Events of 1492

• January 2 – Boabdil, the last Moorish King of Granada, surrenders his city to the army of Ferdinand and Isabella after a lengthy siege, ending the 10-year Granada War and the almost 800-year Reconquista. Christopher Columbus is in Alhambra, and sees the Moorish king come out of the city gates and kiss the hands of the Spanish king, queen and prince.

• January 6 – Ferdinand and Isabella enter into Granada.

• 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.

• April 17 – The Capitulations of Santa Fe were signed.

• July 31 – The Jews are expelled from Spain; 150,000 flee.

• August 3 – Christopher Columbus "sails the ocean blue" on his first journey across the Atlantic Ocean to Asia, but he fails miserably, ending up in the Americas

• August 11 – Pope Alexander VI succeeds Pope Innocent VIII as the 214th pope, after the 1492 papal conclave.

• Sultan Bayezid II of the Ottoman Empire, learning about the expulsion of Jews from Spain, dispatches the Ottoman Navy to bring the Jews safely to Ottoman lands, mainly to the cities of Thessaloniki (currently in Greece) and İzmir (currently in Turkey).

• October 12 – Christopher Columbus' expedition makes landfall in the Caribbean and lands on Guanahani, but 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.

• December 5 – Christopher Columbus becomes the first known European to set foot on the island of Hispaniola.

• December 31 – About 100,000 Jews are expelled from Sicily.

• Casimir IV Jagiello, of the Jagiello Royal House, ends his reign (1427–1492).

• The first arboretum to be designed and planted is the Arboretum Trsteno, near Dubrovnik in Croatia.

• Russians build a fortress in Ivangorod, on the eastern banks of the Narva river.

• In Ming Dynasty China, the commercial transportation of grain to the northern border in exchange for salt certificates is monetarized.

October 12 1492, Columbus discovers The Americas for Spain. Beginning of the Modern Age.

• Ermysted's Grammar School, Skipton, North Yorkshire, founded.

Religion

• Year 7,000, according to the Byzantine Date of Creation, and an expected year of the Apocalypse.

Births

• March 4 – Francesco de Layolle, Italian composer (d. c. 1540)

• March 27 – Adam Ries, German mathematician (d. 1559)

• April 4 – Ambrosius Blarer, German religious reformer (d. 1564)

• April 11 – Marguerite of Navarre, queen of Henry II of Navarre (d. 1549)

• April 20 – Pietro Aretino, Italian author (d. 1556)

• July 2 – Elizabeth Tudor, daughter of Henry VII of England (d. 1495)

• September 7 – Giacomo Aconcio, Italian pioneer of religious tolerance (d. 1566)

• September 12 – Lorenzo II de' Medici, Duke of Urbino (d. 1519)

• *Berthold Haller, Swiss reformer (d. 1536)

• *Amago Kunihisa, Japanese nobleman (d. 1554)

• *Hirate Masahide, Japanese retainer and tutor of Oda Nobunaga (d. 1553)

• *Edward Edward Wotton, English physician and zoologist (d. 1552)

• probable

• *Thomas Manners, 1st Earl of Rutland (d. 1543)

• *Fernan Perez de Oliva, Spanish man of letters (d. 1531)

• *Polidoro da Caravaggio, Italian painter (d. 1543)

• *Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Spanish historian (d. 1581)

Deaths

• April 9 – Lorenzo de' Medici, ruler of Florence (b. 1449)

• June 7

• *Casimir IV Jagiellon, King of Poland (b. 1427)

• *Elizabeth Woodville, Queen of Edward IV of England (b. 1437)

• July 25 – Pope Innocent VIII (b. 1432)

• October 12 – Piero della Francesca, Italian artist (b. c. 1412)

• October 25 – Thaddeus McCarthy, Irish bishop (b. c. 1455)

• November 6 – Antoine Busnois, French composer and poet (b. c. 1430)

• November 19 – Jami, Persian poet (b. 1414)

• Ygo Gales Galama, Frisian warlord and freedom-fighting rebel (murdered) (b. 1443)

• November 24 – Loys of Gruuthuse, Earl of Winchester (b. c. 1427)

• date unknown

• October 31 – Anne Neville, Countess of Warwick (b. 1426)

• *Baccio Pontelli, Italian architect (b. c. 1450)