1511
Malacca Falls to the Portuguese
Albuquerque's fleet of nineteen ships stormed the wealthy Muslim entrepot of Malacca, guardian of the straits between India and China. The sultan fled into the jungle. Portuguese cannon now controlled the chokepoint of Asian trade, and cloves, nutmeg, and Chinese silk began flowing west under Lisbon's flag. The conquest gave Portugal control of the most important commercial bottleneck in Asian trade, through which spices and silk had flowed for centuries.
Raphael Paints the School of Athens
In the Vatican's Stanza della Segnatura, Raphael completed a fresco gathering Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, and Pythagoras beneath a coffered Roman vault. He slipped a brooding portrait of Michelangelo into the foreground as Heraclitus. The School of Athens became the Renaissance's pictorial manifesto. The fresco's gathering of philosophers across centuries expressed the Renaissance belief that all human knowledge could be unified through reason.
Diego Velazquez Conquers Cuba
With three hundred Spaniards and a chaplain, Diego Velazquez landed on Cuba and began a methodical conquest of the island's Taino villages. The cacique Hatuey, resisting to the end, was burned alive. Cuba became the staging ground from which Cortes would soon launch his assault on Mexico. Cuba's strategic position made it the natural staging ground for mainland conquest, and its ports served the Americas as a naval base for centuries.
Michelangelo Finishes Creation of Adam
Halfway through his labor on the Sistine ceiling, Michelangelo completed the central panel where God, cloaked in drapery the color of a wound, reached toward the languid Adam. The two fingers not quite touching would become the most parodied image in Western art, though Michelangelo never lived to see it famous.
Antonio de Montesinos Preaches
On the fourth Sunday of Advent, the Dominican friar Antonio de Montesinos preached a fierce sermon in Santo Domingo denouncing Spanish treatment of the Taino. Are these not men? he demanded. The congregation of encomenderos was outraged. His words moved a young Bartolome de las Casas to begin his own conversion.