1512
Sistine Ceiling Unveiled
After four years on the scaffold, Michelangelo let Pope Julius II see the Sistine ceiling. Prophets, sibyls, nudes, and the finger of God reaching toward Adam swarmed across nine thousand square feet of plaster. The Roman court fell silent. Painting had been redefined overnight. The three hundred figures, painted in four years by a sculptor who considered himself a carver, demonstrated fresco mastery no subsequent artist equaled.
Selim I Seizes the Ottoman Throne
Selim the Grim, a brooding general who had plotted against his gentler father, forced the aged Bayezid II to abdicate and rode into Istanbul backed by the Janissaries. Bayezid died mysteriously on the road to retirement. Selim promptly executed his brothers and nephews to clear the line of succession. His elimination of rival claimants established fratricide as Ottoman succession policy for two centuries.
Forbidden City Restored
After lightning strikes and fires over decades, the Ming imperial palace complex in Beijing underwent a major renovation under the Zhengde Emperor's overseers. Yellow-glazed roof tiles were replaced by the thousand, and enormous nanmu timbers were floated down the Grand Canal. The Forbidden City's surviving architecture substantially dates from this reconstruction.
Copernicus Circulates the Commentariolus
A Polish canon and astronomer named Nicolaus Copernicus quietly distributed a handwritten pamphlet among trusted correspondents, suggesting that the Earth moved around the Sun. He would spend the next three decades refining the argument in secret, terrified of mockery and of the Church's theologians. Its seven axioms laid the groundwork for the scientific revolution that would transform European thought over the following two centuries.
Bloodbath at Ravenna
French and Spanish armies collided outside Ravenna in one of the bloodiest battles Europe had yet seen. Gaston de Foix, the French golden boy, routed the Spanish but was killed pursuing them. Some twenty thousand bodies littered the marshes. Artillery, for the first time, had decided a major field battle.