of Catalonia. •
April 23 – The
Stafford and Lovell rebellion is started against King Henry VII of England by three
House of York supporters, Sir Humphrey Stafford, Thomas Stafford and
Francis Lovell, 1st Viscount Lovell, who had hoped to restore the Yorkist monarchy led by the late King Richard III. •
May 1 – After being rejected twice by Portugal's King Joao II, Italian-born explorer
Christopher Columbus (Cristoforo Colombo) is granted an audience by Queen Isabella I of Castile and presents to her his proposal to sail westward to find an alternate route to Asia. The Queen refers the matter to a committee of experts, who conclude (as the Portuguese advisers did in 1484) that Columbus has underestimated the distance to Asia. However, she and King Ferdinand of Aragon elect to keep Columbus from taking his plans elsewhere, and grant him an allowance of 14,000
maravedis per year, and an expense account for food and lodging while in Spain. •
May 13 – Humphrey Stafford and his brother Thomas Stafford, who had been given
sanctuary by the church at
Culham,
Oxfordshire, are forcibly removed by
Sir John Savage and 60 armed men on charges of treason. Protests are made to Pope Innocent VIII against the breaking of the right of sanctuary in the Roman Catholic Church, and while Thomas is pardoned by King Henry, Humphrey is executed for treason on July 8. •
May 31 – The French delegation from King Charles arrives in Rome to discuss the assistance request from Pope Innocent, but negotiations fail because of Cardinal Borgia's support of the Spanish King of Naples. •
June 13 – King Henry VII of England issues a proclamation confirming that Pope Innocent VIII had issued a papal bull recognizing Henry's title as the rightful King. In the same proclamation, King Henry asserts that opposition to his title will be punishable by
excommunication under the papal bull, and declares that the marriage to Elizabeth of York ended "the variances, dissensions and debates that had been in the realm of England between the houses of the Dukes of Lancaster on the one part and the house of the Duchy of York on the other." King Henry uses the new technology of the printing press as his means of mass communication throughout England, and hires printer Walter de Machlinea mass produce the declaration for distribution.
July–September •
July 12 –
Pope Innocent VIII issues the
papal bull Catholice fidei defensionem, granting plenary indulgences to people who took part in the war of
Casimir IV Jagiellon against the Ottoman Empire. •
August 10 – The Papal States, led by Pope Innocent VIII, sign a treaty with King Ferrante of Naples to avoid an invasion. •
August 14 –
Marco Barbarigo,
Doge of the
Republic of Venice, dies after only nine months in office, and his brother
Agostino Barbarigo is elected to replace him. •
September 11 – The
Conspiracy of the Barons, a revolt by the Neapolitan nobility, begins in the
Kingdom of Naples with the rebels taking an oath at the
Chiesa di Sant'Antonio Abate in
Campania against the rule of
King Ferrante, the Spanish prince made King of Naples after the kingdom's conquest by the
Crown of Aragon. •
September 20 – An heir is born to
Elizabeth of York and
King Henry VII of England, being invested as
Arthur, Prince of Wales in 1490. Unfortunately, Arthur will die from an illness at age 15, seven years before the death of King Henry.
October–December •
October 6 –
Cardinal John Morton becomes the new Roman Catholic
Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of All England. • The
Siege of Retz in
Austria comes to an end after four days when the inhabitants surrender to the
Black Army of Hungary and King
Matthias Corvinus. •
October 14 – At
Srinagar (now in India),
Fateh Shah Miri becomes the new Sultan of Kashmir after defeating the Sultan
Muhammad Shah Mir. •
November 5 – At
Enniskillen, capital of the
Kingdom of Fermanagh in what is now
County Fermanagh on the Republic of Ireland's border with Northern Ireland,
King Éamonn mac Thomáis Óig abdicates and is succeeded briefly by his brother Thomáis Óg mac Thomáis Óig, who is deposed by Seánn mac Pilib meic Thomáis Mhóir before the end of the year. •
December 18 – The
Conspiracy of the Barons comes to an end when the Aragon troops and King Ferrante recapture the city of
Venosa.
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. •
Johann Reuchlin begins studying the
Hebrew language. • The first written use of the word
football is made to describe the ball itself. == Births ==