1572

1571 1572 1573 1574 1575 1576 1577 1578 1579 1580

political events

The Ottoman sultan Selim II rebuilds his navy following last year's Battle of Lepanto. His naval forces reach such imposing strength that Don Juan de Austria refuses to attack.

Dutch insurgents capture Brill as insurrection against Spanish rule spreads in the North (see 1568). Spanish forces lay siege to Haarlem, where patriot Kenau Hesseider and her corps of women volunteers hold off 30,000 Spaniards (see 1573).

English Catholics continue their conspiracies to dethrone Queen Elizabeth, but the "Rising of the North" is suppressed (see 1570). Thomas Howard, 36, 4th duke of Norfolk, is beheaded at York August 22 for having conspired with John Leslie, Roberto Ridolfi, and the Spanish to invade England and free Mary, Queen of Scots. Also beheaded is Thomas Percy, 44, 7th earl of Northumberland. Walter Devereux, Viscount Hereford, is named 1st earl of Essex.

France's 14-year-old Princess Margot (Marguerite) is married August 18 to the Huguenot leader Henri de Navarre in a political match arranged by her mother, Catherine de' Medici, supposedly with the idea of healing the nation's Catholic-Huguenot animosities. Four days of festivities follow, with balls, masquerades, state suppers, and performances by poets, musicians, and Italian comedians, but tensions are not eased. Catherine instigates an assassination attempt on the 53-year-old Admiral Gaspard II de Coligny August 22, but the attempt fails. Charles visits Coligny and promises a full inquiry. The queen mother covers up her role in the incident by persuading her son that the Huguenots are scheming to retaliate against him, and Charles orders the execution of Huguenot leaders.

The Massacre of St. Bartholomew August 23 and 24 kills an estimated 50,000 Huguenots at Paris and in the provinces. Urged on by the queen mother Catherine de' Medici, Catholics disembowel Admiral Coligny and throw him from his window still alive. The new pope Gregory XIII and all the Catholic powers congratulate Catherine, and the pope commands that bonfires be lighted to celebrate the massacre, which he calls better than 50 Battles of Lepanto. Huguenot leaders Henri de Navarre and his 19-year-old cousin Henri I de Bourbon, 2nd Prince de Condé, feign conversion to Catholicism in order to save their lives (but later recant). Catherine's role in the massacre increases public distrust of her as a duplicitous, manipulative Florentine (see 1593; Edict of Nantes, 1598).

The loss of Admiral Coligny and others in the massacre will halt French colonial expansion for decades.

Miguel López de Legazpi dies at Manila August 20 at age 62, having established the Spanish dominion over the Philippines that will continue until 1898.

China's 12th Ming emperor Lung Ching dies after a 6-year reign and is succeeded by his 9-year-old son Hsing-ming, who will reign until 1620 as the emperor Wan Li, spending lavishly and exhausting the state coffers despite the best efforts of his minister Zhang Juzheng (Chang Chü-cheng), who was his father's tutor.

science

Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, 26, discovers a bright new star beyond the moon in Cassiopeia soon after sunset November 11 and thus destroys the Aristotelian idea that no change can occur in the celestial regions. Having lost most of his nose in a duel at age 19, Brahe is obliged to wear a silver nose. He has used instruments of his own design to see the supernova that will be called Tycho's star and to accumulate data on planetary and lunar positions (see 1576)

Mathematician and logician Petrus Ramus (Pierre de la Ramée) is killed in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew at Paris August 26 at age 57.

medicine

French surgeon Ambroise Paré, 55, wins fame by ending the brutal treatment of "infected" gunpowder wounds with boiling alder oil. Physician to Charles IX, Paré has run out of oil and improvised a compound of egg yolks, oil of roses, and turpentine. He has introduced arterial ligature in lieu of cauterization and will perform herniotomy without castration. He treats infected burns by applying onion poultices and will be famous for his line, "I dressed him and God healed him."

religion

Pope Pius V dies at Rome May 1 at age 68 after a 5½-year reign and is succeeded by the Bologna-born Ugo Cardinal Buoncompagni, 69, who will reign until his death in 1585 as Gregory XIII.

The Biblia Regia (or Antwerp Polyglot Bible) published at the Flemish city has been prepared under the supervision of Spanish scholar Benedictus Arias Montanus and printed by the French-born printer Christophe Plantin, 52. Clergyman have opposed its publication, but Spain's Felipe II has paid for the production of the eight-volume work, which is intended to fix the original text of the Old and New Testaments (see 1530); the first volume appeared in 1569, and printer Plantin has used copper engravings instead of wood for the illustrations (see London Polyglot Bible, 1657).

Jewish mystic Isaac ben Solomon Luria dies in a plague near his native Jerusalem August 5 at age 38, having attracted a large and enthusiastic Cabalistic following at Safed; Protestant reformer John Knox dies at Edinburgh November 24 at age 58 (approximate). His History of the Reformation in Scotland will be published in 1684.

education

Vienna's Spanish Riding School is mentioned for the first time. The Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II has visited a riding school in Castile, decided that his knights need a similar school, and imported Iberian horses. The riding hall's Lippizaner stallions, foaled in the town of Lipizza, are dark brown at birth but turn almost pure white within 5 years.

communications, media

Dutch insurgents besieged at Haarlem use pigeons to carry out messages.

literature

Printer-scholar Henri Etienne at Geneva publishes a Greek dictionary under the title Thesaurus graecae linguae. Now 44, his lexicographic triumph will be reprinted in new editions for more than 2 centuries (he also publishes a 13-volume translation of Plutarch in Greek and Latin).

Poetry: Os Lusiadas by Portuguese poet Luiz Vaz de Camoes, 48, is an epic of 10 cantos, modeled on Virgil's Aeneid of 19 B.C., recounting in ottava rima Vasco da Gama's discovery of the sea route to the Indies.

art

Painting: Portrait of Don Sebastian of Portugal by Sofonisba Anguissola. Court painter François Clouet dies at Paris September 22 at age 62; Il Bronzino dies at Florence November 23 at age 69.

crime

Devon-born navigator and pirate Francis Drake, 32, leaves Plymouth with two small ships carrying 73 men and boys on an expedition to raid Spanish shipping in the Caribbean, but as he prepares to seize a large pile of silver ignots he sustains a severe wound and has to withdraw (see 1573; le Clerc, 1554).

food and drink

The price of turkeys in London markets falls to 3 shillings 4 pence, down from 6 shillings in 1555. A turkey hen costs more than a tom turkey.

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