1480s

The 1480s decade ran from January 1, 1480, to December 31, 1489.

• March 6 – Treaty of Toledo: Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain recognize the African conquests of Afonso V of Portugal, and he cedes the Canary Islands to Spain (see Treaty of Alcáçovas).^[1]
• July 28
  • Mehmed II fails in his attempt to capture Rhodes from the Knights of Rhodes.
  • An Ottoman army lands near Otranto, Italy. Pope Sixtus IV calls for a crusade to drive it away.
• September 27 – Consorts and co-rulers Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile initiate the Spanish Inquisition (looking for heretics and unconverted Jews).
• October – Great Stand on the Ugra River: Muscovy becomes independent from the Golden Horde. The Theotokos of Vladimir icon is credited with saving Moscow.

• The Lighthouse of Alexandria's final remains disappear when Qaitbay, Sultan of Egypt, builds the Citadel of Qaitbay on its site.
• Magdalen College School, Oxford, is established by William Waynflete.

• May 3
  • The 1481 Rhodes earthquake, the largest of a series, strikes the island of Rhodes, causing an estimated 30,000 casualties.
  • Mehmed II, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, dies and is succeeded by his son, Bayezid II.^[2]
• May 21 – Christian I, King of Denmark and Norway, dies and is succeeded by his son John (1481–1513).^[3]
• June 21 – The papal bull Aeterni Regis grants all land south of the Canary Islands to Portugal.^[4]
• July 24 – Fire destroys the roof and the spires of Reims Cathedral.
• August 29 – John II of Portugal starts to rule in his own right.
• September 10 – Alphonso II of Naples recaptures the city of Otranto.
• December 10 – With the death of Duke Charles IV of Anjou, Anjou reverts to the French crown under Louis XI of France, as does the Provence, which until then was part of the Holy Roman Empire.
• December 26 – Battle of Westbroek: Holland defeats the troops of Utrecht.^[5]

• The Constitució de l'Observança is approved by the Catalan Courts, establishing the submission of royal power to the laws of the Principality of Catalonia.
• Ludovico Sforza emerges as Regent of Milan (until 1499).
• Axayacatl, Aztec ruler of Tenochtitlan, dies and is succeeded by his brother Tízoc.
• The Aztec Calendar Stone or Sun Stone is carved.
• Fribourg and Solothurn become Cantons of Switzerland.

• January 19 – A Portuguese fleet, commanded by Diogo de Azambuja, arrives at the mouth of the River Benya on the Gold Coast, where the fort of São Jorge da Mina (Elmina Castle) is erected.
• January 25 – Probable first printing of the Torah, in Bologna.^[6]
• February 28 –The village of Alhama de Granada in Spain is taken by Christian forces, starting the Granada War to expel the Moors from the Iberian Peninsula.
• February – Johann Reuchlin leaves Stuttgart to visit Florence where he meets Marsilio Ficino.
• March 22 – Pope Sixtus IV, in a special bull, grants self-government rights to the Italian town of Ascoli Piceno.^[7]
• March 27 – The death of Mary of Burgundy triggers the first of the Flemish revolts against Maximilian of Austria.
• April 3 – Symeon I succeeds Maximus III as Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.
• c. August – Portuguese navigator Diogo Cão becomes the first European to enter the Congo.
• August 1 – Anglo-Scottish Wars: Richard, Duke of Gloucester invades Scotland, and captures Edinburgh.^[8]
• August 24 – Capture of Berwick: The Scots surrender the border town of Berwick-upon-Tweed to Richard, ending his campaign.^[8]

• December 23 – Treaty of Arras divides the Burgundian Netherlands between King Louis XI of France and Archduke Maximilian I of Habsburg.

• Ivan III renounces the Mongol Khanate rule over Russia.
• Johannes Trithemius becomes a novice, at the abbey of St. Martin at Sponheim, in the Diocese of Mainz.
• The first edition of Euclid's Elements (Latin translation) is printed, by German printer Erhard Ratdolt in Venice, incorporating geometric diagrams.
• Schreierstoren is erected in Amsterdam (from which Henry Hudson will set sail on April 4, 1609, on the vessel Halve Maen, to bring him to the harbor of New York and the Hudson River).

