istoryworld
All Events
After tentative beginnings in the three parts of Henry VI, Shakespeare achieves his first masterpiece on stage with Richard III
Henry IV becomes a Catholic so as to secure Paris and the throne of France
Willem Barents sets off on the first of his three expeditions to find a passage to the east through the waters north of Russia
The writings of Matteo Ricci introduce Kung Fu Tzu to Europe under a Latin version of his name - Confucius
A year after Mercator's death, his son publishes a bound collection of his maps with the title Atlas, or Cosmographic Meditations
The first Dutch expedition round the Cape reaches Java and secures trading agreements
Tycho Brahe enters the service of the emperor Rudolf II in Prague, where he invites Johannes Kepler to join him
Swiss botanist Gaspard Bauhin begins work classifying 6000 plants on a new binomial system of nomenclature
A flush toilet is illustrated in an English pamphlet, The Metamorphosis of Ajax by John Harrington
Dafne is performed in Florence, becoming the first example of a new art form - opera
A manuscript, the Guildford Book of Court, uses the word 'creckett' for a game played in a Guildford school
Shah Abbas builds up Isfahan as a spectacular new capital of the Persian empire
James VI of Scotland argues in an anonymous book that kings, appointed by God, are above human law
The Edict of Nantes secures the civil rights of France's Protestants, the Huguenots
The Globe, where many of Shakespeare's plays are first performed, is built on Bankside in London
The Yoruba develop an extensive empire centred on Oyo in southern Nigeria
William Gilbert, physician to Queen Elizabeth, concludes that the earth is a magnet and coins the term 'magnetic pole'
A performance in the Oratory in Rome, with music by Emilio de' Cavalieri, is in effect the first oratorio
Britain's East India Company is established when Elizabeth I grants a charter to a 'Company of Merchants trading into the East Indies'
Electricity is given its name (in the Latin phrase vis electrica) by the English physician, William Gilbert
Shakespeare's central character in Hamlet expresses both the ideals of the Renaissance and the disillusion of a less confident age
The Dutch East India Company is founded, with a tax-free monopoly of the eastern trade for twenty-one years
Queen Elizabeth I dies at the age of 69 in Richmond Palace
Geneva wins independence from the duchy of Savoy, in the treaty of St Julien, after repelling a midnight assault on the city
The warlord Tokugawa Ieyasu is awarded the title of shogun, beginning nearly three centuries of the Tokugawa shogunate
