1537
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Contents: political eventshuman rights, social justice exploration, colonization commerce science religion |
English forces complete the pacfication of Ireland (see 1535); Thomas Fitzgerald, 10th earl of Kildare, is hanged for treason at his native London February 3 at age 23 along with his five uncles. Known as "Silken Thomas," he has opposed Henry VIII's breach with Rome, and his execution inspires the Butler clan of Ormonde to push for royal (rather than papal) ecclesiastical supremacy by the Dublin parliament. English-born nobleman Piers Butler, 8th earl of Ormonde, is appointed lord deputy. There will be no more Irish-born lord deputies (viceroys) of Ireland for more than a century, and relations between England and Irish will worsen (see 1541).
Henry VIII's queen Jane Seymour dies of fever October 24 a few days after giving birth to a son who will become Edward VI in 1547.
French and Turkish forces lay siege to Corfu with help from the Algerian corsair Khair ad-Din, but Corfu's Venetian defenders hold fast.
Florence ends the Medici family's control after 103 years in which the city has been brought to its economic and artistic zenith.
Gujurat's Bahadur Shah dies after a reign in which he has gained the support of Afghans and Mughal emigrés in challenging Mughal suzerainty in Rajasthan.
The Songhai emperor Askia Ismal in West Africa recalls his elderly father, the former emperor Mohammed I Askia, to Gao from his place of exile (see 1531; 1538).
The Inca Manco Capac II rebels against Pizarro and establishes a new state at Vilcabamba (see exploration [Bingham], 1911).
The papal bull Sublimus Deus issued June 2 by Paul III prohibits enslavement of Indians, who, he says, are real men and women with souls (veri homines), but Charles V forces the pope to recall his briefs and imprisons Bernardino de Mayo, a friar who has been with Pizzaro in Peru and has had the pope's ear. Paul excommunicates Catholic slave traders.
Slaves on the island of Hispaniola stage another revolt (see 1533).
Don Pedro de Mendoza leaves Buenos Aires for Spain in April but is desperately ill with syphilis and dies en route (see 1536). His settlement will be taken over the by Guaraní within 4 years (see 1580).
Asunción is founded on the Paraguay River August 15 by Spanish explorer Juan Salazar de Espinosa.
Conquistador Sebastián de Benalcázar leads an expedition in search of a fabled city of Eldorado that is said to abound with gold, finds nothing, but founds what later will be the city of Popayán and becomes governor of the district in the viceroyalty of Peru.
Sweden's Gustav I Eriksson ends the Hanse's Baltic monopoly after a war with Lübeck.
Nova Scientia by Italian mathematician Niccolo Tartaglia, 37, discusses the motion of heavenly bodies and the shape and trajectory of projectiles. Tartaglia will discover the solution to the cubic equation in 1541, but mathematician Geronimo Cardano, now 36, will appropriate his findings.
Menno Simons preaches the Mennonite views of 1523 with modifications to some Anabaptists who have left the Münster faction (see 1536). Set apart to the eldership at Groningen in January, Menno repudiates the formation of a new religious sect, but he begins actively to advocate a faith that absolutely forbids oaths and the taking of life (and thus makes it impossible for a believer to be a magistrate or to serve in the army). He rejects terms such as Trinity, which cannot be found in the Bible, prohibits marriage with outsiders, but insists that his followers obey the law in all things not prohibited by the Bible (see 1542; Amish, 1693).
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