• January 1 – The Jews are expelled from Andalusia.
• February 11 – The General Council of the Inquisition is created in Spain.
• April 9 – Edward V becomes King of England.
• April 29 – Gran Canaria, the main island of the Canary Islands, is conquered by the Kingdom of Castile, a very important step in the expansion of Spain.
• April 30 – Pluto moves inside Neptune's orbit until July 23, 1503, according to modern orbital calculations.
• April – King Edward V of England and his younger brother Richard, Duke of York reside in the Tower of London. Later this year, rumors of their murders start circulating. By December the rumors have reached France. This is the beginning of the mystery concerning the fates of the two Princes in the Tower.
• June 13 – William Hastings, 1st Baron Hastings, is executed, in the first recorded execution at the Tower of London.
• June 20 – The powerful Fernando II, Duke of Braganza is executed in Portugal, followed by more than 80 other noblemen, for his plot against the royal crown.
• June 25 – Before his coronation, King Edward V of England is deposed by his uncle, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who becomes King as Richard III of England.
• July 6 – Richard III and Anne Neville are crowned king and Queen of England, at Westminster Abbey.^[9]
• July 20 – John of Denmark is crowned King of Norway.
• August 15 – The Sistine Chapel opens in the Apostolic Palace in Rome.
• September 3 – The Princes in the Tower, uncrowned 12-year-old Edward V of England and his 10-year-old brother, Richard, Duke of York, are perhaps murdered this night in the Tower of London.^[10]
• October – A rebellion by the Duke of Buckingham is crushed by Richard III of England.
• October 29 – Battle of Una: Forces of the Kingdom of Croatia defeat the army of the Ottoman Empire.

• Isaac Abravanel flees Portugal, after being implicated in a plot against the king.
• The Prince of Moscow builds the fortress of Ivangorod, facing Narva.
• Giovanni Bellini is named official painter of the Republic of Venice.
• Flavio Biondo publishes his Historiarum ab inclinatione romanorum imperii.

• March 26 – William Caxton, the first printer of books in English, prints his translation of Aesop's Fables in London.
• May 30 – Charles VIII of France (Charles l'Affable) is crowned.
• June 22 – The first known book printed by a woman, Anna Rügerin, is an edition of Eike of Repgow's compendium of customary law, the Sachsenspiegel, produced in Augsburg.
• July 6 – Portuguese sea captain Diogo Cão finds the mouth of the Congo River.
• July 22 – Battle of Lochmaben Fair: A 500-man raiding party led by Alexander Stewart, Duke of Albany, and James Douglas, 9th Earl of Douglas, is defeated by forces loyal to Albany's brother James III of Scotland; Douglas is captured.
• August 29 – Pope Innocent VIII succeeds Pope Sixtus IV, as the 213th pope.
• September 21 – Treaty of Nottingham: A three-year truce between the kingdoms of England and Scotland is signed.
• December 5 – Pope Innocent VIII issues the Papal bull Summis desiderantes affectibus, giving the inquisition a mission to hunt heretics and witches in Germany, led by Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger.

• The first sugar mill becomes operational in the Gran Canaria.
• The first cuirassier units (kyrissers) are formed in Austria.
• The King of Portugal appoints a commission of mathematicians to perfect tables, to help seamen find their latitude.
• Maximilian I, Duke of Burgundy, orders foreign merchants to leave Bruges. Most merchants move to Antwerp, greatly contributing to its growth as an international trading center.
• Battle of Leitzersdorf: The Imperial Army of Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor is defeated by the Hungarians.

• Spring – Multiple earthquakes occur near Taishan, China.
• March 16 – A solar eclipse crosses northern South America and Central Europe.^[11]
• June 1 – Matthias of Hungary takes Vienna, in his conquest of Austria (from Frederick III), and makes the city his capital.
• August 5–7 – The first outbreak of sweating sickness in England begins.
• August 22 – Battle of Bosworth: King Richard III of England is defeated by (rival claimant to the throne of England) Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond; Richard dies in battle, and Henry Tudor becomes King Henry VII of England (although Henry marks this battle as August 21, so that he can declare all his opponents traitors).
• September 12 – Muscovian forces conquer Tver.
• September 15 – Peter Arbues is assaulted while praying in the cathedral at Zaragoza, Spain; he dies on September 17. He had been appointed Inquisitor of Aragon by the Inquisitor General, Tomás de Torquemada, in the campaign against heresy and crypto-Judaism.
• October 30 – King Henry VII of England is crowned.
• November 2 – The Peace of Bourges stops the Mad War.

• Leon Battista Alberti's De Re Aedificatoria (written 1443–1452 and published posthumously) becomes the first printed work on architecture.
• From about this date, Leonardo da Vinci produces a number of designs for flying machines, including the aerial screw or helicopter (probably unworkable).^[12]

• January 18 – King Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York are married, uniting the House of Lancaster and the House of York, after the Wars of the Roses.^[13]
• February 16 – Archduke Maximilian I of Habsburg is elected King of the Romans at Frankfurt (crowned April 9 at Aachen).
• February 18 – Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is born in the town of Nadia, West Bengal, India, just after sunset. He is regarded as an incarnation, or avatar, of Lord Krsna, and later comes to inaugurate the sankirtana movement, or the chanting of the Holy Names of the Lord. This chanting, or mantra meditation, is first brought to the United States in 1965, by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.^[14]
• April 21 – The adoption of the Sentència Arbitral de Guadalupe ends the War of the Remences, in the Principality of Catalonia.

