Middle Ages
Savonarola and the Bonfire of the Vanities (1497)
Savonarola's followers burned thousands of 'vanities' at Carnival in 1497 and 1498, but the friar was excommunicated, arrested and executed in the same square in May 1498.
Region
Europe
Early Modern
John Cabot's 1497 Voyage to North America on the Matthew
Cabot reached and briefly landed on the North American coast, the first recorded European landing there since the Norse, giving England a basis for later claims.
Early Modern
Vasco da Gama's Voyage to India (1497–1499): Sea Route Opened
Da Gama reached Calicut in May 1498 and returned to Lisbon in 1499, opening a direct sea route between Europe and India at the cost of more than half his men.
Early Modern
Amerigo Vespucci's Voyages (1499–1502) and the Name America
Vespucci's widely printed letters argued that the lands to the west were a new continent, and his name was given to the Americas in 1507.
Early Modern
Juan de la Cosa Map (1500): The Oldest Map Showing America
The earliest surviving map to depict the New World, combining Spanish, Portuguese and English discoveries up to 1500.
Early Modern
Corte-Real Brothers' Voyages to Newfoundland (1500–1502)
The voyages gave Portugal a claim to Newfoundland and its fisheries, but both brothers were lost at sea.
Early Modern
Pedro Álvares Cabral Reaches Brazil (1500): Portugal's Claim
Cabral claimed the land for Portugal, beginning the Portuguese colonisation of what became Brazil.
Early Modern
Aldine Press and Italic Type (1501): Aldus Manutius in Venice
The Aldine Press introduced italic type and small-format editions of the classics, setting models for European book design that lasted for centuries.
Early Modern
Cantino Planisphere (1502): A Smuggled Portuguese World Map
The earliest surviving Portuguese world chart to record the discoveries in both the Americas and the Indian Ocean.
Early Modern
Casa de Contratación (1503): Spain's House of Trade in Seville
Seville became the sole legal port for trade with the Spanish Americas, regulated by a royal agency that lasted until 1790.
Early Modern
Encomienda System (1503): Forced Labour in the Spanish Americas
The encomienda became the main early system for exploiting Indigenous labour in Spanish America; royal reforms limited it from 1542 and it slowly declined until its formal abolition in the 18th century.
Early Modern
Waldseemüller Map (1507): The First Map to Name America
The name America entered print and spread across Europe; the only surviving copy was bought by the Library of Congress in 2003.