Major Events
- May 10 Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci leaves for his first voyage to the New World (disputed)
- Jun 24 John Cabot claims parts of North America (what is now Eastern Canada) for England believing he has found Asia in Newfoundland
- Jul 8 Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama departs on his first voyage, will become the 1st European to reach India by sea
- Aug 10 John Cabot tells King Henry VII of his trip to "Asia"
- Nov 22 Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama rounds Cape of Good Hope on way to first voyage from Europe to reach India
- More 1497 Events
Born in 1497
- Jan 26 Emperor Go-Nara of Japan (d. 1557)
- Feb 15 Philipp Melanchthon, German Protestant reformer and theologian (Martin Luther's right-hand man), born in Bretten, Palatinate (d. 1560)
Who Died in 1497
- Feb 6 John Ockeghem, Flemish singer and composer, dies at 79
- Jun 14 Giovanni Borgia, Duke of Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI, murdered under mysterious circumstances in Rome at about 23
- Jul 22 Francesco Botticini, Italian painter, dies at about 52
Leonardo da Vinci
Michelangelo