• Babur conquers Kabul and establishes a kingdom in Afghanistan that will eventually become the mighty Mughal Empire.
• A leader of the Funj tribe, Amara Dunqas, founds the Black Sultanate (Saltana az Zarqa) at Sannar in what is now Sudan. The Sultanate would eventually become the great Funj Empire that would last until 1821.
• Spanish forces under Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba conquer Naples in the name of King Ferdinand.
• In the Treaties of Blois, King Louis XII of France compromises with Spain and Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I to temporarily end the Italian Wars, keeping Milan and Genoa allowing Spain to keep Naples. The peace would hold until 1508.
• The Papal States annex Forli.
• Michelangelo completes his masterpiece, David.

These people were born in 1504:

• Michele Ghislieri, the future pope and saint Pius V.
• Angad, second guru of the Sikhs.
• German nobleman and Reformation champion Philip of Hesse.
• Italian painter Francesco Primaticcio.
• Swiss Protestant reformer Heinrich Bullinger.
• Italian author Giovanni Battista Giraldi, whose Ecatommiti ("One Hundred Tales," 1565) was the original source for Shakespeare's Othello and Measure for Measure.
• Scottish Protestant martyr Patrick Hamilton.
• English prelate Matthew Parker.

These people died in 1504:

• Queen Isabella I of Spain, better half of power couple Ferdinand and Isabella, supporter of Columbus, conqueror of Moors, expeller of Jews.
• Stephen the Great, Prince of Moldavia.
• Italian painter Filippino Lippi.
• English nobleman Thomas Stanley, betrayer of three kings, crowner of another.
  
  Richard: What says Lord Stanley? Will he bring his power?
  
  Messenger: My lord, he doth deny to come.
  
  
  - Shakespeare, Richard III, V.iii
  
  

1503 | 1505