Mt

Maritime war between Spain and the Netherlands: the Dutch destroy the Spanish fleet. In the western Mediterranean, the dominant fleets are the Dutch, French, and English.

Johannes Kepler works on “Harmonices Mundi”: Kepler’s Third Law

Russia, beginning of the Romanov dynasty with the election of Michael as tsar

Saint Helena Island, South Atlantic Ocean. The only ship anchored in Church Bay is the Pearle, of the British East India Company. Two Portuguese carracks arrive from the east, having loaded up on pepper in Goa. The Pearle is the last of a convoy of

Holland. The young Delft lawyer, Huig De Groot (Grotius), writes De jure praedae, which argues that the Spanish naval blockade of the Netherlands is an act of war, and that this provocation gives the Dutch the right to consider Spanish and Portuguese ships as enemies.

Samuel de Champlein with 28 men founds Quebec City, first winter kills 20 of the 28 crew

Caravaggio’s stay in Malta: he painted the enormous “Beheading of St. John the Baptist”; he was named a Knight of the Order of Malta.

Indonesia. The archipelago’s thousands of islands are too numerous to be defended by the Spanish (based in Manila) and Portuguese (based in Macau), so the Dutch easily intrude.

Francis Bacon publishes “The Progress of Knowledge”

The East India Company, founded by the Dutch as a subcontractor for trade with what is now Indonesia, and the British East India Company are probably the first truly capitalist joint-stock companies. They earned the current equivalent of billions of dollars annually, and their capital

By 1600, the Japanese possessed more rifles than any other nation in the world, and better ones at that. Firearms reached Japan with the arrival of two Portuguese adventurers armed with arquebuses aboard a Chinese trading ship in 1543. The Japanese were so impressed that

First meeting between Johannes Kepler and Tyge Brahe. After a salary dispute and a three-month suspension, Kepler finally gets his way. A year later, Brahe dies, and Kepler succeeds him as imperial mathematician at the court of Rudolf II.

Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake by the Inquisition for denying the sanctity of Jesus Christ, ecclesiastical authority, and for teaching Copernican ideas; he also predicted that there were infinite worlds in the universe with intelligent life, some, perhaps, with civilizations superior to that

Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake in Campo de’ Fiori in Rome, where a statue of him stands today. He was burned at the stake by the Inquisition for denying the sanctity of Jesus Christ, ecclesiastical authority, and for teaching Copernican ideas. He also

London. The British East India Company is founded, which will govern India with over 350,000 soldiers, far exceeding the number of Her Majesty’s troops on the Indian subcontinent. The Crown will nationalize its Indian possessions only in 1858.

William Shakespeare finishes “Henry V” (King Henry the Fifth)

William Shakespeare finishes “Romeo and Juliet” (The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet)

Johannes Kepler: “Mysterium Cosmographicum”: no crystalline spheres

The Madre de Deus, a huge Portuguese galleon returning from the Indies, was sunk by the English; its cargo included 32 cannons, gold, silver, pearls, diamonds, amber, musk, tapestries, raw canvas, ebony, 400 tons of pepper, 45 tons of cloves, 35 tons of cinnamon, and

Josephus Justus Scaliger invented the Julian calendar (Julian day) still used in astronomy and called it “Julian” after his father: Julius Scaliger; it is a cycle of 7980 years without leap years or added or removed days; it begins at 12 AM on January 1,

Humphrey Gilbert makes the first British attempt to establish a colony in North America but the ship sinks on the return voyage

Between 1579 and 1581 Yermak (Ermak Timofeevič, known simply as Ermak or Yermak (in Russian: Ермак Тимофеевич), leading his Cossacks, began his military campaigns in Siberia. In 1579 and 1580 these campaigns took the form of summer raids in the territory of the Khanate. In

Bartolomeo Eustachi, an Italian anatomist who studied the human body in Padua by experimenting on unclaimed cadavers, dies. He and his students studied on a tilting table, where an animal carcass had been cleverly nailed to the other side, and which was instantly overturned to

Netherlands. Catholicism is officially prohibited.

