1555 CE

John Rogers is burned at the stake at Smithfield, London, becoming the first of the 284 Protestant martyrs of the English Reformation to be killed during the five and one-half year reign of Queen Mary I of England. His death is followed within the week by that of Laurence Saunders on February 8 in Coventry, and Rowland Taylor, Rector of Hadleigh, Suffolk, and John Hooper, deposed Bishop of Gloucester on February 9. Election of Paul IV (Gian Pietro Carafa), 223rd Pope of the Catholic Church (end of the pontificate in 1559). He succeeds Pope Marcellus II, dead after 22 days of reign. He reforms the Dataria and the Inquisition. Coming from an ancient Neapolitan family, traditionally hostile to the Aragonese, he makes an alliance with the King of France to expel the Habsburgs from Naples. The Treaty of Amasya between the Ottoman Empire and Safavid Persia concludes the Ottoman-Safavid War.

In the 1550s, the 16th century.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • 30 May - King Gustav Vasa introduced mandatory internal passports.Swedensource
  • June 1 – The Treaty of Amasya between the Ottoman Empire and Safavid Persia concludes the Ottoman-Safavid War.source
  • October 25 – Charles V abdicates as Holy Roman Emperor and is succeeded by his brother Ferdinand.source
  • Humayun resumes rule of the Mughal Empire.source
  • English captain John Lok returns from Guinea, with five Africans to train as interpreters for future trading voyages.source

Conflict & Security

  • January 22 – The Kingdom of Ava in Upper Burma falls.source
  • 11 March - The Russo-Swedish War (1554–57): the Russian Empire breaks its 1537 treaty by attacking Sweden, which results in the Russian defeat at the Battle of Kivinebb.Swedensource
  • April 17 – After 18 months of siege, the Republic of Siena surrenders to the Florentine–Imperial army.source
  • June 22 – Adil Shah Suri becomes the Sultan of the Sur Empire at Delhi in India after Sikandar Shah Suri is forced to flee from the Mughal Empire forces.source
  • October 16 – (1st day of 10th month Tenbun 24) – At the Battle of Miyajima Island, Mori Motonari defeats Sue Harukata.source
  • Russia breaks a 60-year-old truce with Sweden by attacking Finland.source
  • 15 and 16 July - The French troops are defeated by the Imperials during the battles of Gimnée and Givet, on the border of Netherlands, and must withdraw.Francesource
  • Ami Perrin leads, in Geneva, an unsuccessful riot intended to expel the French religious refugees from the city.Francesource
  • The French troops ransack the Couvin castellany, in Belgium.Francesource
  • Muhammad Adil Shah reign as fourth ruler of the Sur dynasty ends (since 1554)Indiasource
  • The population of the Swedish province of Finland was instructed to receive training in national defense against Russian incursions.Swedensource

Exploration & Expansion

  • November 1 – French Navy Vice-Admiral Nicolas Durand de Villegaignon leads a small fleet of two ships and 200 soldiers and colonists to take possession of Serigipe Island, near modern-day Rio de Janeiro in Brazil at Guanabara Bay, and builds Fort Coligny.source
  • 10 November - In Brazil, a French expedition strong of three ships and 600 colonists and directed by Nicolas Durand de Villegaignon, lord of Torcy and vice-admiral of Brittany, settles in the bay of Rio de Janeiro, to constitute the starting point of a Protestant colony called "France Antarctique" (Antarctic France). Around Guanabara, where the colony settles, two tribes, the Tupinambás and the Margaïas fight each other continuously, submitting their respective prisoners to the worst abuse. The colony of Fort Coligny, built by Villegaignon and his nephew Legendre de Boissy on the Villegaignon island, will be destroyed by the Portuguese on 16 March 1560.Francesource

