February 27 – Captain Antón Mayor formally claims for Spain what is now Nicaragua, after he arrives with Andrés Niño and other Spanish troops on the Central American coast at El Realejo.[3]
March 26 – Frederick I is provisionally declared as King of Denmark by Danish nobles at Viborg, although loyalists at Copenhagen refuse to recognize his claim to the throne. Christian II, 1481-1559, regent 1513-1523.[5]
April–June
April 4 – Under a plan organized by Sister Katharina von Bora and Protestant reformer Martin Luther, fish merchant Leonhard Köppe helps carry out the rescue of Von Bora and other Cistercian Catholicnuns from the Nimbschen Abbey in Germany near Grimma and Leipzig. On the day before Easter, Köppe arrives at the convent under the pretext of bringing delivering herring and other foods to the Abbey, then uses empty barrels to smuggle the nuns to Wittenberg. Von Bora will later become Luther's wife.[6][7]
April 12 – The Spanish conquest of Nicaragua continues as Gil González Dávila and 17 other soldiers arrive at Lake Nicaragua and claim it for the Spanish crown, calling the freshwater source the Mar Dulce. Gonzalez and 100 men with him have been welcomed by Macuilmiquiztli Nicarao, leader of the friendly Nicarao people, to explore the area.[8]
April 15 – Sir Thomas More, noted for being a Catholic social philosopher and author of the 1516 novel Utopia, is appointed by King Henry VIII as the Speaker of the English House of Commons for the first parliamentary session since 1515. He serves until the Parliament adjourns on August 15.
April 17 – In Nicaragua, Diriangén, ruler of the Chorotega speakers, stages an attack on the Spanish invaders led by González Dávila.[8] Having been warned by one of the Nicarao natives of the intended surprise attack, Spanish defenders on horses rout the Chorotega, but several of the Spaniards are wounded. The Spanish then decide to proceed no further inland.
April 24 – The Diet of Hungary, parliament for the Kingdom of Hungary under King Lajos II, passes a decree ordering the confiscation of property and execution of all followers of Martin Luther within the Kingdom.[11]
May 6 – In the Rhineland in Germany, the Knights' War, led by Franz von Sickingen since August 27, is finally put down at Landstuhl by troops of the Holy Roman Empire as the Nanstein Castle falls.[12] Sickingen, mortally wounded in the final battle, dies of his wounds the next day.
May 31 – Following the Battle of Sincouwaan at sea between the ships of the Chinese Empire and the Kingdom of Portugal, the Malay ambassador to China reluctantly departs from Guangzhou to present letters to the Portuguese governors of the occupied Malacca Sultanate, demanding the restoration of the deposed Sultan. Though fearing execution by the Portuguese, the messengers are allowed to leave. They return in September with a plea for help from the Malay Sultan, whose territory is under attack from the Europeans.[16]
May – The Ningbo incident: Two rival trade delegations from Japan feud in the Chinese city of Ningbo, resulting in the pillage and plunder of the city.[17]
June 6 – Gustav Vasa is elected king of Sweden, finally establishing the full independence of Sweden from Denmark, which marks the end of the Kalmar Union. This event is also traditionally considered to be the establishment of the modern Swedish nation.[18]
June 10 – Frederick begins the 8-day siege of Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark. The city surrenders on 6 January 1524.[5]
June 17 – Swedish War of Liberation: The surrender of Stockholm by Denmark is accepted by Sweden's King Gustav Vasa.[15] In return, the city's defenders are allowed safe passage out of Sweden. King Gustav then makes his triumphant entry to the city on June 24.
