Ptolemy introduces Geography. He assigned coordinates to all the places and geographic features he knew, in a grid that spanned the globe. Latitude was measured from the equator.
(1406)John Wycliffe was an English Scholastic philosopher, and translator. His English version of the bible was published in 1408. The Bible he created, the first literal translation of the Latin Vulgate Bible into English, was more a work of his followers than him but tradition still tends to attribute it to Wycliffe. (1408)Henry IV was king of England from 1399 to 1413. King Henry IV married Joanna of Navarre during his reign in 1403.
King Henry IV suffered from an unnamed illness which caused him to die in 1413. Prince Hal succeeded his father to the throne of England as King Henry V. (1399-1413)During the Great Schism, there are two, and even three, rival claimant to the papacy. The election of Clement VII began the Great Schism. The great schism had a negative impact on the religious life of Catholic Europe.
The election of Martin V ended the great schism. (1378-1417)The election of Pope Martin V ends the great schism. The pope became actively involved in the political and cultural life of renaissance Italy and did little to deal with the much-needed reform of the Roman Catholic Church. This failure contributed the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. (1417)Portugal’s Prince Henry the navigator established a school of seamanship and navigation in 1419.
He was a son of Portugal’s King John I. During his reign the Portuguese explored the Madeira Islands and discovered the Cape Verde islands. (1419)Charles VI ruled France for forty two years. In 1388, Charles declared himself sole ruler. Four years later, he experienced his first bought of insanity.
He was the ruler of France during the Hundred Years War. In 1420, Charles signed the Treaty of Troyes which recognized Henry V of England as his successor. (1380-1422)Donatello sculpted the David. It is recorded as the centerpiece of the first courtyard in the Palazzo Medici during the wedding festivities of Lorenzo de' Medici and Clarice Orsini in 1469. It is probably the most famous example of fifteenth-century sculpture.
(1430-1432)Cosimo de’ Medici becomes the ruler of Florence. He was the first of the Medici political dynasty. Cosimo was effectively in control of the city but he ruled by pretending not to rule at all. He didn't hold any public office but rather filled the city council with loyal followers. (1434)Portuguese transport around two hundred slaves from Africa to Portugal.
Prince Henry's chamberlain led up the exploration. This was the beginning of what would become the African Slave Trade. These voyages reflected the change in policy from simply expanding overseas trade to finding a specific sea route to India. (1441)The Portuguese establish a slave-trading station in West Africa.
The Europeans exchanged rum, cloth, guns, and other trade goods for their human cargo. The slaves were transported across the Atlantic Ocean primarily to Brazil, the West Indies and the English colonies in North America. (1442)Hapsburg got elected into Holy Roman Empire. The Holy Roman Empire grew to be a large political entity but faced serious problems that brought it close to the point of disintegration. Though the Habsburg Empire and the Holy Roman Empire were two distinct political entities, the Habsburg dynasty continued to assume the title of Emperor.
(1452)The Hundred Years War ends. In July 1453 a French army defeated Talbot at Castillon and Talbot himself. When it was clear that no more help would come from England, Bordeaux surrendered. This war marked the end of English attempts to control continental territory and the beginning of its emphasis upon maritime supremacy. (1453)The War of the Roses was an international argument, between the House of York and the Lancastrians, for the throne of England.
The Battle of Stoke Field is usually considered the final battle of the War of the Roses. It lasted for thirty years. England is torn by the Wars of the Roses. The cause of the wars dates back to the reign of Edward III and the power struggle between his sons after his death. The War of the Roses finally ended with Britain's Tudors on the throne. (1455-1485)Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press and printed the first edition of the Bible.
The Gutenberg printing press was developed from the technology of the screw-type wine presses of the Rhine Valley. It in 1440 that Johannes Gutenberg created his printing press, a hand press, in which ink was rolled over the raised surfaces of moveable hand-set block letters held within a wooden form and the form was then pressed against a sheet of paper. (1456)The Ottoman Turks took over Serbia in 1459 with the fall of Smederevo to Ottomans marked the end of the medieval Serbian county and 1835 when First Constitution was written which established Serbia as independent parliamentary Principality. The first mayor defeat of Serb forces occurred in 1389. Add to that the final defeat of the Turks in the First Balkan War 1912. The Ottoman Turks took over for about 523 years.
(1459)Louis XI becomes king of France. He was a monarch of the House of Valois who ruled as King of France from 1461 to 1483. He succeeded his father Charles VII. Louis pursued many of the same goals that his father had, such as limiting the powers of the dukes and barons of France, with consistently greater success. Louis successfully defended Paris, but in October, 1465, he granted the demands of the rebels in the treaties of Conflans and Saint-Maur-des-Fossés.
He soon violated the treaties, taking Normandy from his brother Charles, to whom it had been granted. He died in 1483 and was succeeded by his son Charles VIII. (1461)Ferdinand of Aragon marries Isabella of Castile. Their marriage unifies Spain. They spent their dual reign securing territory on the Iberian Peninsula through their conquest of Granada and Navarre, and expanded into the Americas and the Mediterranean. The kingdom of Castile included Galicia, Asturias, Leon, and Andalucia.