Farmagosta, Cyprus. The city still refuses to surrender to the Ottomans, who have already captured the capital, Nicosia. The city is perched on a rock and fiercely defended. Word in Venice is that after 13 days and 4,000 Ottoman cannon shots, “not a single Christian

Cyprus. The Ottomans capture the capital, Nicosia. A city of 20,000, a total of 56,500 people had taken refuge there, of whom 13,719 were enslaved. Nicosia would become a ghost town for several years: the 1572 Ottoman census counted 235 adult males.

Philippines. From 1570 to 1815, every spring, one or more large Spanish ships (called the Manila Galleon in the Philippines and the China Ship in Mexico) set sail from Acapulco to brave the Pacific Ocean and arrive in Manila laden with silver. And every spring,

80 years of intermittent warfare of the Dutch rebels against Philip II King of Spain and his heirs

Ancona. Pope Paul IV orders the arrest of Jewish converts to Christianity, the so-called “Marranos.” Twenty-four are burned at the stake.

Modena. Construction of the second city wall is completed. Its perimeter, with the exception of the Citadel, will remain unchanged for three centuries, until its demolition during the Risorgimento.

Tome’ de Sousa was appointed the first governor of Brazil and the capital was chosen in Salvador de Bahia (Bay of All Saints).

Salmonella outbreaks among Native Americans in Mexico. The initial population is 25 million. Between 7 and 18 million are killed by various epidemics, the main one being Salmonella (Salmonella Paratyphi C). After a century, the Native American population is reduced to 1 million.

The Inquisition was born as a tribunal for heretics (as an institution it dates back to 4 centuries before); out of 44,000 cases examined by the Spanish Inquisition between 1542 and 1700, 800 were condemned to death.

Francisco de Orellana (Spain) crosses the Andes and descends the Amazon River

Birth of the Jesuit Order

Hernando de Alarcon (Spain) discovers and navigates the Colorado River

Potato cultivation spread from the Po Valley northwards, along the route taken by the Spanish army to go from Northern Italy to Holland to wage war against them; the reason is that the potato, which could be picked directly from the ground and thrown into

Inca Empire. After the death of Atahuallpa and the massacre of 6,000-7,000 Inca soldiers at Cajamarca, there are four more battles: Jauja, Vilcashuaman, Vilcaconga, and Cuzco, each involving only 80, 30, 110, and 40 Spanish knights, respectively, but in each case against thousands or tens

Martin Luther – First Lutheran Council – Split between Catholic and Protestant Christians

Gerardus Mercator, inventor of the term Atlas and Mercator’s view, was born in Rupelmonde in Flanders.

Copernicus studied at the University of Bologna where he later became professor of Astronomy.

Istanbul. Just as the apparently unfounded news of his death spreads in the West, Muhammad the Conqueror, his gout having weakened, passes through the Asian shore of the Bosphorus at the head of his gigantic army. He, and he alone, knows their destination. They travel

Attempts were made, in vain, to reach an agreement between the Ottomans and the Neapolitans on the question of occupied Otranto.

Bernardo Bandini, still dressed in Turkish style, is hanged from the windows of the Palazzo del Capitano del Popolo.

Uzbekistan. Ulan-Beg, grandson of Tamerlane, builds an entirely underground observatory, powered by a system of mirrors. He is thus able to complete tables with over 1,200 stars. The Muslim clergy is not pleased.

Fourth Genoa-Venice War. At the appearance of Baruffo’s fleet, Trieste rebels, surrendering to the Patriarch of Aquileia.

First phase of the Little Ice Age. The second phase, from the 16th century onward, one study argues was caused, at least in part, by European expansion into the Americas. With the extermination of perhaps 90% of the indigenous population, forests re-occurred in regions where

A terrible earthquake devastates Rome

Western Europe is home to 54.4 million people. Europe as a whole has approximately 73 million inhabitants. Within a few years, their numbers would decline dramatically due to the bubonic plague, bringing the population back to what it was four centuries earlier.

Modena. Duke Passerino’s men are in for a real shock: Raimondo da Spello, nephew of Pope Clement V, is robbed and killed. He was carrying 200,000 gold ducats to the papal seat in Avignon. The papal convoy is intercepted in Castelvetro. The French knights of

China. Empress Xie, under siege by the Mongols, surrenders and hands over the Song seal, symbol of sovereignty. The Mongols, fifty years after the death of Genghis Khan, succeed in conquering all of China, ending a dynasty that had ruled for three hundred years.