June 23 – The Spanish expedition into Nicaragua ends as the Europeans arrive back in Panama in canoes, having been forced to abandon their ships.[8]
July 29 – The Republic of Venice and the Holy Roman Empire conclude the Treaty of Worms to remove Venice from the Italian War that has gone for two years.[24]
August 22 – Lucien Grimaldi, Lord of Monaco, is assassinated by his nephew at the Prince's Palace.[26] Bartolomeo Doria di Dolceaqua, the son of Lucien's sister Francesca, kills his uncle and then has his men drag the monarch's body down the palace stairs in front of a horrified crowd, who drive the Doria family out of the small principality. Lucien had become the ruler in 1505 after stabbing to death his brother, Jean II. Lucien's heir is his 8-month-old son, Honoré; Lucien's brother Augustine Grimaldi becomes the regent during Honoré's minority.
September 14 – Pope Adrian VI, the last Dutch person to serve as head of the Roman Catholic Church, dies at age 64 after a reign of 21 months. For the next 455 years, all Popes elected will be Italian cardinals until the election of Karol Wojtyla of Poland in 1978 as Pope John Paul II.
September 23 – After receiving word from Malaya that Portuguese forces were attacking the Sultanate of Patani and the Malacca Sultanate on the Malaysian peninsula, the China's EmperorZhengde orders extermination of all persons from Portugal, 23 envoys from Portugal are executed and mutilated.[16]
October–December
October 1 – A conclave of 32 cardinals begins deliberations in Rome to elect a successor to the late Pope Adrian VI. Three other cardinals arrive on October 6 and balloting begins for a new Pope. Niccolò Fieschi and Bernardino López de Carvajal y Sande fail to receive the necessary majority in initial balloting, and Gianmaria del Monte comes within one vote (26 votes) of being elected. Voting continues for seven weeks before Cardinal Giulio de Medici wins 27 votes.[28]
October 27 – Hürrem Pasha, the Ottoman Empire's Governor-General of the Damascus Eyalet (which includes parts of what will become Syria, Israel, Jordan and Palestine) begins a punitive expedition through Lebanon against the Druze of Chouf. During the first campaign, Hürrem's troops burn 43 villages and kill at least 400 Druze.[29]
November 19 – Following the September 14 death of Pope Adrian VI, Cardinal Giulio de' Medici is elected 219th pope as Clement VII.[30] The election of Cardinal Medici begins an unbroken reign of 44 consecutive Italian Popes over the next 455 years.
The Ming dynasty Chinese navy captures two Western ships with Portuguesebreech–loadingculverins aboard, which the Chinese call a fo–lang–ji (Frankish culverin). According to the Ming Shi, these cannons are soon presented to the Jiajing Emperor by Wang Hong, and their design is copied in 1529.[32]
In northern Italy, a French army under Guillaume Gouffier tries to recover Milan but fails due to an offensive by Spanish, Imperial and English troops and they retreat in mid-November.[33]
^"Der Fränkische Krieg 1523 und die Schuld der Sparnecker" ("The Franconian War 1523 and the guilt of Sparnecker"), by B. von Reinhardt Schmalz, in Archiv für die Geschichte von Oberfranken ("Archive for the history of Upper Franconia") No. 85 (2005) p. 151
^Ebru Turan, "The Marriage of Ibrahim Pasha (ca. 1495-1536): The Rise of Sultan Süleyman's Favorite to the Grand Vizierate and the Politics of the Elites in the Early Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Empire" Turcica (2009) pp. 6–9
^Florine Asselbergs, Conquered Conquistadors: The Lienzo de Quauhquechollan, A Nahua Vision of the Conquest of Guatemala (University Press of Colorado, 2008) pp. 87–97
^Keay, John (2008). China: A History. London: HarperPress. ISBN9780007221776. 0007221770. The 'breech-loading culverins presented at the Ming court in 1522' were a gift from the Portuguese; and Portuguese arquebuses were acquired in the 1540s by the Japanese, who copied and greatly improved them.
^Dek, A.W.E. (1970). Genealogie van het Vorstenhuis Nassau (in Dutch). Zaltbommel: Europese Bibliotheek. p. 70.
^Vorsterman van Oyen, A.A. (1882). Het vorstenhuis Oranje-Nassau. Van de vroegste tijden tot heden (in Dutch). Leiden & Utrecht: A.W. Sijthoff & J.L. Beijers. p. 95.
