Events

• Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama visits Quelimane and Moçambique in southeastern Africa.
• May 20 - Vasco da Gama arrives at Calicut (now Kozhikode), India, becoming the first European to get there by sailing around Africa.
• May 23 - Girolamo Savonarola, ruler of Florence, is executed for criticizing the Pope.
• July 31 - On his third voyage to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus becomes the first European to discover the island of Trinidad.
• Christopher Columbus lands on the South American continent.
• The Portuguese sail up to the coasts of modern Tanzania and Kenya.

Births

Deaths

• April 7 - King Charles VIII of France (b. 1470)
• May 23 - Girolamo Savonarola, religious reformer, briefly ruler of Florence (b. 1452)