Events, Verisoph

1436 Brunelleschi crowns Florence with a dome 0 cit. Filippo Brunelleschi completes the great dome of Florence's cathedral, the largest masonry dome ever raised and long thought impossible to build. Drawing on the study of ancient Roman engineering, it became the signature monument of the early Renaissance. culture / technology ●●●

1437 All Souls College endowed by Henry Chichele ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Quigley describes All Souls as a peculiar Oxford college with no undergraduates. Its endowment was set up in 1437 by Henry Chichele, later Archbishop of Canterbury, from suppressed priories. ●●

c. 1438 Founding of the Inca Empire 0 cit. Pachacuti transformed the kingdom of Cusco into the vast Inca Empire. It became the largest empire in the pre-Columbian Americas, spanning the Andes. politics ●●●●●

c. 1438 Pachacuti and the imperial expansion legendary 0 cit. After turning back a Chanca attack on Cusco, the ruler Pachacuti launches the conquests that turn the Inca kingdom into an empire. He and his successors, Tupac Inca Yupanqui and Huayna Capac, extend Inca rule along the Andes over roughly the next century. Pachacuti is also credited by tradition with rebuilding Cusco and beginning Machu Picchu. politics / war ●●

1438 The Habsburgs begin their near-monopoly on the crown 0 cit. From Albert II onward, the Habsburg dynasty held the imperial title almost without a break until the empire ended. The office stayed formally elective, but in practice one family kept passing it down. The Habsburgs' own lands, not the empire's institutions, became the true source of their power. politics ●●●

1439 Council of Florence hosted with Medici funds 0 cit. Cosimo helped bring the great church council to Florence in 1439, where Eastern and Western churches briefly agreed on union. His patronage raised the city's prestige and brought Greek scholars to Italy. culture / religion ●●●

c. 1440 Gutenberg's printing press 0 cit. Johannes Gutenberg develops printing with movable metal type around 1440. Cheap, fast reproduction of texts spreads literacy and new ideas, fueling the Reformation and the Scientific Revolution. culture / technology ●●●●●

1440 Lorenzo Valla exposes the Donation of Constantine 0 cit. The humanist scholar Lorenzo Valla used linguistic analysis to prove that the Donation of Constantine was a medieval forgery. His work undercut a long standing legal basis for papal claims to temporal rule. politics / religion / science ●●●

c. 1440 Gutenberg's printing press spreads learning 0 cit. Around 1440 Johannes Gutenberg developed movable-type printing in Europe, making books far cheaper and more plentiful. Printing spread literacy and ideas and transformed how knowledge was shared. culture / technology ●●●●●

c. 1440 Media, education, and information 0 cit. The power to inform, persuade, and shape belief. From the printing press through mass media, schooling, propaganda, and the internet, whoever controls information shapes how societies see themselves and the world. pillar / society / technology ●●●●●

c. 1440 Donatello revives the free-standing nude 0 cit. Donatello casts a bronze David, the first free-standing nude statue since antiquity, for a Medici courtyard. His return to the classical human form set the course for a century of Renaissance sculpture. culture / religion ●●●

1441 Event of 1441 rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story ein “ultimately ceased all cooperation with UNSCOM [the UN Special Commission charged with weapons inspections] and the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] in 1998,” expelling the UN inspectors the cease-fire had obliged him to accept. In Novem ●●

August 1444 Portugal opens the Atlantic slave trade 0 cit. In August 1444 a Portuguese company auctioned more than 200 enslaved Africans at Lagos, the first large sale of its kind in Europe. It marked the start of a direct European maritime trade in African captives sponsored by Prince Henry. economy / exploration ●●●●●

August 1444 The first enslaved Africans are shipped to Portugal 0 cit. A company of merchants lands a cargo of enslaved West Africans at Lagos in the Algarve and sells them in a public auction, an event the chronicler Zurara described in detail. It marks the start of the Atlantic slave trade carried by European ships, a traffic Portugal would pioneer and lead for over a century. economy / society ●●●

