1494

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Year 1494 (MCDXCIV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar).

Events

January–December

• January 4 – The Cetinje Octoechos (Цетињски октоих, an Eastern Orthodox octoechos (liturgy), first tone), the first incunabulum written in the Serbian recension of Church Slavonic and the first book printed in Cyrillic in Southeast Europe, is completed in Cetinje.
• January 25 – Alfonso II becomes King of Naples.
• May – Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, recognises Perkin Warbeck as rightful King of England.^[1]
• May 5 – Christopher Columbus first sights Jamaica.
• May 7 – The infant Amda Seyon II succeeds his father Eskender as Emperor of Ethiopia.
• 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 invites Charles VIII of France to invade Italy in support of his claim, beginning the Italian War of 1494–98.
• October 26 – Amda Seyon II is deposed and killed and his uncle Na'od succeeds him as Emperor of Ethiopia.
• November 9 – The house of Medici are expelled from Florence.
• 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 – Italian War of 1494–98: 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

• Aztec forces conquer and sack Mitla.
• 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.

Births

Suleiman the Magnificent

Francis I of France

• February 2 – Bona Sforza, queen of Sigismund I of Poland (d. 1557)
• March 24 – Georgius Agricola, German mineralogist and scholar (d. 1555)
• April 20 – Johannes Agricola, German Protestant reformer (d. 1566)
• May 24 – Pontormo, Italian painter (d. 1557)
• September 12 – King Francis I of France (d. 1547)
• November 5 – Hans Sachs, German Meistersinger (d. 1576)
• November 6 – Suleiman the Magnificent, Ottoman Sultan (d. 1566)
• November (probable) – François Rabelais, French Renaissance writer (d. 1553)
• date unknown
  • Alonso Álvarez de Pineda, Spanish explorer and cartographer (d. 1519)
  • Christina Gyllenstierna, Swedish national heroine (d. 1559)
  • Ambrosius Holbein, German painter (d. 1519)
  • Qiu Ying, Chinese painter (d. 1552)
  • Saitō Dōsan, Japanese warlord (k. 1556)
  • John Sutton, 3rd Baron Dudley (d. 1554)
  • Hans Tausen, Danish religious reformer (d. 1561)

Deaths

• January 11 – Domenico Ghirlandaio, Italian artist (b. 1449)
• January 25 – King Ferdinand I of Naples (b. 1423)
• May 7 – Eskender, Emperor of Ethiopia (b. 1471)
• August 1 – Giovanni Santi, artist and father of Raphael (b. c. 1435)
• August 11 – Hans Memling, Flemish painter (b. c. 1430)
• September 24 – Poliziano, Italian humanist (b. 1454)
• October 26 – Amda Seyon II, Emperor of Ethiopia (b. c. 1487)
• November 8 – Melozzo da Forlì, painter (b. c. 1438)
• November 17 – Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Italian humanist (b. 1463)
• December 19/20 – Matteo Maria Boiardo, Italian poet (b. c. 1434-1441)

References