1500 in science

Astronomy

• June 1–24 – Johannes Werner tracks the movement of a comet. It has been suggested that this was C/1861 J1.
• November 5–6 – Nicolaus Copernicus observes a lunar eclipse from Rome.

  Cartography

• Map of Juan de la Cosa, the earliest to show the Americas.
• approx. date – Johannes Stabius introduces the "Werner projection".

  Cryptography

• approx. date – Johannes Trithemius of Spanheim writes Steganographia. Copies of the manuscript circulate for a hundred years.

  Earth science

• Leonardo da Vinci, finding many fossils in canal building sites, proposes that fossil shells of marine animals are found on mountains because Earth undergoes transformations that cause areas once submerged to become exposed.

  Exploration

• March 9–April 22 – Expedition of Pedro Álvares Cabral, with thirteen caravels, sails from Lisbon to Brazil, which he claims for Portugal.
• August 10 – Diogo Dias becomes the first European to sight the island of Madagascar.
• Alonso de Ojeda and Amerigo Vespucci return to Spain from their expedition to Venezuela.

  Medicine

• approx. date – Jakob Nufer, a Swiss pig gelder, supposedly performs the first recorded successful caesarean section on a living woman.

  Pharmaceutics

• Hieronymus Brunschwygk's Liber de arte distillandi de simplicibus, known as the "Small Book ", describes medicinal herbs and the construction of stills for processing them. He will publish his "Big Book", dealing with the same subjects, in 1512.

  Technology

• Leonardo da Vinci draws a wheel-lock musket, the first known appearance of this type of ignition, in which a spring mechanism causes a ratchet to strike sparks from iron and pyrites or flint. It will come into use, replacing match ignition, about 15 years later. By this date, he has also designed the first helicopter.
• Rifling in gun barrels is introduced: grooves are cut in spirals into the interior of the barrels, imparting a stabilizing spin to the projectile.
• Defence of Pisa demonstrates the effectiveness of the trace italienne form of fortification.
• Ottaviano Petrucci prints music with movable type in Venice.

  Births

• Hernando de Alarcón, Spanish navigator
• Ruy López de Villalobos, Spanish explorer
• approx. date
• * Pierre Desceliers, French cartographer
• * Ambrosius Ehinger, Bavarian explorer of South America
• * Bartolomeo Maranta, Italian physician and botanist
• * Paarangot Jyeshtadevan Namboodiri, Keralan mathematician and astronomer
• * Walther H. Ryff, German science writer
• * Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia, Italian mathematician

  Deaths

• May 28 – Bartolomeu Dias, Portuguese explorer