1445 Ye Zongliu's miners' uprising in Ming China ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Between 1445 and 1449 silver miners led by Ye Zongliu joined with tenant farmers and the urban poor in Fujian and Shaxian. Their uprising spread across provinces and seized several cities. ●●

1448 Moscow elects a metropolitan without Constantinople ai_extracted 1 cit. no story In 1448 , a bishop from Riazan was chosen the metropolitan of Moscow without bothering to get the approval of the patriarch in Con stantinople. ●●

1448 Francesco Sforza defeats Venetians at Caravaggio ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Francesco Sforza defeated the Venetian forces at Caravaggio in 1448, then strategically allied with them against the Duke of Milan. ●●

1449 Purity-of-blood statutes target converts by descent 0 cit. A revolt in Toledo produced the first limpieza de sangre statute, barring people of Jewish ancestry from offices and guilds even when they and their families were baptized Christians. The doctrine moved suspicion from religion to blood, treating converso descent as a permanent stain. It marked a turn toward judging people by ancestry rather than faith, an idea the Church itself questioned at first before it spread across Spain. politics / religion / society ●●●

c. 1449 The purity of blood statutes 0 cit. Riots in Toledo in 1449 produced the first limpieza de sangre, or purity of blood, statutes, which barred people of Jewish ancestry, even baptized Christians, from offices, guilds and religious orders. The obsession with tainted blood spread through Spanish institutions and much of the Church despite early papal objections. The statutes shaped Spanish life and endured formally into the nineteenth century. politics / religion / society ●●

c. 1450 Fall of Great Zimbabwe 0 cit. Around 1450 the city of Great Zimbabwe was largely abandoned as its power and trade declined. The stone-built capital of a wealthy southern African state gave way to successor kingdoms. economy / politics ●●●

c. 1450 Ming rebuilding of the Great Wall 0 cit. The Ming rebuilt the Great Wall in brick and stone to guard against Mongol raids. Most of the wall standing today dates from this period. technology / war ●●●●

c. 1450 The Ottoman devshirme 0 cit. The Ottoman state levied Christian boys from the Balkans, converted them to Islam and trained them as soldiers and officials. The most famous became the elite Janissary infantry that served the sultan. politics / religion ●●●

c. 1450 The Renaissance revives the classical gods in art and learning 0 cit. Renaissance artists and scholars returned to Greek and Roman myth, painting Venus, Apollo, and the Muses and reading the ancient poets closely. The gods lived on as cultural symbols rather than objects of worship. culture / society ●●

1450 The “European Miracle”15 Why was it among the rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story It was, as noted above, in this broad period from 1450 to 1600 that “gunpowder empires” were established elsewhere. Muscovy, Tokugawa Japan, and Mogul India provide excellent examples of how great sta ●●

1450 War, Money, and the Nation-State Let us now rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The post-1450 waging of war was intimately connected with “the birth of the nation-state.”88 Between the late fifteenth and the late seventeenth centuries, most European countries witnessed a centrali ●●

1450 Reform (1450) rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story 62. On English economic history in this period, see Cipolla, Before the Industrial Revolution, pp. 276–96; D. C. Coleman, The Economy of England 1450–1750 (Oxford, 1977); B. Murphy ●●

1450 War (1450) rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story don, 1973), pt. 1, ch. 4; C. Hill, Reformation to Industrial Revolution (Harmondsworth, Mddsx. 1969); R. Davis, English Overseas Trade 1500–1700 (London, 1973). Among the more prom ●●

