1497
Cabot Reaches North America
John Cabot, a Genoese sailing from Bristol under English letters patent, landed somewhere on the Newfoundland coast or Cape Breton. He claimed the land for Henry VII, saw cod so thick his crew scooped them up in baskets, and returned to become, briefly, an English celebrity. A year later he sailed west again and vanished.
Vasco da Gama Departs Lisbon
Four small ships carrying one hundred seventy men left the Tagus with orders to reach India by sea. Da Gama carried an Arab pilot, samples of trade goods thought suitable for sophisticated markets, and a lingering sixteenth-century assumption that he could bluff his way across the Indian Ocean. He was partially right.
Bonfire of the Vanities
In Florence's Piazza della Signoria, the Dominican friar Savonarola ordered the burning of mirrors, cosmetics, fine dresses, musical instruments, and paintings deemed sinful. Botticelli reportedly threw his own canvases into the flames. The republic had become a theocracy of scrubbed consciences, and it was already running out of patience with the preacher.
Jews Expelled from Portugal
King Manuel I, pressured by his Spanish in-laws, decreed that all Jews convert or leave Portugal. When he could not afford to lose their skills, he had them forcibly baptized instead. Thousands of New Christians would carry their traditions in secret for generations; a flourishing Portuguese crypto-Jewish network would stretch across Amsterdam, Istanbul, and Brazil.
Cornish Rising
Cornish tax protesters marched on London to protest Henry VII's wartime levies. They were defeated at Blackheath, their leaders hanged. The rising exposed the Tudor monarchy's fragile base among non-southern English populations and the persistence of regional grievance beneath dynastic stability. The rebels marched over three hundred miles to Blackheath, demonstrating provincial resentment and the difficulty of sustaining a peasant army far from home.
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Frequently asked
What happened in the year 1497?
Saeculum lists 5 curated events from 1497. The most significant is Cabot Reaches North America: John Cabot, a Genoese sailing from Bristol under English letters patent, landed somewhere on the Newfoundland coast or Cape Breton.
What era was 1497 part of?
1497 falls within the Late Middle Ages (1301-1500). Plague, papal schism, and the seeds of nation-states.
Which regions saw notable events in 1497?
The curated events from 1497 span North America and Europe.