The era of
Subscribe1490s
8 recaps across 2 years of the decade. Reconstructed from contemporary coverage, archives, and the public record.
1492Colombian Exchange: First Transatlantic Voyage
Columbus's landfall initiated sustained contact between Old and New World, fundamentally reshaping global demographics, ecology, and commerce.
1492Columbus Sails to the Americas
Columbus's transatlantic voyage initiated European colonization and irreversibly transformed global demographics, economies, and cultures.
1492Discovery of the New World
Columbus's Atlantic crossing initiated European colonization, global trade networks, and the displacement of indigenous civilizations.
1492Reconquista Completes Granada Falls
The fall of Granada's Nasrid Emirate ended 780 years of Islamic rule on the Iberian Peninsula, unifying Catholic Spain and launching the Age of European Exploration.
1492Columbus Reaches the Americas
Three ships, ten weeks, one continent. Everything changed.
1492Granada Falls to Catholic Monarchs
Eight centuries of Islamic rule ended by Catholic ambition and internal collapse.
1492Expulsion of Jews from Spain
Expulsion of Jews from Spain
1494Treaty of Tordesillas
Papal-arbitrated division of colonial Americas between Spain and Portugal; formative geopolitical treaty with clear historical consensus.
Before
← The 1480s
After
The 1500s →