January 8–Pope Nicholas V publishes Romanus Pontifex, an encyclical addressed to King Afonso V of Portugal, which sanctions the conquest of non-Christian lands, and the reduction of native non-Christian populations to 'perpetual slavery'. (Later there will be a dramatic reversal when, in 1537, the bull Sublimis Deus of Pope Paul III forbids the enslavement of non-Christians.)
March 22– Venetian explorer and slave trader Alvise Cadamosto and a crew commanded by Vicente Dias depart from Porto Santo on the first of two voyages down the coast of West Africa and reaches the Gambia River before being forced to turn back by the crew.
April 4– The papal conclave to replace the late Pope Nicholas V begins. For the first time, the conclave is held at the Apostolic Palace in Rome. In the first rounds of ballots, the two front-running candidates are Cardinal Latino Orsini and Cardinal Prospero Colonna, and Colonna receives a plurality of votes, but not the required two-thirds majority.
April 8– Cardinal Alfons de Borja is elected as the 209th Roman Catholic pontiff and takes the name Pope Calixtus III.
June 1–Novo Brdo, the last defense of Serbia, falls to the Ottoman Turks after a siege of 40 days. All high ranking Serbian officials are executed and younger men and boys are taken captive to serve in the Ottoman Army, while 700 women and girls are taken as wives by Ottoman commanders.
June 15– In Egypt, the Sultan Sayf al-Din Inal confronts a revolt of 500 of his ethnic Circassian slave-troops (mamluks) after rejecting the soldiers' requests for camels to accompany them on an expedition against Bedouin invaders in the Nile Delta. After attempting to assassinate the Sultan's secretary, Yunus al-Aqba'i, the rebels join discontented Zahiri troops and besieged the Cairo Citadel. Facing a withdrawal of support from the Egyptian Caliph, the Sultan eventually meets the rebels' demands.
October 5– Threatened with an invasion by the Ottoman Empire, the Principality of Moldavia sends its first tribute to the Ottoman Sultan, paying 2,000 ducats (equivalent to 6.99 kilograms (15.4lb) of gold) in response to an ultimatum.
↑Cortesão, Armando (1931) "Subsídios para a história do Descobrimento de Cabo Verde e Guiné" ("Support for the history of the Discovery of Cape Verde and Guinea"), Boletim da Agencia Geral das Colonias (Bulletin of the General Agency of the Colonies), No. 75. As reprinted in 1975, Esparsos, vol. 1, Coimbra. online
↑D. S. Chambers,"Papal Conclaves and Prophetic Mystery in the Sistine Chapel", Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 41: 322-326 (1978)
↑Viorel Panaite, The Ottoman Law of War and Peace—The Ottoman Empire and Tribute Payers (Boulder CO:East European Monographs, 2000) p. 164 ISBN0-88033-461-4