Religion & Belief

  • May 23 – Giovanni Pietro Carafa, Cardinal of Naples, is elected as the new Pope after Giacomo del Pozzo fails to obtain the necessary two-thirds approval. Carafa, the 223rd Pope, takes the name Pope Paul IV.source
  • 23 May - Election of Paul IV (Gian Pietro Carafa), 223rd Pope of the Catholic Church (end of the pontificate in 1559). He succeeds Pope Marcellus II, dead after 22 days of reign. He reforms the Dataria and the Inquisition. Coming from an ancient Neapolitan family, traditionally hostile to the Aragonese, he makes an alliance with the King of France to expel the Habsburgs from Naples.Francesource
  • May 30 – Foundation of Trinity College, Oxford, England, to teach Catholic theology.source
  • July 12 – Pope Paul IV creates the Roman Ghetto, the first Jewish ghetto in Rome.source
  • August 24 – England's Thomas Thirlby, the first and only Roman Catholic Archbishop of Norwich and Queen Mary's envoy to Pope Paul IV, returns to London from bearing a papal bull that confirms Queen Mary's jurisdiction over Ireland.source
  • September 25 – The Peace of Augsburg is signed between Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, and the Lutheran Schmalkaldic League, establishing the principle Cuius regio, eius religio, that is, rulers within the Empire can choose the religion of their realm.source
  • November 13 – Thomas Cranmer is officially removed from office as the Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury by order of Pope Paul IV and Queen Mary I.source
  • December 11 – Cardinal Reginald Pole is made a cardinal-priest in the Roman Catholic Church and made the administrator of the See of Canterbury in England, though he will not become the new Archbishop of Canterbury until the following March 20.source
  • Jean Calvin sends Jacques l'Anglois from Geneva to the reformed church of Poitiers. The latter is the first Calvinist missionary in France.Francesource
  • The first Reformed Churches are created. Nobles begin to join the Protestant movement.Francesource
  • Pope Paul IV issues a Papal Bull recognising Philip II of Spain and Mary I of England as rightful King and Queen of Ireland.Irelandsource
  • William Annyas becomes the mayor of Youghal in County Cork, the first Jewish Mayor in Ireland.Irelandsource
  • A Description of the Northern Peoples, written by Bishop Olaus Magnus, was printed in Rome in 1555.Swedensource

Economy & Finance

  • February 26 – The Muscovy Company is chartered in England to trade with the Tsardom of Russia and Richard Chancellor negotiates with the Tsar.source
  • The Adal Sultanate in the Horn of Africa collapses.source

Health & Medicine

Crime & Justice

  • 26 March - Amboise ordinance punishing with a 1,000 pounds fine usurpers of nobility in France.Francesource
  • 10 July - 5 August - Jacques de Sores, in the head of a French fleet, burns and pillages Havana and the Castillo de la Real Fuerza that the Governor Hernando de Soto had built to counter acts of piracy.Francesource
  • John Dee is charged, but cleared, of treason in England.source

Climate & Environment

  • September – The 1555 Kashmir earthquake causes widespread destruction and death in Kashmir, India.source

Culture & Society

  • March 25 – Valencia, Venezuela, is founded by Captain Alonso Díaz Moreno.source
  • May 1 – Foundation of St John's College, Oxford, England, to teach Catholic theology.source
  • May 25 – Jeanne d'Albret becomes the Queen of Navarre upon the death of her father, King Henry II.source
  • 25 May - Antoine de Bourbon (1518–1562) and Jeanne d'Albret become king and queen of Navarre.Francesource
  • June Francisco Barreto takes up the position of viceroy in Goa, Portuguese IndiaIndiasource
  • 15 August - Nostradamus, invited by the queen, arrives in Paris after passing Lyon. He is received at the Court, in Paris and Blois.Francesource
  • William Annyas becomes the Mayor of Youghal, Ireland, the first Jew to hold such a position in Ireland.source
  • Orlande de Lassus' first book of madrigals is published, in Antwerp.source
  • Richard Eden publishes The Decades of the Newe Worlde or West India, a translation into English of parts of Pietro Martire d'Anghiera's De orbe novo decades, the Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés work Natural hystoria de las Indias and others, urging his countrymen to follow the lead of Spain in exploring the New World; the work includes the first recorded use in English of the country name 'China'.source
  • Establishment in England of the following grammar schools: Boston Grammar School, Gresham's School at Holt, Norfolk (founded by Sir John Gresham) and Ripon Grammar School (re-foundation).source
  • Nostradamus publishes his Centuries.Francesource

