1565
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Swedish forces under the command of Klas Kristersson Horn lay waste parts of Denmark in January, burning towns in Halland and Skania, and destroying the countryside outside Helsinborg despite strong resistance of Danes under the command of Jorgen Lunges (see 1564). The Swedish commander Nils Andersson Boije plunders the Hallandian city of Ny-Varberg, storms the castle of Varberg, and massacres its garrison along with all who have taken refuge in it. The Danes give command of their army in April to Daniel Rantzau, 35, whose mercenary Landsknechts and Reiters raise the siege of Varberg October 16. Finding that Knut Hakansson Hand has destroyed the only bridge across the Atran River, Rantzau marches his men north to use fords located upstream, encounters an 11,000-man Swedish army under the command of Erik XIV Vasa at Axtorna, and although he has only 7,600 men (1,600 horsemen; 6,000 infantry) and 21 guns, uses his superior cavalry and skill to defeat the Swedes, capturing the entire enemy artillery complement of 47 cannons; combined Danish and Swedish losses total between 3,000 and 4,000 (see 1566).
Mary, Queen of Scots, now 22, is married July 29 to her Yorkshire-born cousin, Henry Stuart, 18, Lord Darnley, whom she has created earl of Ross (a rank previously reserved for a son of a Scottish king) and, more recently, duke of Albany. His mother, Margaret (née Douglas) is a granddaughter of the late Henry VII, and the young man met Mary while both were in France. He has traveled to Scotland in February with the permission of Queen Elizabeth, but Elizabeth and her privy council have sent word that the proposed marriage would be "dangerous to the common amity" of the two nations. Lord Darnley's father, Matthew, 4th earl of Lennox, has pretensions to the Scottish throne but has been opposed by James Hamilton, 2nd earl of Arran (see Rizzio, 1576).
Elizabeth appoints Sir Henry Sidney, 36, lord deputy of Ireland with instructions to suppress a rebellion in Ulster led by patriot Shane O'Neill, now 35 (see 1564). Sir Hugh finds it impossible to suppress the uprising by force, so he intrigues with O'Neill's enemies the O'Donnells of Tyrconnell and the MacDonnells of Antrim (see 1566).
France's Charles IX, now 15, is married at the cathedral of Mézières November 27 to Elizabeth of Austria, also 15, in a match arranged by Catherine de' Medici. She has failed in her efforts to have her son married to England's Elizabeth, who at 32 is more than twice the young king's age, and has settled for a daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian.
Advisers to England's Elizabeth entreat her to marry and produce an heir to the throne. She has been heard more than once to say that she would "live and die a virgin," and while she dances quadrilles with eligible French and Austrian princes, London gossip has it that a physical defect prevents her from marrying. Elizabeth nevertheless uses her feminine charms to manipulate her male advisers.
The tiny Channel island of Sark 22 miles off the French coast becomes a possession of the English crown, even though it is 75 miles south of what later will be called the British Isles.
Ottoman forces lay siege to Malta in May (see 1551). Some 700 Knights of St. John, led by their grand master Jean Parisot de La Valette, 71, hold out until September, when Spanish forces arrive and drive 31,000 Turks into the sea. Suleiman the Magnificent has made his Bosnian-born son-in-law Mehmed Sokollu, 59, his grand vizier (chief minister) in June, having seen the man rise to the rank of high admiral (1546) and governor general (beylerbeyi) of Rumelia. Recruited originally through the child-tribute (devsirme) levied in the Balkans, Sokollu will exercise the real power in the empire until 1574.
The Battle of Talikota in the Indian Decca January 23 ends the Hindu empire of Vijayanagar, which has dominated the Tamil and Kannada South. Numbering several hundred thousand men with large contingents of elephants, the Muslim armies of the sultans of Ahmadnagar, Bijapur, Bidar, and Golconda join forces and use artillery to attack a Hindu army led by the minister Ramaraja, who is captured and beheaded. His brother Tirumala retires to Penukonda, where he will usurp the throne in 1570. The capital city of Vijayanagar will be captured and destroyed over the next 5 months and never occupied again.
Burmese forces invade the Laotian kingdom of Lan Xang (year approximate). Setthathirat I resists the invaders to preserve his country's autonomy.
Rio de Janeiro is founded March 1 by the Portuguese conquistador Mem de Sá; he has received help from the missionary Jose de Anchieta and call the new city Sao Sebastiao do Rio de Janeiro in honor of Portugal's Sebastiao I (see 1567).
