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Spain and Portugal unite under one crown following the death of Portugal's Cardinal Henrique at Almeirim January 31 (his 68th birthday) after a 2-year reign as king. He has left no designated successor, and Spanish forces under the aging Fernando, duque de Alva, invade his country with help from a fleet under the command of Alvaro de Bazán, marqués de Santa Cruz, 53; they prevail at the Battle of Alcantara near Lisbon August 25, and Spain's Felipe II is proclaimed Portugal's Felipe I. Felipe's wife, Anne of Austria, dies at age 31, having given birth to five children, four of whom died in childhood (see 1581; 1640).
An Irish rebellion supported by the Spanish is suppressed by the English, who pacify the rebels by starving them.
A seventh French civil war between Catholics and Huguenots breaks out but is ended November 26 by the Treaty of Fleix, which confirms earlier treaties granted to the Huguenots (see 1585).
The Moroccan port of Ceuta opposite Gibraltar is occupied by the Spanish, who will hold it until 1688.
Buenos Aires is founded June 11 by Spanish conquistador Juan de Garay, captain-general of the La Plata territory, who will be killed in a massacre by natives in 1583 (see 1515).
Francis Drake enters Plymouth harbor September 26 after the first circumnavigation of the world by an Englishman. He has left Java March 26, rounded the Cape of Good Hope June 15 with only three casks of water for his 57 men aboard the Golden Hinde, watered on the Guinea coast a month later, and completed his round-the-world voyage in roughly 34 months.
Elizabeth I awards Francis Drake £10,000 for his accomplishment, the Spanish gold, silver, and gemstones he has brought back are worth as much as the crown's total revenue for a year (see crime, 1579), investors in his venture receive a 4,700 percent return on their money, but half the 1 million silver coins sent to London by mule train have been stolen before the shipment can reach London (see 1581).
Nonfiction: Essais by French writer Michel Eyquem de Montaigne is published in its first two volumes. Now 47, Montaigne served as a judge at Bordeaux from 1555 to 1570, he retired to Montaigne in 1570 and began work on his essays 2 years later. While he will insist that "I do not teach, I recount," his pursuit of truth expressed in vernacular style reveals extraordinary insight into the human condition: "No man profiteth but by the loss of others" (I. xxi); "Women are not altogether in the wrong when they refuse the rules of life prescribed to the World, for men only have established them and without their consent"; "The daughter-in-law of Pythagoras said that a woman who goes to bed with a man ought to lay aside her modesty with her skirt, and put it on again with her petticoat." On the Demon Worship of Sorcerers (Démonomanie des sorciers) by Jean Bodin, who writes, "All authorities on witchcraft have made it clear that for every male witch there are fifty female witches . . . Satan makes use of wives in order to ensnare their husbands;" Chronicles of England (initially Annales of England) by John Stow.
Fiction: Euphues and His England by John Lyly continues his 1578 book. Dedicated to his patron Edward de Vere, 17th earl of Oxford, Lyly's didactic romance is intended to reform education and manners.
Poet Luis de Vaz Camoes dies at his native Lisbon June 10 at age 55 (approximate).
Architect Andrea Palladio dies at Venice August 19 at age 71, but his books will spread his influence throughout the world. He has designed Vicenza's Teatro Olimpico, which will be completed by Vincenzo Scamozzi.
Cocoa gains widespread use as a beverage in Spain (see 1527; 1615).
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