The 16th century

In 1501, Ismail I founded the Safavid dynasty and made Twelver Shia Islam the state religion of Iran (Persia).

In 1502, Columbus set out on his fourth and last voyage (Caribbean).

In 1503, Leonardo began the Mona Lisa (Italy).

In 1504, Michelangelo's David was installed in the Piazza della Signoria at Florence (Italy).

In 1505, Ivan III died having tripled the territory of Moscow and thrown off Mongol overlordship (Eastern Europe).

In 1506, rebuilding of St Peter's Basilica began in Rome, and the cost of it helped provoke the Reformation (Italy).

In 1507, Waldseemuller's world map named the new continent America (Europe).

In 1508, Michelangelo began the Sistine Chapel ceiling (Italy).

In 1509, Henry VIII became king at seventeen (England).

In 1510, the Portuguese took Goa, which remained their Indian capital for four and a half centuries (South Asia).

In 1511, the Portuguese captured Malacca, taking control of the strait between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea (Southeast Asia).

In 1512, the Sistine Chapel ceiling was unveiled after four years (Italy).

In 1513, Machiavelli wrote The Prince while excluded from Florentine politics (Italy).

In 1514, the Ottoman victory at Chaldiran demonstrated that firearms could break a cavalry army (Anatolia and Persia).

In 1515, Francis I won at Marignano, where Swiss pikemen were beaten by artillery (Italy).

In 1516, Thomas More's Utopia was printed at Louvain (Europe).

In 1517, Luther circulated ninety-five theses against indulgences, and the Reformation is dated from them (Central Europe).

In 1518, the sweating sickness returned to England, a disease that appeared five times and then vanished (Europe).

In 1519, Magellan's expedition set out from Seville to find a western route to the Spice Islands (Atlantic and Pacific).

In 1520, Suleiman became Ottoman sultan and ruled for forty-six years (Anatolia).

In 1521, Tenochtitlan fell to Cortes and his allied city-states after a siege (Mesoamerica).

In 1522, the surviving ship of Magellan's expedition completed the first circumnavigation, having sailed on for three years after his death.

In 1523, Gustav Vasa was elected king and Sweden left the Kalmar Union (Sweden).

In 1524, the German Peasants' War began, the largest popular rising in Europe before the French Revolution (Central Europe).

In 1525, the French king was captured at Pavia, where massed handgun fire decided a battle against heavy cavalry (Italy).

In 1526, Babur defeated the Sultan of Delhi at the First Battle of Panipat, founding the Mughal Empire (South Asia).

In 1527, mutinous imperial troops sacked Rome, an event often taken to mark the end of the High Renaissance (Italy).

In 1528, Baldassare Castiglione's The Book of the Courtier was published, shaping European ideas of the gentleman for centuries (Europe).

In 1529, an Ottoman army under Suleiman the Magnificent besieged Vienna and withdrew, marking the limit of Ottoman expansion into central Europe (Central Europe).

In 1530, the Augsburg Confession set out the core Lutheran position to the Holy Roman Emperor (Holy Roman Empire).

In 1531, an earthquake devastated Lisbon, killing thousands (Portugal).

In 1532, Francisco Pizarro captured the Inca emperor Atahualpa at Cajamarca, beginning the Spanish conquest of Peru (South America).

In 1533, the Act in Restraint of Appeals barred appeals to Rome, the legal step that separated the English church from papal authority (England).

In 1534, the Act of Supremacy declared the monarch head of the Church of England, breaking with Rome (England).

In 1535, Thomas More was executed for refusing to accept the king as head of the Church (England).

In 1536, the Dissolution of the Monasteries began, transferring monastic wealth to the Crown (England).

In 1537, the Kingdom of Portugal established Salvador's precursor settlements in Brazil as colonisation expanded (Brazil).

In 1538, English parishes were ordered to keep registers of baptisms, marriages and burials, beginning the record series genealogy still depends on (England).

In 1539, Hernando de Soto landed in Florida and began an expedition through the south-east of the continent (North America).

In 1540, the Society of Jesus was approved by the papacy, creating an order central to education and missions worldwide (Europe).

In 1541, Francisco de Orellana began the first European descent of the Amazon River (South America).

In 1542, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo reached the coast of present-day California, the first European expedition to do so (North America).

In 1543, Copernicus's De revolutionibus set out the heliocentric model, and Vesalius's De humani corporis fabrica reformed anatomy (Europe).

In 1544, the Treaty of Crépy ended a phase of the Italian Wars between France and the Holy Roman Empire (Europe).

In 1545, the Council of Trent opened, beginning the Catholic Counter-Reformation (Europe).

In 1546, Martin Luther died at Eisleben, the town where he had been born (Holy Roman Empire).

In 1547, Henry VIII died and was succeeded by Edward VI (England).

In 1548, the silver mines of Potosí were expanding rapidly, reshaping global money supply (South America).

