Early Modern
Battle of Diu (1509): How Portugal Won the Indian Ocean
Decisive Portuguese victory that ended Mamluk naval intervention and opened the way to Portuguese dominance of Indian Ocean sea lanes.
Era · c. 1500 – 1800
Early Modern
Voyages of exploration, the Reformation and the age of revolutions that reshaped Europe and the wider world.
Early Modern
Afonso I of Kongo: Christian King and Critic of the Slave Trade
Afonso made Catholicism the state religion of Kongo and tried to regulate the slave trade, but Portuguese demand for captives continued to grow during and after his reign.
Early Modern
Portuguese Conquest of Goa (1510): Afonso de Albuquerque
Portugal captured Goa from the Bijapur Sultanate; it became the capital of the Portuguese Estado da Índia and remained Portuguese until 1961.
Early Modern
Leonardo da Vinci's Anatomical Drawings (c. 1510): Art as Science
Leonardo produced the most accurate anatomical drawings of his age, but they stayed unpublished for centuries and had little direct influence on medicine.
Early Modern
Capture of Malacca (1511): Portugal Seizes the Spice Strait
Portugal took Malacca and held it until 1641; the sultan's court fled and later founded the Johor Sultanate.
Early Modern
Balboa Sights the Pacific Ocean (1513): Crossing Panama
Balboa claimed the 'South Sea' for Castile, opening Spanish expansion along the Pacific coast; he was executed in 1519.
Early Modern
Piri Reis Map (1513): The Ottoman Map of the Atlantic World
A surviving fragment of an Ottoman world map that preserves early European knowledge of the Americas, possibly including a lost map by Columbus.
Early Modern
Ponce de León in Florida (1513) and the Fountain of Youth Myth
Ponce de León charted much of the Florida coast, named it La Florida and noted the Gulf Stream, but founded no settlement.
Early Modern
Battle of Flodden (1513): James IV of Scotland Killed in Battle
Decisive English victory; James IV and thousands of Scots, including many nobles, were killed.
Early Modern
Battle of Chaldiran (1514): Ottoman Guns Defeat Shah Ismail
Decisive Ottoman victory; Selim briefly occupied Tabriz and the Ottomans went on to annex most of eastern Anatolia.
Early Modern
Battle of Marignano (1515): Francis I Defeats the Swiss
French victory; Francis I took the Duchy of Milan and the Swiss withdrew from the Italian Wars as an independent power.
Early Modern
Hayreddin Barbarossa: Corsair and Ottoman Grand Admiral
Barbarossa made Algiers an Ottoman province and, as grand admiral, made the Ottoman navy the leading force in the Mediterranean.