The kingdom of Aragon included Catalonia and Valencia. n 1492, Castile funded Christopher Columbus’s attempt to discover a new route to the Indies, and from these explorations developed overseas colonies in the Americas, the growth of which caused an economic flourishing in Spain. (1469)Lorenzo de’ Medici becomes the ruler of Florence. He was asked by a delegation of eminent citizens to take control of the state. This he did, ruling as his father and grandfather had done, from behind the scenes and without holding any public office. Lorenzo de’ Medici ruled Florence with his brother Giuliano from 1469 to 1478.
He succeeded his father, Piero de' Medici, as head of the Medici family and as virtual ruler of Florence and as one of the towering figures of the Italian Renaissance. (1469)Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain employ the Spanish Inquisition to investigate whether converted Jews are secretly clinging to Judaism. The King and Queen had been reluctant to begin the Inquisition since the Church would need to take some of their independence for the Inquisition to work. Queen Isabella was counseled by Thomas de Torquemada to allow the Inquisition to begin. She initially resisted, but after some time finally agreed to solicit a Papal Bull from Pope Sixtus the IV.
(1480)The Portuguese traded gold, various crops, and people started in 1482. This was the Portuguese Slave trade. Eventually, in some Cities all they had to trade were slaves. In 1482 they built the Sao Jorge Castle, to help support their trade networks and fend off European competitors. St. George's Castle was the first fortified European trade post in sub-Saharan Africa.
(1482)Bartholomew Diaz rounds the Cape of Good Hope. Bartholomew Diaz, was a Portuguese navigator whose discovery in 1488 of the Cape of Good Hope showed Europeans there was a feasible route to India around the storm-driven southern tip of Africa. He also discovered for Europe the south-east trade winds and south of South Africa, thus establishing the wind system for those who sailed after him. For some days without sighting land, Bartholomew Diaz and his crew unwittingly rounded the Cape of Good Hope in late January 1488.
(1488)Christopher Columbus discovers the New World. He was an explorer and navigator. His first voyage into the Atlantic Ocean in 1476 nearly cost him his life. Columbus participated in several other expeditions to Africa. 1492, Columbus left Spain in the Santa Maria, with the Pinta and the Niña alongside. He has been credited for opening up the Americas to European colonization.
Columbus was funded by Queen Isabella of Spain. He went on four transatlantic voyages which opened the European to exploration, exploitation, and colonization of the Americas. (1492)Jews were expelled from Spain. The Alhambra Decree is the decree of expulsion promulgated by Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain in 1492, which forced the Spanish Jews, the Sephardim, to leave Spain forever.
(1492)The Turks captured Constantinople. The Fall of Constantinople was the last battle of the Byzantine Empire, losing to the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire used defensive tactics and slowly pushed towards Constantinople until they finally defeated the Byzantine Empire. (1492)Pope Alexander VI establishes the papal Line of Demarcation.
There are several Lines of Demarcation. The most famous is dealt with the discovery of the new world and dividing it up among European powers. The papal line of Demarcation was to assign colonial spheres of interest in the Americas to Portugal and Spain. Portugal was assigned Brazil, the west and east coasts of Africa, the southern and eastern shores of Asia, and the East Indies.
Spain was assigned the Americas, the Philippines, and lands encountered by or to be encountered by Columbus. (1493)France, under King Charles VIII invaded Italy. It proved to be as climactic an event for the rest of Europe as it was for Italy. It was the first of many invasions of Italy by foreign powers that drew these countries into the orbit of Italian politics and, simultaneously, launched Italy into the insatiable jaws of foreign powers. (1494)Leonardo de Vinci paints the Last Supper. He began working on it in 1495, and finished Last Supper in 1498.
Last Supper is Leonardo's visual interpretation of an event chronicled in all four of the Gospels. The disciples are all displaying very human, identifiable emotions in the Last Supper. (1495-1498)John Cabot explores the northeast coast of North America. He was an Italian navigator and explorer. He was under the commission of Henry VII of England for his expatiations.
He was the first European to reach the coast of North America after the end of Leif Ericson’s colonies. Cabot believed that he had reached the Indies, like Columbus. (1497-1498)Vasco Da Gama reaches Calicut on India’s Malabar Coast. Da Gama sailed from Lisbon, Portugal, in July 1497, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and anchored at Malindi on the east coast of Africa. With the aid of an Indian merchant he met there, he then set off across the Indian Ocean and he led a squadron of ships to Calicut to avenge the massacre of Portuguese explorers there and succeeded in subduing the inhabitants.
(1498)Amerigo Vespucci makes two voyages of exploration along the Atlantic coast of South America. He was an Italian-born merchant and explorer who took part in early voyages to the New World on behalf of Spain. In the voyage of 1499–1500 Vespucci would seem to have left Ojeda after reaching the coast of what is now Guyana. Turning south, he is believed to have discovered the mouth of the Amazon River and to have gone as far as Cape St. Augustine.
(1499-1500)