St. Augustine (San Agostin), Florida, is established August 28 as the first permanent European settlement in North America. Spanish conquistador Pedro Menéndez de Aviles settles 600 colonists there, having attacked Fort Caroline on the St. John's River and slaughtered all its male inhabitants (see 1562). Jean Ribaut arrives at Fort Caroline with seven ships and 600 men, having been sent out by Admiral Coligny to reinforce the Huguenot settlement established in 1562 (persecution of Huguenots forced Ribaut to seek refuge in England after his return to France 3 years ago, and although he was imprisoned for refusing to participate in an English colonization project he was later released by Elizabeth I). Spanish authorities order Menéndez de Aviles to destroy the French colony. He sets out from St. Augustine, a storm scatters Ribaut's fleet and drives his flagship ashore, and Ribaut is executed as a heretic October 12 at age 45 (approximate) along with his surviving crewmen on orders from Menéndez de Aviles (see 1600).
The Spanish expedition to the Philippines arrives at Cebu in April under the command of Miguel López de Legazpi (see 1564). He conquers the islands for Felipe (Philip), who views them as a stepping stone to the Spice Islands, and leaves for New Spain June 1 with a cargo of cinnamon. The monk Andrés de Urdaneta accompanies him and discovers a favorable west-to-east route, sailing at high latitudes (about 42° North) to avoid typhoons and take advantage of favorable winds, reaching the Isthmus of Panama in 123 days, and establishng a route that will help the Spaniards colonize the Philippines. Legazpi will be governor of the islands until his death in 1572 (see 1568; Manila, 1571).
The London Royal Exchange is founded by Sir Thomas Gresham (see 1561). Initially called the "Bourse," it is designed to be a convenient meeting place for exchange dealers (bankers) and will be renamed by royal proclamation in 1571 (see 1570).
Naturalist-zoologist Konrad Gesner dies of plague at his native Zürich December 13 at age 49, leaving incomplete a comprehensive survey of plant life with some 1,500 wood engravings of plants, their important flowers, and their seeds.
London's Royal College of Physicians receives authority to conduct dissections of human cadavers.
Pope Pius IV dies at Rome December 9 at age 66 after a 6-year reign in which he has resumed the Council of Trent after a 10-year suspension, supported writers, and raised learned men to the cardinalate (see 1566).
The first picture of lead pencil appears in a book on fossil collecting by Konrad Gesner, whose woodcut shows an ornately turned tube of wood holding a tapered piece of the "lead." English shepherds in Cumberland found a large deposit in the past decade of a black sooty material that according to legend was revealed when a strong gale toppled an ancient tree; the material in the tree's gnarled roots was pure "wadd," or "black lead," or "plumbago" (it will be called graphite beginning in 1789), and the shepherds have been using it to mark their sheep; Borrowdale lead, mined near Keswick, will be a crown monopoly and the world's chief source for 2 centuries (see 1795).
Nonfiction: On Nature According to Its Own Principles (De natura juxta propria principia) by Italian philosopher and natural scientist Bernardino Telesio, 56, of Cosenza, who earlier in his life spent 9 years in a monastery. Telesio preaches empiricism, arguing against the folly of trying to understand the natural world's workings without studying nature itself, relying on the senses and paying particular attention to aspects of heat and cold. Summarie of Englyshe Chronicles is by English tailor-turned-antiquarian John Stow, 40, who is suspected of having Roman Catholic leanings and will have his work examined periodically by the Stationers' Company whose charter was confirmed in 1558.
Bibliophile Jean Grolier, vicomte d'Aguisy, dies at Paris October 22 at age 86, having been a patron of writers and printers. His library of 3,000 leather-bound volumes will be dispersed in 1676.
Painting: Haymaking, The Harvesters, The Return of the Herd, The Gloomy Day, The Hunters in the Snow, and Winter Landscape with a Bird Trap by Pieter Brueghel; The Death of Actaeon by Titian; The Family of Darius Before Alexander by Paolo Veronese.
Mass: "Missa Papae Marcelli" by Giovanni P. da Palestrina.
John Hawkins introduces tobacco into England from Florida and writes, "The Floridians when they travell have a kinde of herbe dried, who with a cane and an earthen cap in the end, with fire, and the dried herbs put together, doe sucke thorow the cane the smoke thereof, which smoke satisfieth their hunger, and therewith they live foure or five dayes without meat or drinke . . ." (see 1600).
Sir John Hawkins finds carrots growing on Margarita Island off the coast of Venezuela, where they have evidently been planted by Spanish conquistadors.
Europe has poor harvests. France's queen mother Catherine de' Medici decrees that meals shall be limited to three courses.
Residents of St. Augustine introduce Spanish foods such as rice and wheat breads. Priests and nuns from the colony will trek across the Florida peninsula to what later will be Pensacola, bringing with them food and cooking ideas new to the natives.
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