In 1549, the first Book of Common Prayer was introduced, shaping English liturgical language (England).

In 1550, Giorgio Vasari published the Lives of the Artists, the work that shaped how the Renaissance has been narrated ever since (Italy).

In 1551, the National University of San Marcos was founded in Lima, among the oldest universities in the Americas (Peru).

In 1552, the second Book of Common Prayer set the liturgical English that later editions largely preserved (England).

In 1553, Mary I acceded to the English throne, reversing the Reformation settlement (England).

In 1554, Wyatt's rebellion against Mary I's Spanish marriage was defeated in London (England).

In 1555, the Peace of Augsburg allowed German princes to choose Lutheranism or Catholicism for their territories (Holy Roman Empire).

In 1556, the Shaanxi earthquake killed an estimated 830,000 people, among the deadliest recorded (China).

In 1557, Robert Recorde introduced the equals sign in The Whetstone of Witte, to avoid repeating the words "is equal to" (England).

In 1558, Elizabeth I acceded to the English throne, beginning a reign of forty-five years (England).

In 1559, the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis ended the Italian Wars (Europe).

In 1560, the Scottish Reformation Parliament abolished papal jurisdiction and adopted a reformed confession (Scotland).

In 1561, Francis Bacon was born; his writing would help found the empirical method (England).

In 1562, the French Wars of Religion began, running in phases for over three decades (France).

In 1563, the Council of Trent concluded after eighteen years, defining the Catholic response to the Reformation (Italy).

In 1564, William Shakespeare and Galileo Galilei were both born (Europe).

In 1565, St Augustine was founded in Florida, the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement in what is now the United States (North America).

In 1566, the Dutch Revolt against Spanish rule began with the iconoclastic fury (Low Countries).

In 1567, Mary, Queen of Scots was forced to abdicate in favour of her infant son (Scotland).

In 1568, the Dutch Revolt against Spanish rule began, lasting eighty years (Low Countries).

In 1569, Gerardus Mercator published his world map using the projection that still bears his name (Europe).

In 1570, Abraham Ortelius published the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, generally regarded as the first modern atlas (Low Countries).

In 1571, a Holy League fleet defeated the Ottoman navy at Lepanto (Mediterranean).

In 1572, the St Bartholomew's Day massacre killed thousands of Huguenots (France).

In 1573, the painter Caravaggio was born in Lombardy (Italy).

In 1574, the siege of Leiden was broken by deliberately flooding the surrounding land, a defence that cost the harvest to save the city (Low Countries).

In 1575, the University of Leiden was founded, becoming a centre of the Dutch Golden Age (Netherlands).

In 1576, James Burbage built The Theatre in Shoreditch, the first purpose-built playhouse in England since Roman times (England).

In 1577, Francis Drake set out on the voyage that would circumnavigate the globe.

In 1578, the catacombs beneath Rome were rediscovered, opening early Christian burial sites to systematic study (Italy).

In 1579, the Union of Utrecht bound the northern Dutch provinces together, a founding document of the Dutch Republic (Low Countries).

In 1580, Portugal entered a dynastic union with Spain that lasted sixty years (Iberia).

In 1581, the Act of Abjuration declared that the Dutch provinces no longer recognised Philip II as their sovereign (Low Countries).

In 1582, the Gregorian calendar was introduced, correcting the drift of the Julian calendar (Catholic Europe).

In 1583, the first known life insurance policy in England was issued (England).

In 1584, Walter Raleigh's expedition reached the Outer Banks, beginning the attempts at an English colony at Roanoke (North America).

In 1585, Roanoke Colony was established, later abandoned and known as the Lost Colony (North America).

In 1586, the Babington Plot was uncovered through intercepted correspondence, leading to the trial of Mary, Queen of Scots (England).

In 1587, Mary, Queen of Scots was executed at Fotheringhay (England).

In 1588, the Spanish Armada failed in its attempt to invade England (Western Europe).

In 1589, William Lee invented the stocking frame knitting machine, an early mechanisation of textile work (England).

In 1590, compound microscopes began to be built in the Netherlands, opening a scale of observation nothing had reached before (Low Countries).

In 1591, François Viète introduced systematic algebraic notation using letters for both knowns and unknowns (France).

In 1592, Japan invaded Korea, beginning the Imjin War (East Asia).

In 1593, Galileo built a thermoscope, an early instrument for comparing degrees of heat (Italy).

In 1594, Shakespeare's early plays were being published in quarto as the London theatre grew (England).

In 1595, the Dutch began direct voyages to the East Indies, breaking the Portuguese spice monopoly.

In 1596, René Descartes was born in Touraine (France).

In 1597, John Gerard's Herball catalogued plants for English readers and remained in use for generations (England).

In 1598, the Edict of Nantes granted substantial rights to French Protestants (France).

In 1599, the Globe Theatre opened on the south bank of the Thames (England).

In 1600, the English East India Company received its royal charter (England).