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Jan 1, 1450
Printing Press in Europe
Johannes Gutenberg is usually cited as the inventor of the printing press. Indeed, the German goldsmith's 15th-century contribution to the technology was revolutionary — enabling the mass production of books and the rapid dissemination of knowledge throughout Europe. -
Jan 1, 1453
ottomans capture constantinople
The Fall of Constantinople was the capture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire by an invading army of the Ottoman Empire on 29 May 1453. -
Jan 1, 1480
Height of Aztec empire
The Aztec Empire, or the Triple Alliance (Nahuatl: Ēxcān Tlahtōlōyān,[2] [ˈjéːʃkaːn̥ t͡ɬaʔtoːˈlóːjaːn̥]), began as an alliance of three Nahua "altepetl" city-states: Mexico-Tenochtitlan, Mexico-Texcoco, and Mexico-Tlacopan. These three city-states ruled the area in and around the Valley of Mexico from 1428 until they were defeated by the combined forces of the Spanish conquistadores and their native allies under Hernán Cortés in 1521. -
Jan 1, 1488
Dias rounds Cape of Good Hope
Brtolomeu Dias, in full Bartolomeu Dias de Novais, Bartolomeu also spelled Bartholomew, Dias also spelled Diaz (born c. 1450—died May 29, 1500, at sea, near Cape of Good Hope) Portuguese navigator and explorer who led the first European expedition to round the Cape of Good Hope (1488), opening the sea route to Asia via the Atlantic and Indian oceans. He is usually considered to be the greatest of the Portuguese pioneers who explored the Atlantic during the 15th century. -
Jan 1, 1492
Columbus/Reconquista of Spain
In 1491, no European knew that North and South America existed. By 1550, Spain — a small kingdom that had not even existed a century earlier — controlled the better part of two continents and had become the most powerful nation in Europe. In half a century of brave exploration and brutal conquest, both Europe and America were changed forever. -
Jan 1, 1502
1st African Slaves to Americas
1502: Juan de Córdoba of Seville becomes the first merchant we can identify to send an African slave to the New World. Córdoba, like other merchants, is permitted by the Spanish authorities to send only one slave. Others send two or three. -
Dec 9, 1504
Capturing slaves
1504: a small group of Africans - probably slaves captured from a Portuguese vessel - are brought to the court of King James IV of Scotland. -
Jan 1, 1517
Martin Luther/Protestant reforming
Martin Luther (1483-1546) posts his 95 Theses on the door of Wittenburg Cathedral, in protest at the Catholic doctrine of indulgences and formally begins the Protestant Reformation. -
Jan 1, 1529
1st unsuccessful Ottoman siege of Vienna
The Siege of Vienna in 1529 was the first attempt by the Ottoman Empire, led by Suleiman the Magnificent, to capture the city of Vienna, Austria. The siege signalled the pinnacle of the Ottoman Empire's power and the maximum extent of Ottoman expansion in central Europe. -
Jan 1, 1533
Pizzarro topples the Inca
Francisco Pizarro (ca. 1475–1541) arrived in present-day northern Peru late in 1531 with a small force of about 180 men and 30 horses. Taking advantage of a civil war, he and his compatriots toppled the ruler, Atahualpa, in 1532. Over the next several decades the Spanish suppressed several Inca rebellions, achieving complete control by 1572. Pizarro’s Spanish rivals assassinated him in 1541 in Lima, the city he had founded in 1535. -
Jan 1, 1545
Discovery of silver at Potosi
Potosí is a city and the capital of the department of Potosí in Bolivia. It is one of the highest cities in the world by elevation at a nominal 4,090 metres (13,420 ft).[2] For centuries, it was the location of the Spanish colonial mint. -
Feb 1, 1555
The Art of War at Sea
1555 1555: the Portuguese sailor Fernão de Oliveira, in Arte de Guerra no mar (The Art of War at Sea), denounces the slave trade as an 'evil trade'. The book anticipates many of the arguments made by abolitionists in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. -
Jan 1, 1571
Battle of Lepanto
The Battle of Lepanto was a naval engagement taking place on 7 October 1571 in which a fleet of the Holy League, a coalition of European Catholic maritime states arranged by Pope Pius V, financed by -
Jan 1, 1571
1st Manila Galleon
The Manila Galleons Spanish: Galeón de Manila, Tagalog: Kalakalang Galyon ng Maynila at Acapulco were Spanish trading ships which made round-trip voyages once or twice per year across the Pacific Ocean from the port of Acapulco to Manila in the Philippines which were both part of New Spain. The name of the galleon changed to reflect the city that the ship sailed from The term Manila Galleons is also used to refer to the trade route between Acapulco and Manila, which lasted from 1565 to 1815. -
Jan 1, 1579
modern Netherlands
1579
29 January 1579: with the Union of Utrecht, the northern provinces of the Low Countries unite to create a Calvinist republic free from Spanish rule. The United Provinces (modern Netherlands) soon becomes an important slave-trading nation and an aspiring colonial power. -
Jan 1, 1580
King Henry Death
1580
1580: Following the death of King Henry of Portugal, and a short campaign by the duke of Alva, Spain and Portugal are united under Philip II of Spain. Spain thus becomes the most important colonial power - and the largest participant in the slave trade. -
English Colony
27 July 1585: the first English colony in the New World is established at Roanoke Island (modern North Carolina), organised by Sir Walter Raleigh and governed by Ralph Lane. It was not successful, and the colonists withdrew in June 1586.
