1591 1592 1593 1594 1595 1596 1597 1598 1599 1600
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Rouen is relieved in April, the duke of Parma receives a bullet in the arm soon thereafter, and he is dead by December.
Sweden's Jan III dies at Stockholm November 27 at age 55, having failed to Romanize the country since ascending the throne in 1568. He is succeeded by his son Sigismund, now 26, who has been king of Poland since 1587. Sigismund marries the Austrian archduchess Anne. He will reign in Sweden until 1604, in Poland until 1632.
Morocco's sultan Mulai Ahmed al-Mansur sends a 4,000-man army of Andalusian mercenaries and Christian renegades to invade Songhai with 8,000 camels and arms supplied by Elizabeth of England. The invaders defeat the Songhai army at Tondibi, near Gao, and again at Bamba, near Timbuktu, but find no gold and retreat, harassed by guerrillas.
The Mughal emperor Akbar conquers Sind.
Japan's civil dictator Toyotomi Hideyoshi invades Korea, whose government has rejected his trade terms. His Christian general Kiyomasa Kato, 30, spearheads the attack and fights with such ferocity that the Koreans call him "Devil Kiyomasa." His general Kinoshi takes Pusan Castle in May, but a Korean ironclad dispatched by Admiral Yi Sun-sin nearly wipes out the Japanese fleet. Now 47, Yi was given command of naval forces in Left Cholla Province last year and developed a "turtle ship" (kobukson), whose upper deck is covered with armored plates to protect her crew and bristles with spikes and knives attached to the plates to discourage efforts by enemy crews to board her. Her bow is equipped with a dragon head through which cannon can be fired (cannon can also be fired from the sides and stern) and clouds of smoke emitted to obscure the ship's position. Cut off from supplies, the Japanese cannot press their initial advantage (see 1593).
A Russian census lists peasants under the names of landholders. The peasants will hereafter be considered the landlords' serfs (see 1597).
Navigator-merchant James Lancaster rounds the Malay Peninsula in the Edward Bonaventure and reaches the island of Penang in June (see 1591). He remains there until September, looting every vessel that he encounters and will not get back to England until 1594 (see East India Company, 1601).
Portuguese colonists settle in Mombasa on Africa's east coast.
Navigator John Davis discovers islands off the coast of South America that will be called the Falkland Islands (or the Maldives).
Spanish navigator Juan de Fuca explores North America's Pacific coast (see Vancouver, 1793).
Nine Dutch merchants send Gouda-born trader Cornelis de Houtman, 52, and his brother Frederick, 21, to Lisbon as commercial representives, but they are imprisoned on charges of having tried to steal secret Portuguese navigational charts for the East Indies and will not be released until 1595 (see 1595).
University of Pisa mathematician Galileo Galilei quits under pressure and moves to the University of Padua (see 1586). Now 28, he visited at Rome with Jesuit mathematician Christopher Clavius, now 55, of the Collegio Romano (see calendar, 1582), maintained a correspondence with him as well as with mathematician Guidobaldo, marchese del Monte, now 47. He has defied accepted Aristotelian beliefs, Guidobaldo has strongly recommended him, and the post at Padua pays three times what Galileo received at Pisa. He gives his inaugural address at Padua December 7, and he will remain there for 18 years, teaching Euclidean geometry and standard (geoentric) astronomy to medical students (who need some knowledge of astronomy to make use of astrology in their practice) (see sector, 1597; Newton, 1666).
Book of Egyptian Plants (De plantis Aegypti liber) by Prospero Alpini contains the first European botanical accounts of the banana, coffee, and a genus of the ginger family (Zingiberaceae) that will later be named Alpinia. Alpini will be appointed next year to a professorship of botany at the University of Padua.
Ergotism remains endemic in many of the German states, as it did 5 years ago (see Marbourg, 1597).
The Florentine prelate Ippolito Cardinal Aldobrandini, 55, wins election as pope January 30 to succeed the late Innocent IX and will reign until 1605 as Clement VIII.
Jesuit poet Robert Southwell is apprehended while celebrating Mass in a Catholic household (see 1587). He is tortured severely and imprisoned in the Tower of London but refuses to reveal the names of fellow priests (see 1595).
Pamphlet: "A Quip for an Upstart Courtier" by playwright Robert Greene.
Essayist Michel Eyquem de Montaigne dies at his family's château outside Bordeaux September 13 at age 59.
Painting: The Last Supper by Tintoretto; Holy Family with Saints Anne and John by Sofonisba Anguissola.
Theater: Two Gentlemen of Verona by William Shakespeare: "Who is Sylvia? what is she?/ That all our swains commend her? Holy, fair, and wise is she;/ The heavens such grace did lend her" (IV, ii); Titus Andronicus by Shakespeare: "And easy it is/ Of a cut loaf to steal a shive" (II, i, meaning that adultery is easily arranged and likely to go unnoticed); King Richard III by Shakespeare: "Now is the winter of our discontent/ Made glorious summer by this sun of York" (I, i); "Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war" (III, i); "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!" (V, iv); "The early village cock/ Hath twice done salutation to the morn" (V, iii).
Playwright-pamphleteer Robert Greene dies at London September 3 at age 34 (approximate) about 1 month after consuming too much pickled herring and Rhenish wine while dining with his friend Thomas Nashe. Having deserted his wife and family, Greene has been consorting with cutpurses, prostitutes, and other rogues.
Florence's Palazza Vecchio is completed after 294 years of construction.
Heineken beer has its beginnings in a Dutch brewery started under the name De Hooiberg (the haystack) (see 1864).
Dutch (and English) households mostly brew their own beer and ale, preparing malt beverages at least once each month. Beer has become the general drink in England, consumed more commonly than the ale that was dominant a century ago; both are strong enough to merit such nicknames as angel's food, dragon's milke, go by the wall, lift leg, mad dog, stride wide, and whoresonne. Hard cider is popular in England's West Country, as is perry made from fermented pear juice. The ancient drinks mead and metheglin, both made from fermented honey, continue to have their admirers.
1591 1592 1593 1594 1595 1596 1597 1598 1599 1600