1450 Hastings, The Church in Africa 1450-1950 (Oxford, 1994), which is unfair competition rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Hastings, The Church in Africa 1450-1950 (Oxford, 1994), which is unfair competition for a wise and informative longer survey also principally authored by a European who made Africa his life, B ●●

c. 1450 Swiss Mercenary Pikemen Dominate European Warfare 0 cit. Swiss cantons hired out disciplined pike infantry to European rulers, and Swiss mercenaries became the most sought-after soldiers on Renaissance battlefields, fighting for whichever prince paid them. Their success helped make mercenary armies the dominant model of Renaissance warfare, especially in Italy, where city-states relied on hired captains called condottieri. This reliance on paid outsiders rather than citizen soldiers drew sharp criticism from contemporaries who saw it as corrosive to the state. economy / war ●●

c. 1450 The millet system governs religious communities 0 cit. The Ottomans organize non-Muslim subjects into self-governing religious communities, or millets, each running its own courts, schools, and charities under its own leaders. Christians and Jews paid a special tax and faced legal limits but were allowed to practice their faith. The system gave the empire a workable way to rule a vast, mixed population, though it fell short of modern equality. politics / religion / society ●●

c. 1450 The devshirme and the Janissary corps 0 cit. Through the devshirme, the state periodically levied Christian boys from the Balkans, converted them to Islam, and trained them for army and government service. The most famous were the Janissaries, an elite standing infantry loyal to the sultan. The system produced skilled administrators and soldiers, but the Janissaries later grew into a powerful faction that resisted reform. politics / society / war ●●

1451 Death rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story When Mehmet II's father, Murad II, died in 1451 , he left two sons from two different mothers. Immediately upon becoming sultan, Mehmet II ordered the execution of the other son, a... ●●

c. 1451 The documented Genoese origins of Columbus 0 cit. Notarial records and Columbus's own references point to his birth around 1451 in or near Genoa, the son of a wool weaver named Domenico Colombo. This Genoese origin is the mainstream scholarly view, supported by contemporary documents. It stands against the various later theories, including secret-Jewish, Catalan, and Portuguese origin claims, which lack comparable evidence. culture / society ●

c. 1451 Columbus is born in Genoa 0 cit. The documentary record places Christopher Columbus's birth around 1451 in the Republic of Genoa, the son of a wool weaver. His years as a sailor and merchant across the Mediterranean and Atlantic shaped the ambitions that led to his voyages west. culture / society ●●

18 June 1452 Dum Diversas authorizes enslavement 0 cit. Pope Nicholas V granted the king of Portugal the right to conquer non-Christian peoples and reduce them to perpetual slavery. The bull is counted among the texts later linked to the Doctrine of Discovery. economy / politics / religion ●●●

1452 Frederick III, the last emperor crowned in Rome 0 cit. Frederick III was the last emperor to travel to Rome to be crowned by the pope in person. Later emperors were crowned in Germany, and the papal coronation faded away. The change marked the slow loosening of the tie between empire and papacy. politics / religion ●

29 May 1453 Fall of Constantinople 0 cit. Ottoman forces under Mehmed II storm Constantinople, ending the Byzantine Empire after more than a thousand years. The conquest secures Ottoman power, pushes Greek scholars west, and spurs Europe to seek new sea routes to Asia. politics / war ●●●●●

1453 Reign rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story For the Ottomans, conquest of Constantinople-the second Rome-in 1453 and Suleiman's extensions of the realm seemed to fulfill a destiny going back to Alexander the Great. For the H... ●●

1453 1The Rise of the Western World In the rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Over much of the western world there still hung the shock of the fall of Constantinople in 1453, an event which seemed the more pregnant because it by no means marked the limits of the Ottoman Turks’ ●●

1453 A fuller discussion of that specific Habsburg attempt rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Gigantic wrought-iron tubes that fired a stone ball and made an immense noise obviously looked impressive and at times had results; it was that type which was used by the Turks to bombard the walls of ●●

1453 War (1453) rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story cal Reliability in the Eastern European Warsaw Pact Armies,” Armed Forces and Society 6 (1980). Herwig, H.H. Politics of Frustration: The United States in German Naval Planning, 1 ●●

1453 The fall of Constantinople scatters Greek learning west 0 cit. When the Ottomans take Constantinople, Byzantine scholars flee to Italy carrying Greek manuscripts of Plato, Aristotle, and the ancients. The influx of long-lost texts helped ignite the Renaissance revival of classical knowledge. culture / war ●●●●

