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1492| 1100–1532 | South America [administration] | The Inca empire dominates the Andes region of South America. Its population numbers as many as 12 million. Incan society is based on a strict hierarchy, with an emperor who rules with absolute power. Their religion is based on sun-worship, and they are skilled builders who create a system of roads and irrigation. | | 1486–1494 | Japan [law and government] | Having expelled rampaging feudal armies, leaders of the insurgent Yamashiro Ikki league (in which the gentry have joined with the peasants) meet at Uji, Japan, to formulate a provisional government for the province. | | 1492 | Italy [science] | Italian scholar Leonardo da Vinci experiments with lifting devices, and draws a flying machine lifted by an Archimedes screw (an early ancestor of the helicopter). It is never built. | | 1492 | Germany [earth sciences] | German navigator Martin Behaim, with painter Goerg Glockendon, constructs a terrestrial globe at Nuremberg, the earliest still in existence. | | 2 January 1492 | Spain, Granada [wars] | Granada, the last Muslim city in Spain, surrenders, completing the Christian Reconquista (‘Reconquest’) and unifying Spain (apart from Navarre) under its besiegers of nine months, Ferdinand V and Isabella I of Aragon and Castile. | | 31 March 1492 | Spain, North Africa [legislation] | King Ferdinand V and Queen Isabella I of Aragon and Castile issue an edict that gives Spanish Jews the choice of converting to Christianity within three months or emigrating. 170,000 subsequently choose the latter, many seeking refuge in the Maghreb in North Africa. | | 9 April 1492 | Florence [births and deaths] | Lorenzo de' Medici the Magnificent, statesman and ruler of Florence 1453–92, dies in Careggi, near Florence, Italy (43). | | 17 April 1492 | Spain [exploration] | Queen Isabella I of Spain contracts to finance a voyage of discovery headed by Christopher Columbus, naming him admiral and viceroy of any discoveries. |
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