1492
year
Year 1492 (MCDXCII) is a leap year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar.
The year 1492 marked a significant milestone in world history, with the beginning of the discovery of the "New World" of the Americas, and the "Old World" in Europe, as well as the unification of Spain, the end of Islamic rule in Western Europe, and the expulsion of the Jewish people from Spain.
Events
January—March
January 2 – Fall of Granada: Muhammad XI, the last Emir of Granada, surrenders his city to the army of the Catholic Monarchs (Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile) after a lengthy siege, ending the ten-year Granada War and the centuries-long Reconquista, and bringing an end to 780 years of Muslim control in Al-Andalus.
January 6 – Ferdinand and Isabella enter Granada.
January 15 – Christopher Columbus meets Ferdinand and Isabella at the Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos in Córdoba, Andalusia, and persuades them to support his Atlantic voyage intended to find a new route to the East Indies.
January 16 – Antonio de Nebrija publishes Gramática de la lengua castellana, the first grammar text for the Castilian Spanish language, in Salamanca, which he introduces to the Catholic Monarchs, Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, newly restored to power in Andalusia, as "a tool of empire".
January 23 – The Soncino Bible, which includes the Pentateuch, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther is printed.
February 1 – The Titulus Crucis relic is discovered, during the renovation of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme Church in Rome.
March 31 – Ferdinand and Isabella sign the Alhambra Decree, expelling all Jews from Spain unless they convert to Roman Catholicism.
April—June
April 17 – The Capitulations of Santa Fe are signed between Christopher Columbus and the Crown of Castile, agreeing on arrangements for his forthcoming voyage.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6679. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1492.
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This entry incorporates text from “1492” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.