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Netherlands. The Dutch West Indies Company (WIC) is founded, which will establish New Amsterdam, later sold to the English, who will rename it New York. (The Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie VOC, the East India Company, was founded in 1602.)

The practice of smoking tobacco spread like wildfire in China, too. They called it “smoke liquor.” It had arrived in Western Europe at the end of the previous century, having been learned from the indigenous American populations.

Francis Bacon first connected science and technology, something we take for granted today but was far from the case at the time. So much so that for at least two centuries, kings and powerful figures who wanted powerful armies and profitable businesses didn’t even consider

Francis Bacon in “Novum Organum” extols the virtues of the scientific method used to increase material well-being and derides Greek and Muslim science as unsuitable for this purpose.

Great Lakes, Canada. French explorer Samuel Champlain, during his voyage up the Great Lakes, produced a series of accurate maps. His hope and belief, and that of his successor, Jean Nicollet, was that these vast lakes would soon lead to access to Japan and China.

Galileo Galilei: concept of inertia and scientific theory

Nepero: introduction to logarithms and symbolic calculus with the book Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio.

Russia. The Romanov dynasty reigned with five rulers (Michael I, Alexei I, Fyodor III, Ivan V, and Peter I), followed by fourteen Tsar-Emperors (Peter I the Great, Catherine I, Peter II, Anna, Ivan VI, Elizabeth I, Peter III, Catherine II the Great, Paul I, Alexander

Beginning of British colonial policy in India.

Kepler publishes “Dioptrices,” a text that will forever change the course of optics.

Prague. Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, known as the “Maharal” of Prague, dies. Legend and literature attribute to him the construction and animation of the Golem to protect and serve the Jewish community. Rabbi Loew (whose name means “lion”) was the Chief Rabbi of Prague,

The first regularly published newspapers appear in Germany

Northeastern United States. Expeditions organized by the Dutch East India Company begin exploring the coasts and interior regions by navigating rivers.

Shakespeare writes “King Lear” and “Macbeth”

Orazio Vecchi, director of the Modena Cathedral Choir, dies.

Japan. The use of smoking tobacco also reached Japan, likely introduced by the Portuguese (called “namban” by the Japanese, meaning Southern Barbarians) in Nagasaki, and spread rapidly. By 1653, it was already widespread in Korea, and shortly thereafter in Manchuria.

Indonesia. 1,500 Dutch troops, led by Stephen van der Hagen, attack and conquer, without a fight, several Portuguese forts and islands: Victoria Castle on Ambon Island, the Banda Islands of nutmeg and cloves, and finally Tidore, where fierce fighting ensues before the Dutch achieve victory.

England. The House of Stuart reigns, with seven sovereigns: James I, Charles I, Charles II, James II, Mary II, William III, and Anne. Between Charles I and Charles II, the following ruled as Lord Protectors (the so-called Protectorate): Oliver Cromwell Old Ironside, Richard Cromwell Tumbledown

Saint Helena Island, South Atlantic Ocean. The Portuguese cargo ship San Iago is attacked by a flotilla of Dutch vessels. It is captured and taken to Holland with its entire cargo, including the first Chinese porcelain ever to arrive in the Netherlands.

Potters from Faenza in Italy emigrated to Antwerp (Antwerpen) in Belgium, and then, driven by the Spanish invasion, further north to Delft, where they specialized in the so-called Delft porcelain (porcelain which in England is called “China” and in Ireland is called “Delph”).

Kepler began working with the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, at his Benatky Castle in Prague.

William Shakespeare finishes “The Comedy of Errors”

William Shakespeare finishes “The Taming of the Shrew”

The Long War between the Ottomans and the Habsburgs of the Holy Roman Empire. It is made to appear as a triumph by the Habsburgs. But in reality, the failures are hidden and the successes magnified.

Blaise de Vigneré publishes the Vigneré Cypher. It uses 26 different encryption alphabets, each shifted by one letter from the previous one, making the system impervious to letter-frequency analysis, the weakness of previous codes. His work culminates in his Traicté de Chiffres of 1586. Ironically,

Suez. After a first attempt in 1530, the Ottomans continued digging the canal, but for military, not commercial, purposes: to protect Mecca from Christian attacks and to carry the war to India. But this Ottoman attempt, too, was unsuccessful, and the canal was never completed.

The custom of smoking tobacco, learned from the indigenous American populations, spread throughout Western Europe. The following century, European sailors brought the custom to China.

