François Rabelais publishes Pantagruel, the first to appear of his five books about the giant Pantagruel and his father Gargantua

Thomas Cranmer, the archbishop of Canterbury, declares Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine of Aragon null and void

Anne Boleyn has a child (the future Elizabeth I) but not of the sex her husband wants

The Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, makes Titian his court painter (an arrangement continued by Philip II)

Henry VIII's Act of Supremacy forces prominent figures in English public life to accept him on oath as head of the Church of England

Paris wakes up to find Protestant placards all over the place, mocking the sacrament of the mass

Thomas More refuses to take the oath accepting the Act of Supremacy and is beheaded

Henry VIII begins the process of gathering in the wealth of England's monasteries

Wales is merged within the English kingdom as a principality

Christian III seizes the wealth of Danish churches and monasteries, before turning his attention to those of Norway

The reign of Christian III begins three centuries in which Norway is administered as little more than an annexe of Denmark

Henry VIII's queen, Anne Boleyn, is beheaded in the Tower of London on unsubstantiated charges of adultery

Jane Seymour gives birth to Henry VIII's long-awaited male heir (the future Edward VI)

Pope Paul III establishes Ignatius Loyola and his followers as the Society of Jesus, or the Jesuits

Protestant reformer John Calvin settles in Geneva and submits the city to a strict Christian rule

Suleiman I takes Buda (now Budapest), and by 1547 the Turks occupy almost the whole of Hungary

Pope Paul III establishes the Roman Inquisition, with the specific task of fighting against the Protestant heresy

A one-week-old Scottish infant, daughter of James V, inherits the throne as Mary Queen of Scots

Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus publishes a book suggesting that the earth moves round the sun

Flemish anatomist Andreas Vesalius publishes a seven-volume work which for the first time lays bare human anatomy

3000 Waldenses are massacred as heretics in the villages of Provence

Ambroise Paré, the greatest surgeon of his day, publishes an account of how to treat gunshot wounds

The Italian players of the commedia dell'arte first feature in the records in this year

A council of the Roman Catholic church is convened in Trent, to establish the tenets of the Counter-Reformation

David Beaton, the archbishop of St Andrews, burns a leading Protestant, George Wishart, as a heretic and is murdered in retaliation