1484

"I have read a good deal in Marco Polo, and have reached the conception that over this Western Ocean Sea one could sail to this Isle of Cypango and other unknown lands."

- Christopher Columbus, expressing his wish to visit Japan in a letter to King John of Portugal, 1484

In the year AD 1484...

• Pope Innocent VIII issues his famous papal bull Summis desiderantes, officially acknowledging the existence of witches and authorizing German priests Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger to organize an inquisition to seek out and destroy them.
• Ottoman sultan Bayezid II signs a 10-year peace agreement with the Kingdom of Hungary, leading to a brief lull in the Ottoman–Hungarian Wars.
• Christopher Columbus first begins soliciting investors for his scheme to travel to the East Indies by sailing west across the Atlantic Ocean.
• English king Richard III holds the one and only parliament of his brief reign. Against fierce opposition, he pushes through passage of a bill, the Titulus Regius, in which he attempts to justify his seizure of the throne.
• Forces loyal to King James III of Scotland defeat 500 cavalrymen led by rebels Alexander Stewart, Duke of Albany and James Douglas, 9th Earl of Douglas at the Battle of Lochmaben Fair.
• King Dhammazedi of Burma orders the casting of the Great Bell of Dhammazedi, believed to be the largest bell of any kind ever made.
• Korean king Sungjong orders the construction of the Changgyeongung summer palace in what is now Seoul to house three dowager queens.
• William Caxton issues the collection of Aesop's Fables to be printed in the English language.

These people were born in 1484...

• Spanish Dominican friar, historian, and social reformer Bartolomé de las Casas.
• Indian composer Purandara Dasa, remembered as the "father of Carnatic music."
• Rana Sanga, King of Mewar (in what is now Rajasthan).
• Italian fencing master Achille Marozzo.
• Italian classical scholar Julius Caesar Scaliger.
• Italian architect Antonio da Sangallo the Younger.
• Icelandic bishop and poet Jón Arason.
• Swiss dramatist, painter, engraver, and statesman Niklaus Manuel.
• French pirate Jean Alfonse.
• Japanese warlord Hosokawa Takakuni.

These people died in 1484...

• Pope Sixtus IV, succeeded by Pope Innocent VIII.
• British crown prince Edward of Middleham, only son of King Richard III of England and his wife Anne Neville, leaving his father without an obvious choice of heir.
• Greek philosopher George of Trebizond.
• Polish prince Saint Casimir, patron saint of Poland, Lithuania, and the youth of the world.
• Polish friar John of Dukla, canonized as a saint by Pope John Paul II in 1997, in front of a crowd of one million.
• Italian poet and dancer Antonio Cornazzano.
• Italian poet Luigi Pulci.
• Italian mathematician Piero Borgi.

1483 - 1484 - 1485

15th century

How they were made