1512

Events 
 April 11 – Battle of Ravenna. French forces under Gaston de Foix, Duc de Nemours defeat the Spanish under Raymond of Cardona, but Gaston is killed in the fighting.
 October 19 – Martin Luther becomes a doctor of theology [Doctor in Biblia].
 October 21 – Martin Luther joins the theological faculty of the University of Wittenberg
 November 1 – The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, painted by Michelangelo (Michelangelo Buonarroti), is shown to the public for the first time.
 Juan Ponce de León discovers the Turks and Caicos Islands.
 Selim I succeeds Beyazid II as Sultan, ruler of the Ottoman Empire.
 Moldavia is conquered by the Turks.
 Copernicus writes Commentariolus and moves the sun to the center of the solar system.
 First use of the word "masque" to denote a poetic drama.
 Florentine Republic is dismantled and the Medici family comes back into power.

 Births 
 January 31 – King Henry of Portugal (d. 1580)
 March 5 – Gerardus Mercator, Flemish cartographer (d. 1594)
 April 10 – King James V of Scotland (d. 1542)
 Galeazzo Alessi, Italian architect (d. 1572)
 Henry Balnaves, Scottish politician and religious reformer (d. 1579)
 Patrick Hepburn, 3rd Earl of Bothwell, Scottish renegade (d. 1556)
 Edward Fiennes Clinton, English admiral (d. 1585)
 Marcin Kromer, bishop of Warnia (d. 1589)
 James Lainez, Jesuit General and theologian (d.1565)
 Catherine Parr, sixth wife of Henry VIII of England (d. 1548)
 Mikolaj Rudy Radziwill, Polish magnate (d. 1584)
 Tabinshwehti, king who unified Burma
 Adrianus Turnebus, French classical scholar (d. 1565)
 Jeronimo Zurita y Castro, Spanish historian (d. 1580)

 Deaths