16 November 1585: In the first of a series of attacks on Spanish colonial interests, Sir Francis Drake sacks the slave-trading settlement of Santiago in the Cape Verde Islands. -
Spanish Armada
The Spanish Armada was a Spanish fleet of 130 ships that sailed from A Coruña in August 1588, under the command of the Duke of Medina Sidonia with the purpose of escorting an army from Flanders to invade England -
Battle of Sekigahara
The Battle of Sekigahara was a decisive battle on October 21, 1600 that preceded the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate. -
Foundation of Jamestown
The founding of Jamestown, America's first permanent English colony, in Virginia in 1607 – 13 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth in Massachusetts – sparked a series of cultural encounters that helped shape the nation and the world. -
Shakesspeares play
1611
November 1611: Shakespeare's play The Tempest first performed. The play includes the figures of Caliban and Ariel, both enslaved. -
British Colony
28 January 1624: Thomas Warner founds the first British Colony in St Christopher, now normally known as St Kitts.
1625 -
Christopher Columbus
1632 1632: Montserrat, originally claimed by Christopher Columbus for Spain in 1493, falls under English control (although there may have been earlier small English settlements). -
begging of islam
Capture by Dutch of major spice trade center in Indonesia; beg. of control of isl. of Java -
Cape Town colony founded
Dutch Cape Colony. The Cape Colony (Dutch: Kaapkolonie) was between 1652 and 1691 a Commandment, and between 1691 and 1795 a Governorate of the Dutch East India Company. Jan van Riebeeck established the colony as a re-supply and layover port for vessels of the Dutch East India Company trading with Asia. -
Indians
1676: the Quaker George Fox publishes Gospel Family-Order, being a short discourse concerning the Ordering of Families, both of Whites, Blacks and Indians, which urged Quakers in America to treat their slaves humanely. The book, although published in London, appears to have been based on a sermon he delivered in Barbados in 1671. -
2nd unsuccessful ottoman siege of Vienna
In the summer of 1683, the main army of the Ottoman Empire, a large and well-equipped force, besieged Vienna. The town was nearing the end of its ability to resist: but just as the capture of Vienna was becoming only a matter of time – not more than a week away, at most – an army came to its rescue. On September 12th, in an open battle before Vienna, the Ottoman army was defeated, and the city escaped pillage and destruction. -
Two tracts on slavery
1684 1684: In London, Thomas Tryon publishes two tracts on slavery: 'The Negro's Complaint of Their Hard Servitude, and the Cruelties Practised upon Them' and 'A Discourse in Way of Dialogue, between an Ethiopean or Negro-Slave and a Christian, That Was His Master in America'. These appeared as parts II and III of Friendly Advice to the Gentlemen-Planters of the East and West Indies (London, 1684).
1688 -
The Germantown Protest
18 February 1688: The Germantown Protest, sometimes also referred to as The German Mennonite Resolution against Slavery, the first formal protest against slavery to be made in the British American colonies, is delivered in Germantown, Pennsylvania.
1688: Aphra Behn publishes Oroonoko, or, the Royal Slave, the first novel to discuss the rights and wrongs of slavery. -
glorious Revolution/ english bill of Rights
in England, during the Glorious Revolution of 1688, King James II abdicated and fled the country. He was succeeded by his daughter Mary and her Dutch husband, William of Orange. Before William and Mary could be proclaimed king and queen they had to agree to accept the Bill of Rights, which they did in February, 1689. -
Thomas Southerne
1696: Thomas Southerne in London publishes his dramatic version of Behn's Oroonoko, or, the Royal Slave.
23 October 1696: Philadelphia Quakers rule that Friends ‘be Careful not to Encourage the bringing in of any more Negroes, & that such that have Negroes be Careful of them, bring them to Meetings, or have Meetings with them in their Families, & Restrain them from Loose, & Lewd Living.’ This is probably the first institutional attempt to limit slave trading in America.