1453 Fall of Constantinople ends the Byzantine Empire ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Final collapse of Byzantine Empire with fall of Constantinople, marking end of Eastern Roman Christian power. ●●

29 May 1453 Fall of Constantinople and the end of the Byzantine Empire 1 cit. Mehmed II takes Constantinople after a seven-week siege, using massive cannon to breach the ancient walls. The last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI, dies in the fighting, ending the Roman imperial line that had lasted since antiquity. The city becomes the Ottoman capital and Mehmed takes the title of conqueror. politics / religion / war ●●●

29 May 1453 The fall of Constantinople ends the Roman Empire 0 cit. After a siege of some seven weeks the army of the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II, aided by massive cannon, breached the ancient walls, and the last emperor, Constantine XI, died in the fighting. The fall ended the Roman Empire after about fifteen hundred years and turned the Hagia Sophia into a mosque. Mehmed made the city his capital, and it became the seat of Ottoman power for centuries. politics / religion / war ●●●

c. 1453 Greek scholars carry the classics west 0 cit. In the years around the fall, Byzantine scholars fled to Italy carrying Greek manuscripts of Plato, Aristotle, and the ancient authors, along with the skill to read them. Their teaching fed the humanist revival already under way and helped spread firsthand knowledge of Greek antiquity in the Latin west. The dying empire's last great gift was the learning it had guarded for a thousand years. culture / society ●●

9 April 1454 Treaty of Lodi 0 cit. Peace between Milan, Venice, and Florence that established a balance of power among the Italian states. It brought four decades of relative stability to Renaissance Italy. diplomacy / politics / war ●●●

1454 to 1466 Thirteen Years' War 0 cit. no story Poland and the rebellious Prussian cities defeat the Teutonic Order in a thirteen-year war. The peace gives Poland access to the Baltic and reduces the Order to a Polish vassal. war ●●

22 May 1455 to 16 June 1487 Wars of the Roses wikidata 0 cit. no story dynastic civil war in England from 1455 to 1487 ●●●●

8 January 1455 Romanus Pontifex sanctions colonial conquest 0 cit. Pope Nicholas V confirmed Portugal's claim to lands and trade along the African coast and the enslavement of their peoples. It gave Church backing to early European colonial expansion. economy / exploration / politics / religion ●●●

8 January 1455 Papal bull sanctions enslavement 0 cit. The bull Romanus Pontifex granted Portugal the right to seize lands and enslave non-Christians along the African coast. Church authority gave the emerging trade a legal and religious cover. politics / religion ●●●

11 September 1457 Battle of Albulena wikidata 0 cit. no story 1457 battle ●●

1460 Corpus Hermeticum reaches Medici Florence ai_extracted 1 cit. no story A Greek manuscript containing the Corpus Hermeticum was brought to Florence from Macedonia by one of Cosimo de' Medici's agents. ●●

c. 1462 Cosimo de' Medici founds the Platonic Academy 0 cit. The banker Cosimo de' Medici endows a Platonic Academy in Florence and sets Marsilio Ficino to translating the ancient philosophers. Medici gold turned the recovery of pagan antiquity into the beating heart of the Renaissance. culture / economy ●●●

1462 The monti di pieta and Christian pawnbroking 0 cit. Franciscan friars set up the first monte di pieta, a charitable Christian pawnshop offering low-cost loans to the poor, and the model spread across Catholic Europe. These institutions were partly meant to replace Jewish lenders, and they charged fees that amounted to interest of their own. Christian society built its own credit machinery, showing that the demand for loans, not any Jewish scheme, drove medieval lending. economy / religion ●

1463 Cosimo de' Medici orders Ficino to translate Hermes ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Cosimo de' Medici ordered Marsilio Ficino to translate Hermes Trismegistus before embarking on the works of Plato. ●●

