The year 1501 in science and technology included many events, some of which are listed below.

• Nilakantha Somayaji completes his astronomical treatise Tantrasamgraha.
• Amerigo Vespucci maps the two stars Alpha Centauri and Beta Centauri, as well as the stars of the constellation Crux, which are below the horizon in Europe.

• March 25 – Portuguese navigator João da Nova probably discovers Ascension Island.^[1]
• November 1 (All Saints) – Amerigo Vespucci discovers and names Baía de Todos os Santos in Brazil.^[2]
• Gaspar Corte-Real makes the first known landing in North America by a Western European explorer this millennium.^[3]
• Rodrigo de Bastidas becomes the first European to explore the Isthmus of Panama.^[3]

• Continuing until 1587, a pandemic outbreak of fever, headache, sweating and black tongue spreads through Europe. Initially called morbus Hungaricus (the Hungarian disease), it will later be regarded as an outbreak of typhus.^[4]

• January 17 – Leonhart Fuchs, German botanist (died 1566)
• March 23 – Pietro Andrea Mattioli, Italian physician and botanist (died 1577)
• September 24 – Gerolamo Cardano, Italian mathematician and physician (died 1576)
• approx. date – Garcia de Orta, Portuguese Sephardi Jewish physician (died 1568)

• presumed date – Gaspar Corte-Real, Portuguese explorer (born 1450)