1508
Michelangelo Climbs the Sistine Scaffolding
Reluctant and furious, Michelangelo signed the contract for the Sistine Chapel ceiling, a commission he considered a trap set by jealous rivals. He dismissed his assistants, painted lying on his back, and dripped plaster into his eyes. Four years later he would come down a changed artist. Contrary to legend, he painted standing rather than lying down, craning upward for hours in a posture that damaged his eyesight.
Uzbek Shaybani Khan Consolidates
The Uzbek chieftain Muhammad Shaybani Khan, having earlier driven Babur from Samarkand, consolidated Transoxiana and turned his attention south toward Khorasan. His campaigns destroyed the last remnants of the Timurid dynasty east of the Amu Darya and reshaped Central Asian politics for the coming century. His defeat and death at Shah Ismail's hands two years later established the Amu Darya as the boundary between Safavid and Uzbek territory.
Ogane-Dera Bell Cast in Japan
In the warring provinces of Sengoku Japan, Buddhist temples continued to cast enormous bronze bells even as samurai clans slaughtered each other outside. Craftsmen mixed copper and tin in clay molds and chanted sutras while the metal cooled. Japanese aesthetics and Japanese warfare were rising in parallel streams. The contrast between serene Buddhist art and Sengoku violence reflected a cultural duality defining Japanese civilization for centuries.
League of Cambrai Forms
Pope Julius II, Louis XII of France, Maximilian of Austria, and Ferdinand of Aragon signed a secret pact to dismember the Venetian Republic. Each coveted a slice of its mainland empire. Venice, rich and haughty, was about to learn that there were no permanent friends in Italian diplomacy. The pact's coalition of traditional enemies, united only by jealousy, illustrated Italian diplomacy at its most cynically Machiavellian.