1463 Ficino translates the Hermetica for the Medici 0 cit. Cosimo de' Medici has Marsilio Ficino set aside Plato to translate the newly rediscovered Corpus Hermeticum first, so precious was Hermes thought to be. The translation ignited the Renaissance revival of magic, astrology, and Hermetic philosophy that shaped Bruno, Dee, and the whole Western occult tradition. culture / religion ●●●●

c. 1464 Rise of the Songhai Empire 0 cit. Sunni Ali expanded Songhai into the largest empire in West African history. It absorbed the trading cities of Timbuktu and Djenné along the Niger River. economy / politics ●●●●

1464 Cosimo de' Medici dies and is named Father of the Fatherland 0 cit. Cosimo de' Medici died in 1464 and the city honoured him with the title Pater Patriae. His son Piero the Gouty succeeded to leadership of the family. politics ●●●

1464 Death of Cosimo de' Medici ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Cosimo de' Medici died while Ficino was completing his translation of Hermes. ●●

19 October 1466 Second Peace of Thorn 0 cit. Treaty ending the Thirteen Years' War between Poland and the Teutonic Knights. The Order ceded western Prussia including Danzig to Poland and became a Polish vassal. diplomacy / politics / war ●●

1467 to 1477 Onin War 0 cit. no story A succession dispute among Japan's great lords destroys Kyoto and shatters central authority. The war opens the century-long Sengoku era of warring states. politics / war ●●●

1467 20 BCE-50 CE) philosophes Philosophy; Byzantine; and Christianity; Greek ; Jewish 66; rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story 20 BCE-50 CE) philosophes Philosophy; Byzantine; and Christianity; Greek ; Jewish 66; Latin; Western; see also Aristotle; Neoplatonism; Plato physicality in worship physis Pietà: see Mary: sufferings Pietism Pilgrim Fathers pilgrimage; attacked; to C ●●

1469 Lorenzo the Magnificent takes power 0 cit. Lorenzo de' Medici, later called the Magnificent, took over leadership of the family and Florence in 1469 with his brother Giuliano. His rule became a high point of Renaissance culture and diplomacy. culture / politics ●●●●

1469 Ferdinand and Isabella marry, uniting Spain ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Elliott terms a "composite monarchy." From Reconquest to Habsburg Empire The marriage in 1469 of Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Aragon, king of Sicily and Sardinia, and claimant ... ●●

1469 War (1469) rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story dling, Europe and the Decline of Spain: A Study of the Spanish System, 1580–1720 (London/Boston, 1981), p. 44. 5. For example, Gattinara’s declaration to Charles V that “God has s ●●

1469 Lorenzo the Magnificent presides over Florence's golden age 0 cit. Lorenzo de' Medici takes charge of Florence and becomes the greatest patron of the age, funding Botticelli, the young Michelangelo, and a circle of humanist scholars. His rule marked the high point of Florentine wealth, art, and learning. culture / politics ●●●

1470 Tables & Charts TABLES 1 rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Increase in Military Manpower, 1470–1660 2. British Wartime Expenditure and Revenue, 1688–1815 3. Populations of the Powers, 1700–1800 4. ●●

1470 International Comparisons Yet this Habsburg failure, it is rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Increase in Military Manpower, 1470–166052 Omitted from this brief survey is one of the most persistent and threatening foes of the Habsburgs, the Ottoman Empire, chiefly because its strengths and wea ●●

1470 Dormition Cathedral rebuilt in the Moscow Kremlin ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Cathedral of the Dormition rebuilt in Moscow Kremlin by Italian architect under Ivan III's orders. ●●

1471 Ficino's Pimander printed for the first time ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Ficino's Pimander was printed for the first time and went through sixteen editions by the end of the sixteenth century. ●●

1472 Founding of Monte dei Paschi di Siena 0 cit. Siena founds a monte di pieta, a charitable lender meant to offer credit to the poor as an alternative to moneylenders. Reorganized in 1624, it survives as Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, the world's oldest bank still in operation. economy / society ●●●●

1473 Death of Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa ai_extracted 2 cit. no story Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, learned ecclesiastic and predecessor to Copernican ideas, died in 1473 after escaping persecution through entering orders ●●

