1502

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

Events

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

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),^[1] the Isthmus of Panama, Honduras, and Costa Rica.
• May 21 – Portuguese navigator João da Nova discovers the uninhabited island of Saint Helena. A 2015 paper has demonstrated that the traditional 21 May date is the Protestant feast day for Saint Helena (empress) and would not have been marked this day by the Portuguese because they were members of the Catholic Church and also because the island was discovered before the Reformation started.^[2] The paper also shows that the discovery date was quoted as 3 May during the 16th/17th centuries, corresponding to the Catholic Feast day of the True Cross, a date that is closely linked to the name of Saint Helena.

July–December

• July – Ismail I becomes Shah of Persia.^[3]
• August 14 – Christopher Columbus lands at Trujillo, and names the country 'Honduras'.
• September – A Greek and Italian parallel text edition of Herodotus' Histories, done for Count Matteo Maria Boiardo, is published in Venice by Aldus Manutius.
• September 18 – Christopher Columbus lands at Costa Rica.
• October 1 – An annular solar eclipse occurs.
• 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 (modern-day Haiti and Dominican Republic).
• Bristol merchants return from Newfoundland (first so named this year from a letter) to England, carrying three native people and cod from the Grand Banks.^[4][5]
• Moctezuma II is elected emperor of the Aztecs, following the death of Ahuitzotl.
• Meñli I Giray defeats the Golden Horde and sacks their capital, Sarai.
• 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.
• The King's School, Macclesfield, England, is founded by Sir John Percyvale.
• Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa is proceeded to the licentiate.
• Wilhelm Bombast moves to Villach with his son, Paracelsus.

Births

Elisabeth of Hesse, Hereditary Princess of Saxony

John Leland

• January 7 – Pope Gregory XIII (d. 1585)
• January 20 – Sebastian de Aparicio, Spanish colonial industrialist and saint in Mexico (d. 1600)
• February 2 – Damião de Góis, Portuguese philosopher (d. 1574)
• March 4 – Elisabeth of Hesse, Hereditary Princess of Saxony (d. 1557)
• March 18 – Philibert of Chalon, French nobleman (d. 1530)
• March 20 – Pierino Belli, Italian soldier and jurist (d. 1575)
• April 2 – Susanna of Bavaria, German noble, House of Wittelsbach (d. 1543)
• April 10 – Otto Henry, Count Palatine of Neuburg (1505–1559) and Elector Palatine (1556–1559) (d. 1559)
• April 25 – Georg Major, German Lutheran theologian (d. 1574)
• June 2 – Guillaume Bigot, French writer (d. 1550)
• June 7 – King John III of Portugal (d. 1557)
• July 26 – Christian Egenolff, German printer (d. 1555)
• July 27 – Francesco Corteccia, Italian composer (d. 1571)
• August 14 – Pieter Coecke van Aelst, Flemish painter (d. 1550)
• September 14 – Louis II, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken, Duke of Zweibrücken from 1514 to 1532 (d. 1532)
• December 6 – Anna of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Duchess consort of Pomerania (d. 1568)
• December 13 – George III, Landgrave of Leuchtenberg (d. 1555)
• date unknown
  • Anthony Maria Zaccaria, Cremonese founder of the Barnabite Order and saint (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)
  • Francesco Spiera, Protestant Italian jurist (d. 1543)
• probable
  • Elizabeth Blount, English courtier, mistress of King Henry VIII of England (d. 1540)
  • Cuauhtémoc, last Aztec ruler (Tlatoani) of Tenochtitlán and the last "Aztec Emperor" (d. 1525)
  • Blaise de Lasseran-Massencôme, seigneur de Montluc, marshal of France (approximate date; d. 1577)
  • Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland, English courtier (d. 1537)

Deaths

Hedwig Jagiellon, Duchess of Bavaria

Arthur, Prince of Wales

January–June

• February 18 – Hedwig Jagiellon, Duchess of Bavaria (b. 1457)
• March – Francesco Laurana, Dalmatian-born sculptor (b. c. 1430)
• March 2 – Jan I Carondelet, Burgundian jurist and politician (b. 1428)
• April 2 – Arthur, Prince of Wales, English prince, eldest son of Henry VII of England (b. 1486)
• April 15 – John IV of Chalon-Arlay, Prince of Orange (1475–1502) (b. 1443)
• April 20 – Maria of Loon-Heinsberg, Dutch noble (b. 1426)
• May 4 – Berthold II of Landsberg, Bishop of Verden (1470–1502) and Hildesheim (1481–1502) (b. 1464)
• May 6 – James Tyrrell, English knight, alleged murderer of the princes in the Tower (executed) (b. c. 1450)
• June 9 – Astorre III Manfredi, Italian noble (b. 1485)

July–December

• July 15 – Luka Radovanović, Catholic priest (b. 1425)
• August 18 – Knut Alvsson, Norwegian nobleman and politician (b. 1455)
• August 31 – Thomas Wode, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas
• September 1 – Sōgi, Japanese Buddhist priest and poet (b. 1421)
• October 14 – Diego Hurtado de Mendoza y Quiñones, Spanish noble (b. 1444)
• November 10 – George I of Münsterberg, Imperial Prince, Duke of Münsterberg and Oels, Graf von Glatz (b. 1470)
• November 13 – Annio da Viterbo, Italian Dominican friar and scholar (b. 1432)
• December 31
  • Oliverotto Euffreducci, Italian politician (b. 1475)
  • Vitellozzo Vitelli, Italian condottiero (b. c. 1458)
• date unknown
  • Ahuitzotl, Aztec ruler of Tenochtitlan
  • Octavien de Saint-Gelais, French churchman, poet and translator (b. 1468)
  • Gwerful Mechain, Welsh erotic poet (b. c. 1460?)

References