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Queen Elizabeth I dies. After a 44-year reign, Elizabeth I of England dies. Daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, she ascended the throne in 1559 upon the death of her half-sister Mary. Domestically, she sought to resolve the conflicts between Protestants and Catholics, while

After the war in Cyprus and the plague of 1575-77, a weakened Venice was forced to pursue a policy of neutrality. France was ravaged by religious wars and was forced to abandon southern Italy to the Spanish. The Ottoman Empire, with its incompetent rulers, turned

Gerolamo Cardano, a mathematician with 131 books to his name, dies in abject poverty, largely unknown. On his deathbed, he writes an ode to his favorite son, his eldest, who had been executed 16 years earlier. He had outlived two of his three children. His

Martin Frobisher, searching for the Northwest Passage, arrives on Baffin Island and sees the igloos built by the Inuit for the first time. He is wounded by an Inuit. In response, he kills several and captures one to take as a trophy to London.

Venice (through its bailo Barbaro) and Mehmet Pasha conclude a peace treaty, recognizing the Ottomans’ possession of Cyprus. The gold-lettered document is preserved in the State Archives at the Frari. A few months later, the Turks retook Tunis from the Spanish. This concludes the legacy

Michelangelo Merisi, known as Caravaggio, was born in Milan

Battle of Lepanto: the Holy League promoted by Pope Pius V (Venice, Spain, the Papacy, Genoa, Florence, Turin, Parma, Mantua, Lucca, Ferrara, Urbino, Malta) defeats the Ottoman Turks and the fleet of Ali Pasha

Martin Luther witnessed a rapidly changing world. Beyond his fundamental contribution, there was also the Copernican Revolution and the discovery of America. But Luther almost never spoke of America, except for a few references to the discovery of the new islands and the syphilis that

Peru. Pizarro is killed because of a family feud.

The fleet of Venice, Genoa, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire of Charles V confronts the Turks at Preveza. The allied fleet is commanded by Andrea Doria, who, however, orders its retreat at a crucial moment and suffers a humiliating defeat. Charles is negotiating with

Ferdinand Magellan (Fernão de Magalhães), in the service of the King of Spain, embarks on the first circumnavigation of the globe, but is killed in the Philippines. Of the five ships that set out, only one returns—with only 18 of the 270 men who had

The English only have Calais left on French soil.

Victory of the Mongol Tamerlane over the Ottomans at Ankara.

A crusader league conquers Smyrna in Turkey. Venice also participates with several galleys. The conquest of Smyrna, as well as the seat of the Knights Hospitaller of St. John on the island of Rhodes, significantly contributes to curbing Ottoman aggression in the Aegean.

Crusader energies are diverted from the Middle East to focus on the Turkish threat in the Aegean.

Vincent of Beauvais reports a severe famine in France, especially in Aquitaine. It was probably St. Anthony’s Fire (pestilentia ignearia), caused by ergot.

Second Anglo-Saxon victory over the Vikings in Wessex

Franks, Britons, Pythians and Scots are allowed to settle on the soil of the Roman Empire, peacefully.

Aurelian again pushes back the Alamanni and the Vandals on the Metaurus and at Pavia, then pushes back the Goths who had recrossed the Danube; finally he abandons Dacia.

Ptolemy invents the lines of latitude and longitude

Construction of the Antonine Wall on the Glasgow-Edinburgh Isthmus

Israel. With Vespasian as Roman emperor (after the civil war), military operations in Judea resumed under the leadership of his son Titus.

Israel. The Seleucid king Antiochus III defeats the army of Ptolemy V at Panion, and Palestine comes under Seleucid control.

Modena is a Castrum (military fortification) of Rome

The Roman legionaries arrive in Modena and establish a colony there.

Israel. With the death of Alexander the Great, the land of Israel was contested between Ptolemy’s Egypt and Seleucus’s Asiatic kingdom. From 300 to 200 BC, the Ptolemies prevailed.

Aristotle

The Insubres Gauls founded Milan

Chemical warfare begins. During the siege of Athens, the Spartans use the most advanced technology at their disposal: smoke, derived from a sulfurous compound and pitch. (In the end, the Athenians stand firm and abandon the city, winning the battle.)

Battle of Thermopolis and Artemisium between Persians and Greeks: Xerxes, son of Darius, wants to avenge the defeat at Marathon and prepares a fleet of 1,000 ships and a million men; at Cape Artemisium the Athenian ships face the Persian ones, at Thermopolis the Persians

Confucius is born

Nebuchadnezzar dies in Babylon

Under the reign of Zedekiah (the last king of Judah), the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem in 589 BC, which fell in 587 BC (or 586 BC). The city was destroyed and mass deportations to Babylon took place. The territory of Judea was

Nebuchadnezzar’s first capture of Jerusalem. King Jehoiachin, along with part of the elite, including the prophet Ezekiel, are deported to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar leaves the Jewish monarchy one more chance: he installs Zedekiah as the new king, but Zedekiah, having gained internal consensus and counting on

Anaximander, Thales, Anaximenes, Heraclitus: nothing is created from nothing, everything is preserved

Athenian students use the Odyssey and the Iliad to learn to read

King Midas is a character (or perhaps two, father and son) who probably existed in real life, as a prince of Phrygia, in present-day Turkey. He became famous for turning everything he touched into gold. This part of the legend is obviously not entirely true.

Buddhism, Greeks, Romans:Beginning of the Persian Empire (Medes and then Persians, maximum territorial expansion in the 5th century BC), Buddha (India) and Confucius (China), Statue of Zeus, Persian invasion repelled, Peloponnesian War between Sparta and Athens, Anaximander, Empedocles, Pythagoras, Zeno, Aristotle, Aristarchus, Alexander the Great,

Spring and Autumn Period (770–476 BC) or an era of political upheavals leading into the ruthless Warring States Period (453–221 BC)

The Greeks invented the use of vowels systematically, using symbols similar to those for consonants. To do this, they borrowed five consonant symbols from the Phoenician alphabet, which have no corresponding sound in Greek.a, h, i, o, e.

Cyprus. First evidence of the use of opium, derived from the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum). It was later used by the Greeks, Phoenicians, Minoans, Egyptians, and Babylonians. In 330 BC, Alexander the Great brought it to Asia: to Persia and India, from where it reached

Presumed period to which the events of the Odyssey refer, and presumed beginning of the oral transmission of the story

Ebla Archives (Southern Aleppo, Syria)

Mesopotamia. First evidence of organization into chiefdoms rather than bands. These were groups of villages that accepted the authority of a single powerful man. It was generally an intermediate stage between tribe and kingdom. In Mesoamerica and the Andes, this stage would occur 4,500 years

Beginning of pig and ox breeding in Thessaly

Anomalocaris, a large Cambrian predator, has two eyes 3cm in diameter, each made up of 16,000 perfect hexagonal lenses, arranged in a hexagonal pattern: it is the oldest known animal with compound eyes.

End of the Hesperian Epoch on Mars, beginning of the Amazonian Epoch

After the first impacts the types of minerals increase from about 60 to about 250.

Large-scale reionization of hydrogen ends; within the reionized areas, first stars and then the first protogalaxies formed.

Stars are formed