1475 ; see also Coptic Church; Ethiopia; Monophysite Controversy; Syriac Orthodox Church Michelangelo rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story ; see also Coptic Church; Ethiopia; Monophysite Controversy; Syriac Orthodox Church Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) Middle East Map 5 (177), see also Arabia; Holy Land; Iraq; Israel; Judaea; Lebanon; Mesopotamia; Palestine; Parthian Empire; Persi ●●

c. 1478 Ivan III Annexes Novgorod 0 cit. Ivan III absorbed the wealthy Novgorod Republic into the Grand Duchy of Moscow, a major step in gathering the Rus lands under Moscow. His reign also promoted the idea of Moscow as heir to Byzantium. politics ●●●

26 April 1478 Pazzi conspiracy 0 cit. On 26 April 1478 members of the Pazzi family and allies attacked Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici during Mass in Florence Cathedral. Giuliano was killed and Lorenzo wounded but survived, and the plotters were brutally punished. politics / religion ●●●●

1 November 1478 Spanish Inquisition established 0 cit. Pope Sixtus IV authorized the Catholic Monarchs to appoint inquisitors in Castile. The Spanish Inquisition became a powerful instrument of the crown and Church, targeting converts suspected of secret Judaism or Islam and lasting into the nineteenth century. politics / religion / society ●●●●

1478 Ivan III annexes Novgorod ai_extracted 1 cit. Grand Prince Ivan III annexes city-state of Novgorod, eliminating merchant republic model from Russian society. ●●

1478 The Spanish Inquisition is established 0 cit. At the request of Ferdinand and Isabella, Pope Sixtus IV authorized a Spanish Inquisition under royal control. Its first target was not Jews but conversos suspected of secretly practicing Judaism. Tomás de Torquemada became the first Grand Inquisitor and made the tribunal a feared instrument of religious policing. politics / religion / society ●●●

4 September 1479 Treaty of Alcacovas 0 cit. Treaty between Castile and Portugal ending the War of the Castilian Succession and dividing Atlantic spheres, with Portugal keeping the African coast and most island groups. It was the first European treaty partitioning overseas zones of expansion. diplomacy / exploration / politics ●●●

c. 1479 Unification of Spain 0 cit. no story The crowns of Castile and Aragon unite under Ferdinand and Isabella, creating the dynastic union from which modern Spain formed; the Reconquista ended in 1492. politics ●●●●

1479 He had a far more positive experience at the Evangelisches... (1479) rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story He had a far more positive experience at the Evangelisches Seminar in Urach, where he was the first Jewish student to be admitted since its 1479 founding. ●●

c. 1480 Great Stand on the Ugra River 0 cit. A standoff between the forces of Ivan III of Moscow and the Great Horde ended without a major battle and is traditionally seen as the end of Mongol overlordship over the Rus. Moscow was now an independent power. politics / war ●●●●

c. 1480 Lorenzo the Magnificent patronises Renaissance artists 0 cit. Through the 1480s Lorenzo supported artists and scholars including Botticelli and the young Michelangelo. His court helped make Florence a centre of Renaissance art and learning. culture ●●●●

1480 War (1480) rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story y Years War.” For the later struggle, see the important article by J. I. Israel, “A Conflict of Empires: Spain and the Netherlands, 1618–1648,” Past and Present, no. 76 (1977), pp. ●●

1480 Event of 1480 rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story niquely “Eurasian” power, sprawling across two continents but never entirely at home in either. The most profound disjunction had come with the Mongol invasions of the thirteenth century, which subdued a politically divided Russia and razed Kiev. Two ●●

