1492
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
"The historians debate these matters [concerned with the "European miracle"], the questions "why" and "when," but not the question "whether" — whether a miracle happened at all. Or, to be more precise, they do not even consider the possibility that the rise of Europe above other civilizations did not begin until 1492, that it resulted not from any European superiority of mind, culture, or environment, but rather from the riches and spoils obtained in the conquest and colonial exploitation of America and, later, Africa and Asia. This possibility is not debated at all, nor is it even discussed, although a very few historians (notably Janet Abu-Lughod, Samir Amin, Andre Gunder Frank, and Immanuel Wallerstein) have come close to doing so in very recent years." --The Colonizer’s Model of the World (1993) by James Morris Blaut |
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Year 1492 (MCDXCII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
The year 1492 is considered to be a significant year in the history of the West, Europe, Christianity, Spain, and the New World, among others, because of the number of significant events to have taken place during it. Some of the events which propelled the year into Western consciousness, also listed below, include the completion of the Reconquista of Spain, the discovery of the West Indies, and the Expulsion of Jews from Spain.
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Events
- January 15 – Christopher Columbus meets Ferdinand and Isabella at the Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos in Córdoba, Andalusia, and persuades them to support his Atlantic voyage intended to find a new route to the East Indies.
- January 23 – The Pentateuch is first printed.
- March 31 – Ferdinand and Isabella sign the Alhambra Decree, expelling all Jews from Spain unless they convert to Roman Catholicism.
- October 11 – Several members of the first voyage of Christopher Columbus witness an unusual light.
- October 12 – Christopher Columbus' expedition makes landfall in the Caribbean and lands on Guanahani, but he believes he has reached the East Indies.
- October 28 – Christopher Columbus lands in Cuba.
- November 7 – The Ensisheim meteorite, a 127-kg meteorite, lands in a wheat field near the village of Ensisheim in Alsace.
- Antonio de Nebrija publishes Gramática de la lengua castellana, the first grammar text for the language of Castile, in Salamanca, which he introduces to Ferdinand and Isabella as "a tool of empire."
- Martin Behaim constructs the first surviving globe of Earth, the Erdapfel. As Columbus would only return from his voyage in 1493, this globe does not show the New World yet.
- The first arboretum to be designed and planted is the Arboretum Trsteno, near Dubrovnik in Croatia.
Births
- April 11 – Marguerite de Navarre, queen of Henry II of Navarre (d. 1549)
- April 20 – Pietro Aretino, Italian author (d. 1556)
- May 8 – Andrea Alciato, Italian jurist and writer (d. 1550)
- Polidoro da Caravaggio, Italian painter (d. 1543)
- Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Spanish historian (d. 1584)
Deaths
- April 8 – Lorenzo de' Medici, ruler of Florence (b. 1449)
- October 12 – Piero della Francesca, Italian artist (b. c. 1412)
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