China. The first Jesuits arrive in China. They are joined a few years later by the Jesuit Matteo Ricci. In 1603, Xu Guangchi, vice-minister at the imperial court, will convert us to Christianity, taking the name Paul Xu. Metallurgy, ballistics, hydraulics, and geometry are the

A young student at the University of Pisa, Galileo Galilei, entered a cathedral and, instead of listening to mass, began to stare at the oscillation of the chandeliers in the nave, all aligned, and noticed that they took the same time to complete an oscillation,

The “Inter gravissimas” bull of the Gregorian calendar comes into force

Peru. With the execution of Túpac Amaru, Inca resistance to the Spanish finally ends.

Constantinople. Piali returns to sea with 80 of the 82 galleys that had departed the day before. Five will return the next day.

Constantinople. The first 25 galleys of Murat Rais, carrying 1,500 janissaries, set sail. Another 75 are being prepared, and more are expected to join.

Philippines. The Spanish arrive in Manila. They find a trading port owned by the Moorish Rajah named Soliman. The Moors, seafaring traders of Islamic origin, had arrived here a few decades earlier. According to a later Chinese report, the first Spaniard asks the Rajah for

The price of light (per million lumens per hour – about enough to read a book for 2.5 hours a day for a year) fell to 15,000 pounds in 2000. It was 35,000 in 1350. It fell to 5,000 in 1825, and to 3 at

Ivan IV is proclaimed Tsar of All the Russias; under the nickname Ivan the Terrible, he conquers the Islamic Kazakh kingdom after a long siege of the capital Kazan; in honor of this victory, St. Basil’s Cathedral is erected, with each dome representing the turban

Henry VIII, the first Protestant king of England and head of the Anglican Church, dies and is succeeded by his daughter Mary (a Catholic).

Gerolamo Cardano published Ars Magna where he accepted the square root of a negative number in the resolution process for solving cubic equations, thus introducing complex numbers into mathematics (the resolution methods had previously been developed independently by Niccolo’ Tartaglia and Scipione Ferro).

Stirling. Mary is crowned Queen of Scots. Her father, King James V, had died shortly after the Battle of Solway Moss after a mental and physical collapse. Her daughter, Mary, was only a week old when her father died and was crowned queen at nine

Nicholas Copernicus (Niklas Koppernigk or Nicolaus Copernicus, priest and mathematician): “On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs.” The book was published when Copernicus was already on his deathbed. The printing of Copernican heliocentric theory was completed at Hans Petreiuss’s printing house, at 9 Öberg Street

Vesalius publishes the first accurate text of human anatomy

Japan. A pair of Portuguese adventurers, having hitched a ride on a Chinese ship, brought the first arquebuses to the land of the Rising Sun. Within a few decades, Japan had heavily armed itself with this innovative weapon, and in 1592, when Japan invaded Korea,

Firearms reached Japan with the arrival of two Portuguese adventurers armed with arquebuses aboard a Chinese commercial cargo ship. The Japanese were so impressed that they immediately began mass production, improved the technology, and by 1600 possessed more rifles than any other nation in the

Testa di Vaca discovers the Iguacu Falls, on the border between Argentina and Brazil and a few kilometers from Paraguay

Inca revolt in Peru, led by Manco Capac.

The Knights of St. John, expelled from Rhodes, conquered by the Ottoman Turks, found a new homeland on the island of Malta.

Charles V, integrating the navies of all Europe and Italy except Venice, assembles a formidable war force and attacks Tunis, part of the Ottoman Empire. He conquers the city with the enthusiastic support of the Spanish, who had already conquered other coastal cities in North

Americas. The Aztec and Mayan populations were initially exterminated, primarily by diseases brought by the Spanish (probably smallpox). However, unlike in North America, in Central and especially South America, the indigenous population was so numerous that, even after the extermination, they still constituted the majority

Cajamarca, Inca Empire. Excerpts from the detailed diary of six of Francisco Pizarro’s (The Governor) companions in arms, including the brothers Hernando and Pedro: “…We were all very frightened at having gone so far into unknown and hostile territory, with no possibility of supplies or

Cajamarca, Inca Empire. First meeting between Francisco Pizarro, representing Charles V and the Holy Roman Empire, the most powerful European state, and Atahuallpa, King of the Inca Empire, the most powerful and largest empire in the New World. Pizarro has with him the survivors of

Cajamarca, Ecuador. Francisco Pizarro, leaving Spain with only 180 men, executes 2,000 indigenous people of the Inca Empire, losing only five conquistadors, and even manages to capture King Atahuallpa, extort a ransom of gold and silver, and then kill him.

Ottoman Sultan Suleiman and his army try again. They move towards Vienna. Arriving at the town of Koszeg on the Austrian border, they are stopped by the stubborn resistance of the town’s commander, Nikola Jurisic, and his 800 Croatian soldiers. Without any artillery, they withstand

Halley’s Comet passes. This time Luther comments that it doesn’t bring any good. Another reformer, the Swiss Huldreich Zwingli, echoes his sentiments and predicts his imminent death, and at the end of the year, he does indeed die. Coincidence? Yes.

