1521 Charles V has been elected as the Holy Roman Emperor, and Pope Leo X allies himself with Charles against Martin Luther. Francis of France does not like Charles – a Habsburg. The Italian War begins with Francis invading Navarre and the low countries. Francis is allied with the Republic Venice. England's Henry VIII sides with Charles and the Papal States.
1521 The Ottomans continue to expand. Their sultan, Selim, has died and his son Suleiman (Sulayman) succeeds him and captures Belgrade.
1521 Hernán Cortés (Cortes), with cannon and an enlarged army of Spaniards and Indians, attacks the Mexica (Aztecs) at Tenochtitlan (Mexico City). The people of Tenochtitlan have no guns and are weakened by small pox. Their supply of water is cut. They are killed by the thousands and defeated.
1522 Suleiman sends an armada of 400 ships and more than 100,000 men to Rhodes. He is using artillery and explosives. Rhodes capitulates after a siege of 145 days.
1525 In Italy, King Francis of France is defeated at the Battle of Pavia. Francis is taken prisoner and many of his chief nobles are killed. France fails to regain territories in Italy.
1526 The printing press is introduced in Stockholm, Sweden.
1526 From Kabul a Muslim tribal leader, Babur, has been making a series of raids through the Khyber Pass into the Indus Valley, seeking plunder. He has found opposition forces weak, and at Panipat (about fifty miles north of Delhi, he routes the forces of the Sultan Ibrahim Lodi – an Afgan who has ruled much of India since 1489.
1526 Suleiman the Great defeats an army led by King Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia, near Mohács, about 150 kilometers south of Buda and Pest. King Louis falls under his horse into a river and drowns.
1527 Machiavelli dies of ill health never seeing the unification of Italy that he desired.
1527 In South America a small pox epidemic devastates the Inca people of Cusco. Five years of civil war begin over which of two sons is to succeed the now dead king, Huayna Capac.
1529 From the Muslim town of Adal in what today is Somalia, Ahmad ibn Ghazi has been leading a jihad against the Ethiopian Christian emperor Anbasa Segad. According to the Ethiopian Royal Chronicles, Emperor Segad has 16,000 cavalry and 200,000 infantry. Grazni is victorious with 560 cavalry,12,000 soldiers and firearms. In coming years the Muslims will plunder southern Ethiopia, burn churches and monasteries and compel Christians to convert.
1529 Suleiman sends an army from Hungary against Vienna: 325,000 men, 90,000 camels and 500 artillery pieces. Thousands of camels are lost because of the spring rains and 200 of the heavier artillery pieces are sent back. Suleiman's force finally arrives in late September. Their attempts to get past Vienna's walls fail, and in mid-October they withdraw.