Births

  • March 18 – François, Duke of Anjou, youngest son of Henry II of France and Catherine de' Medici (died 1584)source
  • March 21 – John Leveson, English politician (died 1615)source
  • April 21 – Ludovico Carracci, Italian painter (died 1619)source
  • May 9 – Jerónima de la Asunción, founder of the first Catholic monastery in Manila, the Monastery of Santa Clara (died 1630)source
  • May 29 – George Carew, 1st Earl of Totnes, English earl, general and administrator (died 1629)source
  • June 13 – Giovanni Antonio Magini, Italian mathematician, cartographer and astronomer (died 1617)source
  • July 6 – Louis II, Cardinal of Guise, French Catholic cardinal (died 1588)source
  • July – Henry Garnet, English Jesuit (died 1606)source
  • August 1 – Edward Kelley, English spirit medium (died 1597)source
  • September 28 – Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, vicomte de Turenne, duc de Bouillon, Marshal of France (died 1623)source
  • 28 September – Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, vicomte de Turenne, duc de Bouillon, Marshal of France (died 1623)Francesource
  • October 6 – Ferenc Nádasdy, Hungarian noble (died 1604)source
  • November 8 – Nyaungyan Min, king of Burma (died 1605)source
  • December 27 – Johann Arndt, German Lutheran theologian (died 1621)source
  • Naresuan, King of Ayutthaya (died 1605)source
  • Keshavdas, Sanskrit scholar and Hindi poet, author of Rasik Priya, is born in Orchha (dies 1617)Indiasource
  • Axel Kurck, colonel (died 1630)Swedensource
  • Petrus Kenicius, Archbishop of Uppsala (died 1636)Swedensource

Deaths

  • 14 January – Jacques Dubois, anatomist (born 1478)Francesource
  • February 4 – John Rogers is burned at the stake at Smithfield, London, becoming the first of the 284 Protestant martyrs of the English Reformation to be killed during the five and one-half year reign of Queen Mary I of England. His death is followed within the week by that of Laurence Saunders on February 8 in Coventry, and Rowland Taylor, Rector of Hadleigh, Suffolk, and John Hooper, deposed Bishop of Gloucester on February 9.source
  • February 4 – John Rogers, English clergyman (burned at the stake) (born c. 1505)source
  • February 9 – John Hooper, English churchman (burned at the stake) (born c. 1497)source
  • March 14 – John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford (born 1485)source
  • March 23 – Pope Julius III (born 1487)source
  • April 9 – Marcello Cervini degli Spannocchi is unanimously chosen as the successor to Pope Julius III, who died on March 23, and takes the name of Pope Marcellus II as the 222nd Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church. He will reign for 22 days.source
  • April 12 – Queen Joanna of Castile, long under confinement (born 1479)source
  • April 18 – Polydore Vergil, English historian (born 1470)source
  • May 1 – Pope Marcellus II (born 1501)source
  • May 15 – The conclave opens with 42 of the 56 Roman Catholic cardinals to choose a successor to Pope Marcellus II, who had died on May 1.source
  • 25 May – Henri d'Albret (born 1503)Francesource
  • 16 June – Pedro Mascarenhas, viceroy of Portuguese India dies (born 1470)Indiasource
  • October 16 – The first two Protestant Oxford Martyrs, Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, are burned at the stake in England.source
  • October 16 – Nicholas Ridley, English clergyman (burned at the stake)source
  • 5 November – Hemu (Hemu Vikramaditya), Hindu emperor of north India.Indiasource
  • November 12 – Stephen Gardiner, English bishop and Lord Chancellor (born 1493)source
  • November 21 – Georgius Agricola, German scientist (born 1490)source