istoryworld
Events from 1500
A number of noblemen and wealthy merchants build their villas around Kew Green, including Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester, closely associated with Queen Elizabeth I. The only villa to survive from this period is the present Kew Palace built in the Dutch style for Samuel Fortrey.
The people of Benin begin a lasting tradition of sculpture in brass, melted down from objects brought by traders
The lively realism of Kamal-ud-din Bihzad lays the basis of both the Persian and the Mughal schools of painting
Even the remote city of Machu Picchu, on its peak above the jungle, is built in the massively precise Inca style of masonry
The first etchings are printed in Augsburg, from iron plates
Nanak, the first of the Sikh gurus, takes to the road as a wandering teacher
The first watches, made in Nuremberg, are spherical clocks about three inches in diameter, worn usually on a ribbon round the neck
The first modern lock gates are installed on a canal in Milan, probably designed by Leonardo da Vinci
Faenza becomes the main centre for the production of the Italian tin-glazed earthenware known as majolica
Leonardo argues that fossils in rocks far above the sea imply not the effects of the Flood but a change in the level of an ancient sea bed
The female mamakuna and the male yanakuna are selected in childhood to serve the Inca state
Portuguese explorer Pedro Cabral, with a fleet of thirteen ships, makes landfall in Brazil
The Inca empire has about 25,000 miles of well-serviced roads, designed for caravans of llamas
The manor of East Sheen and West Hall is carved out of the manor of Mortlake, including all that part of Kew that now lies between the river, the A316 and the District railway
The Portuguese establish trading posts in east Africa, on the coast of Mozambique
European diseases bring death on a massive scale to an American population that has no immunity
The Salic law, preventing inheritance of the throne by or through a woman, is by now accepted as a fundamental law of France
In Cuzco's great temple, the sacrifices are usually of llamas, occasionally of humans
Ceramic artists in Italy decorate large majolica dishes with scenes of narrative history, giving this style the name istoriato
The rebuilding of Henry VII's palace is largely completed, after an impressively short time
The 14-year-old Ismail I is enthroned as shah of a new Persian dynasty, the Safavids
Michelangelo begins work in Florence on a tall thin slab of marble, which he transforms into David
Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci sets sail from Lisbon to explore to the south of the New World
Vasco da Gama wins a trading treaty for Portuguese merchants after bombarding the Indian port of Calicut into submission
The marriage of James IV, king of Scotland, to Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII, leads a century later to the Union of the Crowns
