istoryworld
Events relating to europe
A year after Mercator's death, his son publishes a bound collection of his maps with the title Atlas, or Cosmographic Meditations
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
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
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
James VI of Scotland inherits peacefully the crown of his English cousin Elizabeth, and becomes James I of England
The accession of James I and VI to the throne of England brings the union of the crowns of England and Scotland
The British king James I launches a blistering attack on the smoking of tobacco, which he considers a loathsome custom
The first false Dmitry marches into Russia with a Polish army to claim the throne
Annibale Carracci completes an influential ceiling fresco in the Farnese palace in Rome
James I commissions the Authorized version of the Bible, which is completed by forty-seven scholars in seven years
Ben Jonson writes The Masque of Blackness, the first of his many masques for the court of James I
Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes publishes the first part of his satirically romantic novel Don Quixote
The Gunpowder Plot, attempting murder and treason, severely damages the Catholic cause in Britain
The satirical voice of the English playwright Ben Jonson is heard to powerful effect in Volpone
Claudio Monteverdi presents Orfeo, the first opera to win a lasting place in the international repertory
The earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnel sail from Ireland with their families, in the event known as the Flight of the Earls
Colonists establish the first lasting British settlement in the new world, at Jamestown