• Tízoc, Aztec ruler of Tenochtitlan, dies. Some sources suggest that he was poisoned, others that he was the victim of "sorcery" or illness. He is succeeded by his brother Āhuitzotl.
• Sigismund, Archduke of Tyrol, issues Europe's first large silver coin, the guldengroschen, which will later become the thaler.
• Giovanni Pico della Mirandola returns to Florence, and writes Oration on the Dignity of Man.
• The Medici giraffe arrives in Florence.
• Johann Reuchlin begins studying the Hebrew language.
• The first written use of the word football to describe the ball.

• January 29 – Richard Foxe becomes Bishop of Exeter.
• March – Sigismund, Archduke of Austria, largely on the poor advice of his counselors, declares war on Venice, and seizes silver mines in and around the Sugana Valley.
• May 24 – Lambert Simnel is crowned King "Edward VI of England" in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, Ireland.^[15] He claims to be Edward Plantagenet, 17th Earl of Warwick, and challenges Henry VII for the throne of England, where he lands on June 5.
• June 16 – Battle of Stoke Field: The rebellion of pretender Lambert Simnel, led by John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, and Francis Lovell, 1st Viscount Lovell, is crushed by troops loyal to Henry VII.^[16]
• August – Bartolomeu Dias leaves Lisbon, on his voyage to the Cape of Good Hope.
• August 13 – The Siege of Málaga (1487) ends, when the Spanish take the city.
• September 9 – Hongzhi becomes Emperor of China (Ming Dynasty).
• November 30 – Albert IV, Duke of Bavaria promulgates the Reinheitsgebot, specifying three ingredients – water, malt and hops – for the brewing of beer.

• Afonso de Paiva and Pêro da Covilhã travel overland from Lisbon, in search of the Kingdom of Prester John (Ethiopia).
• The witch-hunters' manual Malleus Maleficarum, written by Heinrich Kramer with Jacob Sprenger, is published at Speyer in the Holy Roman Empire.
• Aztec emperor Ahuitzotl dedicates the Great Temple Pyramid of Tenochtitlán, with thousands of human sacrifices.
• Italian architects work on the Moscow Kremlin.
• Leonardo da Vinci creates his Vitruvian Man drawing (approximate date).^[17]
• Stockport Grammar School is founded, in the north of England.

• January 8 – The Royal Netherlands Navy is formed, by the decree of Maximillian of Austria.
• February 3 – Bartolomeu Dias of Portugal lands in Mossel Bay, after rounding the Cape of Good Hope at the tip of Africa, becoming the first known European to travel this far south, and entering the Indian Ocean.
• February 28 – Choe Bu (1454–1504), the Korean Commissioner of Registers for the island of Cheju, shipwrecks on the south east coast of China in Taizhou, Zhejiang.
• June 11 – Battle of Sauchieburn: James IV of Scotland becomes king after his father is killed in action.^[18]
• July 12 – Joseon Dynasty official Choe Bu returns to Korea, after months of shipwrecked travel in China.^[19]
• July 28 – Battle of Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier: Troops loyal to King Charles VIII of France defeat rebel forces, led by the Dukes of Orleans and Brittany, in the main engagement of the Mad War.^[20]
• September 9 – Anne of Brittany becomes Duchess of Brittany at the age of 11. Her marriage to King Charles VIII in 1491 effectively ends Breton independence from France.

• Jasper Tudor, 1st Duke of Bedford, takes possession of Cardiff Castle.
• Michelangelo Buonarroti becomes apprentice to Domenico Ghirlandaio.
• The city of Bikaner in western India is founded by Rao Bika.
• Rathbornes Candles is established in Dublin; the company is still trading in the 21st century.

• March 14 – The Queen of Cyprus, Catherine Cornaro, sells her kingdom to the Republic of Venice.
• March 26 – The Treaty of Medina del Campo between England and Spain includes provision for a marriage between Arthur, the son of King Henry VII of England, and Infanta Catherine of Aragon.
• June 29 – King James IV grants Andrew, Lord Gray, the lands and Barony of Lundie in Scotland.^[21]
• July 17 – Delhi Sultanate: Sikandar Lodi succeeds Bahlul Khan Lodi as sultan.
• November 29 – Arthur Tudor is named Prince of Wales.^[22]
• December 11 – Jeannetto de Tassis is appointed Chief Master of Postal Services in Innsbruck; his descendants, the Thurn und Taxis Family, later run much of the postal system of Europe.

• Typhus first appears in Europe, during the Siege of Baza in the Granada War.
• A gold coin equal to one pound sterling, called a sovereign, is issued for Henry VII of England.
• King Henry VII of England gives a town charter to the port of Southwold.^[23]
• Lucas Watzenrode becomes bishop of Warmia.
• Johannes Widmann publishes his mercantile arithmetic Behende und hüpsche Rechenung auff allen Kauffmanschafft in Leipzig, containing the first printed use of plus and minus signs, to indicate trading surpluses or shortages.