1577

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1571 1572 1573 1574 1575 1576 1577 1578 1579 1580

Contents:

political events
exploration, colonization
medicine
religion
architecture, real estate
food availability
food and drink

political events

The Perpetual Edict signed by Don Juan de Austria with Dutch rebels in February provides for removal of Spanish troops from the Lowlands in exchange for recognition of Don Juan as governor and restoration of Roman Catholicism as the state religion (see 1576). The provinces of Holland and Zeeland refuse to recognize Don Juan's authority, however, and will not accept the Roman faith. Don Juan resigns his position and resumes hostilities, capturing Namur. Willem the Silent enters Brussels in triumph September 23 and becomes lieutenant to the new governor, Archduke Mathias of Hapsburg (but see 1578).

French Catholics triumph in mid-September over Huguenot forces, but the sixth war is brief. Reluctant to let the Holy League become too powerful, Henri III grants the Huguenots generous terms.

exploration, colonization

The city of Amritsar (initially called Ramdaspur) is founded in northwestern India's Punjab region by the fourth Sikh guru Ram Das around a sacred pool called the Amrita Saras on land given him by the Mughal emperor Akbar (see 1574; Golden Temple, 1605)

Sir Martin Frobisher explores the Atlantic Coast of North America, having obtained royal backing (see 1576). His attempts to establish a settlement at Frobisher Bay will be unsuccessful (see 1578).

Francis Drake sets sail from Plymouth December 13 with a fleet of six ships and sails down the African coast en route for South America (see crime, 1573). His 18-gun, 100-ton flagship Pelican is 102 feet in length overall and carries nine "gentlemen" in addition to a crew of 80 (which includes 40 men-at-arms, a tailor, a shoemaker, an apothecary, and Drake's personal trumpeter) (see 1578).

medicine

The Black Assize at Oxford, England, ends with the judges, the jury, witnesses, everyone in the court except the prisoners dying of "gaol fever," a pestilence believed to have arisen out of the bowels of the earth but is actually typhus carried by the prisoners, who live in filth.

religion

England's Queen Elizabeth continues to persecute Roman Catholics (see 1577). Devon-born priest Cuthbert Mayne, 33, returned from France to Cornwall last year as a missionary, has disguised himself as the steward of a local landowner, but is discovered and charged with denying the queen's spiritual supremacy, saying Mass, and possessing the Roman Catholic devotional medallion known as an Agnus Dei. He is executed at Launceston, Cornwall, November 30 (see Campion, 1581).

architecture, real estate

Venice's Church of the Redeemer (Il Redentore) designed by Andrea Palladio goes up with funds voted by the Venetian Senate at the height of a plague.

food availability

Men sailing with Sir Martin Frobisher receive one pound of biscuit and one gallon of beer each day, one pound of salt beef or pork on flesh days and one dried codfish for every four men on fast days, with oatmeal and rice when the fish gives out. Each man also receives one-quarter pound of butter per day and a half-pound of cheese, with honey for sweetening and "sallet oyle" and vinegar, plus wild game, wild fowl, salmon, and fresh cod when it is available.

food and drink

London-born topographer-clergyman William Harrison, 43, says in his Description of England, "If the world last a while after this rate, the wheate and rie will be no graine for poor man to feed on." Barley is the common bread cereal in parts of Wales and the west of England; in the north of England and the Midlands, oats and rye, or a mixture of rye and wheat called maslin, or monk corn, are the staple cereal grains for rural people, but in bad harvest years even maslin is scarce and costly, forcing the poor to subsist on pease meal or ground beans. Harrison says that noblemen, gentry, and students generally dine at about 11 o'clock in the morning, merchants and husbandmen at noon, with a simple supper taken between 5 o'clock and 6 by the upper classes, an hour or so later by the yeomen. The poor eat whenever and whatever they can, living by the rule, "When fish is scant, and fruit of trees, Supplie that want with butter and cheese."

1571 1572 1573 1574 1575 1576 1577 1578 1579 1580


Astronomy

Tycho Brahe tries to determine the distance of the great comet of 1577 from Earth using parallax. His crude observations are good enough to demonstrate that the comet has to be at least four times as distant as the Moon, proving that a comet is not an atmospheric phenomenon. See also 1550 Astronomy. (See essay.)

Food & agriculture

Barnaby Googe [b. Lincolnshire, England, June 11, 1540, d. February 1594], in his Four Books of Husbandry, proposes the use of artificial prairies and stresses the importance of weeding. See also 1701 Food & agriculture.

Materials

Prosperity in England during the Elizabethan Age, as described by William Harrison in Description of England, includes chimneys instead of smoke holes, glazed windows instead of wooden lattices, regular beds instead of straw pallets, pewter plates instead of wooden platters, and tin or silver spoons instead of wooden ones. English gardens, Harrison reports, now include flowers and "rare and medicinable" herbs. See also 1274 Food & agriculture.

Transportation

The use of the Dutchman's log for measuring the speed of a ship is known. Unlike the log-and-line, it uses marks on the side of the ship. The interval between the first and last mark passing a floating object indicates the measure of the ship's speed. See also 1573 Transportation; 1802 Transportation.


Millennium: 2nd millennium
Centuries: 15th century16th century17th century
Decades: 1540s  1550s  1560s  – 1570s –  1580s  1590s  1600s
Years: 1574 1575 157615771578 1579 1580
1577 by topic
Arts and science
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Births - Deaths
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Establishments - Disestablishments
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1577 in other calendars
Gregorian calendar 1577
MDLXXVII
Ab urbe condita 2330
Armenian calendar 1026
ԹՎ ՌԻԶ
Assyrian calendar 6327
Bahá'í calendar -267–-266
Bengali calendar 984
Berber calendar 2527
English Regnal year 19 Eliz. 1 – 20 Eliz. 1
Buddhist calendar 2121
Burmese calendar 939
Byzantine calendar 7085–7086
Chinese calendar 丙子年十二月十三日
(4213/4273-12-13)
— to —
丁丑年十一月廿三日
(4214/4274-11-23)
Coptic calendar 1293–1294
Ethiopian calendar 1569–1570
Hebrew calendar 5337–5338
Hindu calendars
 - Bikram Samwat 1633–1634
 - Shaka Samvat 1499–1500
 - Kali Yuga 4678–4679
Holocene calendar 11577
Iranian calendar 955–956
Islamic calendar 984–985
Japanese calendar Tenshō 5
(天正5年)
Korean calendar 3910
Minguo calendar 335 before ROC
民前335年
Thai solar calendar 2120
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Year 1577 (MDLXXVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.

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January–June

July–December

Date unknown


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