Bologna. New uprisings against the empire lead to the assassination of the imperial vicar Bezo, who acted as podestà under Frederick Barbarossa’s mandate. His replacement was followed by Guy of Canossa and a second subjugation of the city.

Bologna rises up against the Empire.

The First Crusade. It was not merely a response to the Byzantine request for support against the Turks, but the beginning of a vast operation that would span three continents and five centuries, in an offensive against Islam to regain control of Jerusalem.

Slowly order is restored, the world is reborn:Templars, Height of the Catholic Church’s Influence, Saint Francis, Capture of Jerusalem, Saladin, Genghis Khan, Maximum Expansion of the Mongol Empire: from Hungary to Java, Marco Polo, Silk Road, Ming Dynasty Defeats the Mongols, Plague in Europe, Dante,

Christianity extends northward with Mieszko’s Poland

The Norse colonized Iceland. They then arrived in Greenland in 986 and in eastern North America in 1350.

Baghdad. Habash al-Hasib al-Marzawi observes the Moon with the limited means available and manages to calculate its diameter, establishing it at 3,073 km and its distance at 346,345 km. Today we know these to be approximately 3,474 km and 384,000 km, respectively.

The Chinese Buddhist master Hui-kuo dies, and leaves to the Japanese Kukai the secret doctrines of the Mantrayana (true words), an esoteric system linked to the personal transmission from master to student.

England. Offa’s kingdom, the sole representative of the House of Mercia.

Guangzhou, China. Du Han writes the Jingxingji (travel diary) in which he describes a land, Molin, whose inhabitants are black, where there is no rice, grains, grass, or trees, horses are fed dried fish, and in the interior, diarrhea is treated with incisions in the

The population of Europe is around 27 million. In 200, it was 67 million.

The era of the Four Righteous Caliphs. Islam spreads like a tsunami from Iran to Libya.

When Muhammad died, he had not yet designated his successor. This gave rise to the problem of relations between Sunnis and Shiites. The former, followers of Abu Bakr, sought an heir who would be a good administrator, while the latter, followers of Ali, believed they

First use of liquid coffee, in Ethiopia

Indian numbers (9 digits)

Silkworms (jealously kept secret in China) were smuggled into the Middle East for the first time. The aim was to produce the highly expensive silk outside of China. In 552, two monks from the Nestorian Church managed to smuggle some hollowed-out reeds containing silkworm eggs

Various volcanic explosions, including a probably violent one at Krakatoa, Indonesia (the one in 1883 was comparatively more modest), caused a continuous covering of clouds and volcanic dust in large areas of the globe, causing drought and hunger.

Documented transit of the comet that would later be named Halley’s Comet centuries later. This transit was preceded by a meteor shower.

Ioannes Philiponos first establishes the principle of equivalence between inertial and gravitational mass F=ma=GmM/r2

France. Merovingian dynasty (Merovingiens) with 20 rulers: Chlodion le Chevelu, Morovee, Childeric I, Clovis I, Clodomir, Thierry I, Theodebert I, Theodebalt, Childebert I, Clotaire I, Caribert I, Sigebert I, Chilperic I, Gontran, Childebert II, Theodebert II, Thierry II, Sigebert II, Clotaire II, Dagobert I, Caribert

Constantine moves the capital of the Roman Empire to Byzantium (Constantinople) and converts the Empire to Christianity;

Approximate date of composition of the Gospel of Judas; a Sethian Gnostic text (gnosis, or knowledge that allows a direct relationship with God, without intermediaries; Seth is instead the third son of Adam, of whom we, according to the Gospel of Judas, are descendants).

Antoninus Pius is Roman Emperor

Roman military intervention in Israel to regain control of the territory

Britain. The Iceni tribe in East Anglia, formerly allied with the Romans, rebels. The rebellion is put down by the Roman legions.

Ptolemy built the Great Lighthouse of Alexandria on the island of Pharos; it is the seventh wonder of the ancient world.

Egypt: The Ptolemaic Era:

Approximate date of Aristotle’s birth

Socrates dies, poisoned by the alkaloid coniine, found in the hemlock plant. The alkaol family has had a greater influence on human history than any other family of chemical compounds. They affect the nervous system and are generally highly toxic, depending on the amount ingested,