Events

• January 1 - Portuguese explorers sailed into Guanabra Bay , Brazil and mistook it for the mouth of a river which they named Rio de Janeiro
• May 9 - Christopher Columbus leaves Spain for his fourth and final trip to the "New World".
• May 21 - Portuguese discover island of St Helena.
• December 31 - Cesare Borgia imprisons two potentially treacherous allies, Vitelozzo and Oliveretto - he executes them the next morning.
• Ivan III of Russia and Mengli Ghiray of Crimean Khanate attack Grand Duchy of Lithuania without much success.
• Mengli Ghiray of Crimean Khanate destroys Saray, capital of Big Horde
• Aztec ruler Auitzotl dies; Moctezuma II elected emperor.
• Peter Henlein builds the first pocketwatch.
• "Newfoundland" gets its name from a letter.
• Christopher Columbus lands at Trujillo and named the mainland "Honduras".
• Wittenberg University founded.

Births

• January 7 - Pope Gregory XIII, who implements the Gregorian Calendar in 1582
• June 6 - King John III of Portugal
• John Leland - English antiquarian
• Anne Boleyn - Later second Queen consort of Henry VIII of England. Another possible year of birth is 1507.
• Cuauhtémoc, later Aztec ruler of Tenochtitlan (estimated date).
• Elizabeth Blount, later mistress of Henry VIII of England (approximate date).

Deaths

• 2 April - Arthur Tudor (son of Henry VII of England).
• 6 May - James Tyrrell, executed; alleged murderer of the Princes in the Tower
• Auitzotl, Aztec ruler of Tenochtitlan