Guadalupe, Mexico. According to tradition, the Virgin Mary appeared to a young Aztec, whom the Spanish called Juan Diego, and her image was imprinted on the young man’s robe. A church was built on the site. Millions of people would make pilgrimages there in the

Lucca. Weavers’ Revolt (or Ragged People’s Revolt). Following the new laws passed the previous January, which burdened silk weavers, they revolted on May 1st, starting from the Church of San Francesco and waving a torn black banner. They also protested the “expensive and sad” bread,

Portuguese King Joao III sent the first settlers to Brazil: 5 ships carrying 400 people.

Francisco Pizarro sets foot on the coast of Peru with 168 men, intent on conquering the Inca Empire, which numbered millions. Fortunately for him, and unfortunately for the Incas, five years earlier, the local population had been struck by a smallpox epidemic, killing a significant

Modena. Emperor Charles V was staying in the city and during a visit to the Cathedral, he collapsed on the floor with his belly, slipping on the marble (in Modena, they say he slipped).

Copernicus finishes “De revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium” but, due to his perfectionism and fear of ecclesiastical condemnation, being himself a priest, he postpones the publication from year to year until 1543 when, with Copernicus paralyzed on the right side and dying, the “De Revolutionibus” is published

Capitulation of Florence to the imperial army

The troops led by Francesco Ferrucci of the Republic of Florence defeat the imperial army at Gavinana

Basilica of San Petronio, Bologna. Coronation of Charles V as Holy Roman Emperor. This coronation was agreed upon by Pope Clement VII Medici and Emperor Charles V to heal the political and religious conflicts dividing the Italian and European worlds and to achieve that “universal

Suez. The Venetians convinced the Mamluk sultan to begin digging the canal, but the work would not be decisive until 1586 with the arrival of the Ottomans, who considered it to be of military, not commercial, importance: to protect Mecca from Christian attacks and to

Flemish astronomer Gemma Frisius first hailed the mechanical clock as a possible solution to the longitude problem.

The Republic of Florence is besieged by the army of Emperor Charles V

Treaty of Saragossa: The Portuguese pay the Spanish 350,000 ducats for exclusive rights to the Moluccas. Nothing is actually said about the Spanish Philippines, where spices can obviously be brought from the Moluccas.

Venice, after shifting its attention to the mainland and suffering some defeats there, began to happily pursue a policy of neutrality, continuing to enrich itself through trade, art, and culture. But any fear, or hope, of Venetian dominance for the unification of Italy vanished.

Barbary pirates led by Khair ad-Din, a Greek by birth, better known as Barbarossa, seize Algiers. With this addition, the Ottoman Empire extends its dominion to the entire southern Mediterranean, from Albania to Morocco.

After a failed siege of Vienna, Ottoman Sultan Suleiman and his army begin a hasty retreat across ever-deepening snowfields.

Ottoman Sultan Suleiman and his army besieged Vienna; heavy rains forced him to leave behind the heavy artillery that could have made the difference; during the retreat he massacred 30,000 Austrian peasants.

Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent (Suleiman) retakes Buda and annihilates the local Habsburg garrison. A week later, he appears at the gates of Vienna.

The Scottish king King James V assembles a force of 8,000 men to hunt down the “reivers”, groups of bandits and thieves (the most representative family were the Armstrongs) who amount to as many as 12,000 – 15,000 people (3% of the Scottish population).

Two families of German bankers purchased the rights to colonize Venezuela from Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain. The Spanish regained their rights to Venezuela in 1556.

Sante Pagnini in Lucca divides the Bible into verses

The conquistadors begin the conquest of the New Mayan Empire

Henry VIII asks for a divorce from Catherine of Aragon, Queen of England, but the Pope is under the control of Catherine’s nephew, Charles V, and so the permission does not arrive: the Anglican Church is born and the Protestant thesis gains momentum.

Charles V’s troops sack Rome

The Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent had 3 million Hungarians deported as slaves to the markets and bazaars of Istanbul, Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo, Algiers

Giovanni of the Black Bands dies while trying to stop the German Landsknechts who had descended from Germany to hang the Pope; the Germans have four arquebuses donated to them by the Duke of Este of Ferrara; Giovanni, mortally wounded by one of them, is

The Mughal Empire, founded by Babur, began in India and lasted until 1857. Mongol rule, which fused Indian traditions with the Islamic religion, thus followed nearly four centuries of Islamic rule over much of India. Mughal emperors married Hindu wives, the Islamic lunar calendar was