1520

Events in 1520 6

• 1467 – 1520 Pedro Álvares Cabral Discovery of Brazil The nobleman and explorer credited with being the first European to land in what is now Brazil in 1500.
• 1483 – 1520 Raphael High Renaissance · Italy Raphael (April 6, 1483 – April 6, 1520) was an Italian painter and architect whose harmonious compositions define the High Renaissance ideal. The School of Athens in the Vatican is his most celebrated work.
• 1502 – 1520 Moctezuma II -- the emperor at the apex Moctezuma II (c.1466-1520), ninth tlatoani of Tenochtitlan, rules at the absolute apex of Aztec power -- presiding over the most extensive empire in Mesoamerican history, the largest city in the Western Hemisphere, and the most elaborate court in the New World. He is simultaneously the empire's most powerful and most unlucky ruler: he inherits a perfect system and watches it destroyed. His reign sees the final territorial expansion of the empire, the maximum development of court ceremonial (he eats alone, behind a screen, served from golden vessels; no one may look at him directly; visitors approach barefoot), and the arrival of Hernán Cortés in 1519. His response to Cortés -- initially hospitality, then captivity, then his unclear death -- remains the most debated series of decisions in New World history.
• 1520 Stockholm Bloodbath The Danish Massacre The execution of 82 Swedish nobles by Christian II of Denmark. This event triggered the revolt led by Gustav Vasa.
• 1520 – 1566 Suleiman the Magnificent -- the apex Suleiman I (1520-1566) is the longest-reigning and most celebrated Ottoman sultan. He campaigns personally on thirteen major military expeditions, capturing Belgrade (1521), Rhodes (1522), defeating Hungary at Mohács (1526), besieging Vienna (1529) and campaigning repeatedly against Persia. He codifies Ottoman law so comprehensively that his own subjects call him Kanuni (the Lawgiver). His chief architect Sinan builds over 300 structures including the Süleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul and the Selimiye in Edirne. His court -- dominated by his wife Roxelana and his grand vizier Ibrahim Pasha -- is one of the most sophisticated in the world.
• 1520 The Noche Triste -- the terrible night The Noche Triste ("Sad Night"), 30 June 1520, is the most catastrophic moment of the Spanish conquest -- the night when the Mexica drive the Spanish and their Tlaxcalan allies from Tenochtitlan, killing perhaps half of Cortés's force as they flee across the causeway. Cortés has been holding Moctezuma II captive in his own palace (an extraordinarily audacious strategy that works until it doesn't); when Moctezuma is killed (by the Spanish, by his own people, or in the chaos -- accounts differ) and the Mexica revolt, the Spanish are trapped. The escape across the causeway is desperate: soldiers drown under the weight of gold they refuse to abandon; the bodies of the dead and the horses of the cavalry pile up in the gaps cut in the causeway. Cortés, reaching dry land, weeps under a great tree (the "Tree of the Sad Night," still standing in Mexico City). The Spanish retreat to Tlaxcala to regroup.