June 20 – The powerful Fernando II, Duke of Braganza is executed in Portugal, followed by more than 80 other noblemen, for his plot against the royal crown.
The first cuirassier units (kyrissers) are formed in Austria.
The King of Portugal appoints a commission of mathematicians to perfect tables, to help seamen find their latitude.
Maximilian I, Duke of Burgundy, orders foreign merchants to leave Bruges. Most merchants move to Antwerp, greatly contributing to its growth as an international trading center.
September 15 – Peter Arbues is assaulted while praying in the cathedral at Zaragoza, Spain; he dies on September 17. He had been appointed Inquisitor of Aragon by the Inquisitor General, Tomás de Torquemada, in the campaign against heresy and crypto-Judaism.
October 30 – King Henry VII of England is crowned.
February 18 – Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is born in the town of Nadia, West Bengal, India, just after sunset. He is regarded as an incarnation, or avatar, of Lord Krsna, and later comes to inaugurate the sankirtana movement, or the chanting of the Holy Names of the Lord. This chanting, or mantra meditation, is first brought to the United States in 1965, by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.[14]
Tízoc, Aztec ruler of Tenochtitlan, dies. Some sources suggest that he was poisoned, others that he was the victim of "sorcery" or illness. He is succeeded by his brother Āhuitzotl.
Sigismund, Archduke of Tyrol, issues Europe's first large silver coin, the guldengroschen, which will later become the thaler.
February 28 – Choe Bu (1454–1504), the Korean Commissioner of Registers for the island of Cheju, shipwrecks on the south east coast of China in Taizhou, Zhejiang.
Johannes Widmann publishes his mercantile arithmetic Behende und hüpsche Rechenung auff allen Kauffmanschafft in Leipzig, containing the first printed use of plus and minus signs, to indicate trading surpluses or shortages.