1512

January–March

• January 2 - Svante Nilsson, regent of Sweden since 1504, dies at the age of 51. Eric Trolle is subsequently elected as the new Regent, but will be ousted after only six months.
• January 23 - Neagoe Basarab becomes the new Prince of Wallachia at the capital, Târgoviște, after Prince Prince Vlad V is captured at battle in Bucharest and then decapitated.
• February 18 - War of the League of Cambrai: The French carry out the Sack of Brescia.
• March 12 - Pope Julius II issues the papal bull Dilecte fili, declaring King Louis XII deposed and directing that the French throne be given to King Henry VIII of England.
• March 23 - Donyo Dorje, ruler of the Kingdom of Ü-Tsang and most of Tibet, dies after a reign of more than 30 years and is succeeded by his brother, Ngawang Namgyal.

April–June

• April 6 - A truce was concluded in Rome, between the emperor Maximilian I and the Republic of Venice. It was ratified on 20 May by the emperor, thus ending imperial participation in the League of Cambrai.
• April 11 - War of the League of Cambrai - Battle of Ravenna: French troops under Gaston of Foix, Duke of Nemours, assisted by the Duchy of Ferrara, defeat the Spanish and Papal States troops led by Ramón de Cardona. Gaston is killed in the pursuit as the Spanish retreat, and at least 3,000 of his troops are killed. More than 9,000 Spanish and Papal troops are killed, and 17,000 civilians in and around the city of Ravenna are massacred.
• May 3 - The Fifth Council of the Lateran begins.
• May 12 - Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk, leads an English expedition into France and burns the port city of Brest.
• May 26 - Selim I succeeds Bayezid II, as Sultan of the Ottoman Empire.
• June 15 - Al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghuri, ruler of the Mamluk Sultanate that controls Egypt and what is now Egypt, Israel, Lebanon and parts of Syria, receives an envoy from King George II of Kakheti and decides to reopen the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
• June 16 - Massimiliano Sforza is installed as the new Duke of Milan by the Holy League, to force out King Louis XII of France.
• June 24 - Captain-Major Simão de Miranda de Azevedo took office as the new Portuguese Governor of Mozambique after being replaced by King Manuel I to replace António de Saldanha.
• June 29 - Giano II di Campofregoso was elected as the Doge of the Republic of Genoa in Italy after the withdrawal of French occupation troops, filling a vacancy that had existed since 1507.

July–September

• July 10 - King Ferdinand II of Aragon sends Don Fadrique de Toledo, to complete the Spanish conquest of Iberian Navarre.
• July 12 - The Treaty of Blois is signed in France between representatives of the Spanish Kingdom of Navarre and of the Kingdom of France guaranteeing French intervention to keep Navarre neutral and to prevent an attack by the "Holy League" alliance of Pope Julius II and Spain's King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Castile.
• July 23 - Sten Sture the Younger is elected new Regent of Sweden, replacing Eric Trolle.
• August 10 - War of the League of Cambrai - Battle of Saint-Mathieu: The English navy defeats the French-Breton fleet. Both navies use ships firing cannons through ports, and each loses its principal ship — Regent and Marie-la-Cordelière — through a large explosion aboard the latter.
• September 1 - After being dispatched by Pope Julius II with command of a Spanish Army, General Giovanni di Lorenzo de' Medici recaptures the city of Florence, capital of the Florentine Republic in Italy and ousts Piero Soderini as the ruling Gonfaloniere. The success at Florence spares the city of Rome from a French invasion. Within a year, Medici becomes leader of the Roman Catholic Church and the Papal States as Pope Leo X.
• September 10 - Portuguese Admiral Afonso de Albuquerque departs from the Indian city of Cochin with 14 ships and 1,700 troops to retake the fortress of Goa, capital of Portuguese India, from Bijapur's General Rasul Khan. A day before a planned Portuguese attack on Bihar's army, Rasul Khan and his occupying forces depart from Goa.

October–December

• October 19 - Martin Luther becomes a doctor of theology.
• October 21 - Martin Luther joins the theological faculty of the University of Wittenberg.
• November 1 - The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, painted by Michelangelo, is exhibited to the public for the first time.
• November 10 - Pope Julius II proposes the conclusion of a comprehensive peace treaty between the emperor and the Venetians, that would resolve various political conflicts by favoring Maximilian's interests and suppressing the French influence in Italy.
• December 23 - Finding the Pope's peace proposals too favorable towards the emperor, Venetian government decides to initiate peace negotiations with the king of France.
• December 27 - The Spanish Crown issues the Laws of Burgos, governing the conduct of settlers with regard to native Indians in the New World.

Date unknown

• António de Abreu discovers Timor Island, and reaches the Banda Islands, Ambon Island and Seram.
• Francisco Serrão reaches the Moluccas.
• Francisco Serrao and other shipwreck sailors with permission from the Ternate Sultanate build Fort Tolukko. It is one of the earliest, if not the first European style fortress in southeast Asia.
• Juan Ponce de León discovers the Turks and Caicos Islands.
• Pedro Mascarenhas discovers Diego Garcia, and reaches Mauritius in the Mascarene Islands.
• Moldavia becomes a vassal of the Ottoman Empire, on the same conditions as Wallachia: the voivode will be designated by the Turks, but will be Eastern Orthodox Christians. Also, the Turks are not allowed to build mosques, to be buried, to own land or to settle in the country.
• The Florentine Republic begins to be dismantled, and the Medici Family comes back into power.
• The word masque is first used to denote a poetic drama.
• Nicolaus Copernicus begins to write Commentariolus, an abstract of what will eventually become De revolutionibus orbium coelestium; he sends it to other scientists interested in the matter by 1514.