1480 Marshall, Reformation England 1480- 1642 (London, 2003) rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Marshall, Reformation England 1480- 1642 (London, 2003) ●●

c. 1480 to c. 1834 The autos-da-fe and the toll of the Spanish Inquisition 0 cit. For over three centuries the Spanish Inquisition tried tens of thousands, staging public autos-da-fe where the condemned were paraded and some burned. Modern historians estimate that it executed roughly three to five thousand people over its whole history, far fewer than the tens of thousands of popular legend, but its use of torture, secret denunciations and mass expulsions spread real and lasting terror. politics / religion / society ●●●

c. 1481 Why the conversos were hunted: baptism, blood, and confiscation 0 cit. The relentless hunting of conversos had a grim internal logic. As forced converts they were now baptized Christians, so, unlike practising Jews, they fell under the Inquisition's jurisdiction and could be tried for heresy; conversion made them more vulnerable, not less. The tribunals feared 'Judaizers' secretly keeping the old faith, the 'purity of blood' statutes made the suspicion hereditary regardless of sincerity, and the confiscation of the accused's property helped fund the Inquisition itself. Faith was the pretext; blood, social control, and money were the drivers. economy / politics / religion / society ●●●

1482 Elmina Castle built on the Gold Coast 0 cit. The Portuguese built Sao Jorge da Mina, the first permanent European trading fort in sub-Saharan Africa. It later became a major holding point for enslaved people awaiting shipment across the Atlantic. economy / exploration ●●●●

1483 Diogo Cão reaches the mouth of the Congo River 0 cit. Portuguese navigator Diogo Cão sailed to the estuary of the Congo River and made first contact with the Kingdom of Kongo. He left a stone marker, or padrão, claiming the discovery for Portugal and exchanged envoys with the manikongo. This opened decades of diplomatic and commercial ties between the two kingdoms. diplomacy / politics ●●

1483 Torquemada drives the Spanish Inquisition and expulsion 0 cit. The Dominican friar Tomas de Torquemada, confessor to Queen Isabella, was named Grand Inquisitor in 1483 and shaped the early Spanish Inquisition's pursuit of conversos suspected of secretly keeping Judaism. He is widely credited with pressing Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic Monarchs, toward the 1492 decree expelling the Jews, arguing that unconverted Jews corrupted the converts. His name became a byword for inquisitorial zeal. politics / religion / society ●●●

1485 War (1485) rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story litical surveys are G. R. Elton, England Under the Tudors (London, 1955); D. M. Loades, Politics and the Nation 1450–1660 (London, 1974), pp. 118ff; and P. Williams, The Tudor Regi ●●

c. 1485 Botticelli brings the pagan gods back to art 0 cit. Botticelli paints the Birth of Venus, a nude pagan goddess rising from the sea, for a Medici patron. After a thousand years of Christian art, the old gods returned openly to the canvas, a rebirth of antiquity in the most literal sense. culture / religion ●●●

1485 Yeomen of the Guard founded 0 cit. King Henry VII created the Yeomen of the Guard as the English monarch's personal bodyguard shortly after his victory at Bosworth Field. It is the oldest surviving royal bodyguard in the world and the oldest military corps still in existence in Britain. Members still wear Tudor-style ceremonial uniforms at state occasions. culture / politics ●

1486 Pico della Mirandola presents Kabbalist theses 0 cit. In his 900 theses, the Italian humanist Giovanni Pico della Mirandola argued that Kabbalah confirmed Christian doctrine. He is generally credited with founding Christian Kabbalah, adapting Jewish sources to a Christian frame. culture / religion ●●●●●

1486 Pico della Mirandola publishes 900 theses in Rome ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Blavatsky records Pico della Mirandola's publication of nine hundred Kabalistic theses in Rome, which he offered to defend in public—an act she presents as evidence of Christian scholars discovering esoteric Kabalistic doctrine. ●●

1486 Pico della Mirandola exalts the dignity of man 0 cit. The young scholar Pico della Mirandola writes his Oration on the Dignity of Man, arguing that human beings can shape their own nature and rise toward the divine. It became a manifesto of Renaissance humanism and its new confidence in human potential. culture / religion ●●

1487 Pico della Mirandola publishes his Apology ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Pico della Mirandola published his Apology defending his condemned propositions against accusations of heresy. ●●

1487 Pico retracts and is absolved by the Pope ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Pico made a formal submission and retraction to the commission; the Pope subsequently absolved him but forbade further publication. ●●