An acute respiratory disease emerged in Asia before spreading through North Africa and Europe during the first chronicled, inter-regional flu pandemic generally recognized by medical historians and epidemiologists. Influenza-like illnesses had been documented in Europe since at least Charlemagne, with 1357's outbreak the first to be called influenza, but the 1510 flu pandemic is the first to be pathologically described following communication advances brought about by the printing press. Flu became more widely referred to as coqueluche and coccolucio in France and Sicily during this pandemic, variations of which became the most popular names for flu in early modern Europe. The pandemic caused significant disruption in government, church, and society with near-universal infection and a mortality rate of around 1%.

(no entry for this year)

Hieronymus Brunschwygk's book, Liber de arte Distillandi de Compositis, describes medicinal herbs and the construction of stills for processing them.

Juan Ponce de León becomes the first European definitely known to sight the modern-day territory of the United States, specifically Florida, mistaking it for another island. He landed somewhere along Florida's east coast, then charted the Atlantic coast down to the Florida Keys and north along the Gulf coast; historian John R. Swanton believed that he sailed perhaps as far as Apalachee Bay on Florida's western coast. Though in popular culture he was supposedly searching for the Fountain of Youth, there is no contemporary evidence to support the story, which most modern historians consider a myth.

Detailed world map produced by Muhiddin Piri (c. 1470–1553), better known as Piri Reis, an Ottoman corsair, navigator, geographer, and cartographer. He is primarily known today for his cartographic works, including his 1513 world map and the Book of the Sea, a book with detailed information on early navigational techniques as well as relatively accurate charts for their time, describing the ports and cities of the Mediterranean Sea.

Vasco Núñz de Balboa first sees what will become known as the Pacific Ocean.

The earliest printed textbook for midwifes was written by Eucharius Rösslin (d.1526?) of Worms. First published in Germany, Die Rosengarten was dedicated to Princess Katherine of Saxony and was granted a copyright by Emperor Maximilian in 1513. The book was an immediate success. It then appeared in English in 1540 as The Birth of Mankind. By the mid-16th century, it had been translated into all the main European languages and had gone through numerous editions. It survived 40 editions, being used as late as 1730.

Johannes Werner publishes his translation of Ptolemy's Geography, Nova Translatio Primi Libri Geographicae Cl. Ptolomaei, containing the Werner map projection and proposing use of the cross-staff for marine navigation.

The first Johannes Schöner Globe, a printed globe, was made. Two exemplars survive, one at the Historisches Museum in Frankfurt and the other at the Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek, at Weimar. There can be little doubt that Schöner was familiar with the globe made in Nuremberg by Martin Behaim in 1492. An inscription across the northern part of America, says: "This part of the island has been discovered by order of the King of Castile". This is matched by another inscription off America's east coast: "The more southerly part of this island was discovered by order of the King of Portugal"; that is, America is called in both an island. A strait between the southern tip of America and the land to the south can be found on Schöner's globe before its "official discovery" by Ferdinand Magellan in 1520. The actual strait is at 53 degrees south, whereas in the 1515 globe its southernmost tip is shown at about 45 degrees south. Schöner accompanied his globe with an explanatory treatise, Luculentissima quaedam terrae totius descriptio ("A Most Lucid Description of All Lands"). It contained a description of America.

An Indian rhinoceros arrives in Lisbon, the first to be seen in Europe since Roman times.

The fall of the Nantan meteorite is possibly observed near the city of Nantan, Nandan County, Guangxi (China).

A third epidemic of sweating sickness in England hits Oxford and Cambridge.

German surgeon Hans von Gersdorff publishes his Feldbuch der Wundarzney ("Field book of surgery").

Henricus Grammateus (also known as Henricus Scriptor, Heinrich Schreyber or Heinrich Schreiber)publishes Ayn neu Kunstlich Buech in Vienna, containing the earliest printed use of plus and minus signs for arithmetic. He also publishes Libellus de compositione regularum pro vasorum mensuratione. Deque arte ista tota theoreticae et practicae and a new musical temperament, which is now named after him, for the harpsichord. It was a precursor of the equal temperament.

Dancing plague, a case of dancing mania, breaks out in Strasbourg. Somewhere between 50 and 400 people took to dancing for weeks. There are many theories behind the phenomenon, the most popular being stress-induced mass hysteria, suggested by John Waller. Other theories include ergot and religious explanations. There is controversy concerning the number of deaths.

The Miller Atlas, also known as Lopo Homem-Reineis Atlas, a richly illustrated Portuguese partial world atlas is published. It is a joint work of the cartographers Lopo Homem, Pedro Reinel and Jorge Reinel, and illustrated by miniaturist António de Holanda. The regions represented are the North Atlantic Ocean, Northern Europe, the Azores Archipelago, Madagascar, Horn of Africa, the Indian Ocean, Indonesia, the China Sea, the Moluccas, Brazil and the Mediterranean Sea. It was acquired by the librarian Bénigne Emmanuel Clement Miller in 1855 at a bookseller in Santarém, Portugal, hence the name Miller Atlas. In 1897, his widow sold it to the National Library of France, where it has stayed ever since.

A pandemic spreads from the Greater Antilles into Central America, and perhaps as far as Peru, killing much of the indigenous populations in these areas.