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The 1590s

869 sourced entries across 10 years, inside the 16th century. Each year below opens its own page; the lines under it are that year’s highest-ranked entries.

1590 CE82 entries

  • 3 September - As part of the O'Donnell Succession dispute the Battle of Doire Leathan is fought in County Donegal. Sir Donnell O'Donnell, one of the leading claimants to the title, is defeated and killed by forces backing his half-brother and rival Hugh Roe O'Donnell.
  • October 16 – Saadian invasion of the Songhai Empire: An army of 20,000 troops, led by Judar Pasha is dispatched from Marrakesh in the Saadi Sultanate (now Morocco), on orders of Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur. The Saadi Army's objective is to conquer the Songhai Empire, led by the Emperor Askia Ishaq II, in North Africa, corresponding to what is now the Republic of Mali.
  • December 7 – North Berwick witch trials: Agnes Sampson is questioned by King James VI of Scotland, and confesses to practising witchcraft. She will be executed on January 28.

1591 CE94 entries

  • February 25 – Poet Edmund Spenser is granted an annual pension of 50 pounds sterling by Queen Elizabeth I of England in recognition of his publication of The Faerie Queen. The pension is paid in quarterly installments of 12s. 10d. on March 25, June 24, September 29 and December 25.
  • March 13 – Battle of Tondibi: In Mali, forces sent by the Saadi dynasty ruler of Morocco, Ahmad al-Mansur, and led by Judar Pasha, defeat the Songhai Empire, despite being outnumbered by at least five to one.
  • May 30 – Timbuktu is captured by an expedition of Arma people sent by the Saadi ruler of Morocco and led by Judar Pasha.

1592 CE86 entries

  • July 20 – The Japanese capture the Korean capital Hanyang, causing Seonjo to request the assistance of Ming dynasty Chinese forces, who recapture the city a year later.
  • November 17 – Sigismund III Vasa becomes the new King of Sweden upon the death of his father, King John III.
  • December – Edmund MacGauran, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh arrives at Drogheda from Bilbao (having escaped attack by pirates) with a promise from King Philip II of Spain to send troops to support a rebellion in Ireland next summer. At Christmas, he holds a conference of seven northern bishops in the Franciscan friary in Donegal which proposes formation of a Catholic confederacy or league among the nobility and clergy of Ulster and Connacht under the leadership of Tyrconnell.

1593 CE98 entries

  • May 5 – "Dutch church libel" bills posted in London threaten Protestant refugees from France and the Netherlands, alluding to Christopher Marlowe's plays.
  • 23 June – in a skirmish at Skeanavart in County Roscommon as part of Hugh Maguire (Lord of Fermanagh)'s raid into Connacht, Edmund MacGauran (Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh) is among those killed.
  • December 27 – Spanish Jesuit priest Gregorio Céspedes becomes the first Christian missionary to Korea, arriving at Busan to begin his ministry in the Buddhist kingdom of Joseon. Céspedes is able to enter Korea by coming with the Japanese invasion force of General Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

1594 CE92 entries

  • June 11 – Philip II of Spain recognizes the rights and privileges of the local nobles and chieftains in the Philippines, which paves the way for the stabilization of the rule of the Principalía.
  • December 15 – King Udai Singh of Marwar (now the Rajasthan and Punjab states of India and the Punjab province of Pakistan) returns to Lahore after having captured the Siwana fort.
  • December 28 – The earliest known performance of William Shakespeare's play The Comedy of Errors takes place at Gray's Inn in London, and is played by the Lord Chamberlain's Men acting company. The production is held before members of the English court on Innocents' Day as part of the Gray's Inn Christmas festivities.

1595 CE86 entries

  • July 21 – A Spanish expedition of four ships, led by navigator and explorer Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira, makes the first European landing in Polynesia, on the Marquesas Islands. Despite an initially good reception with the natives, fighting begins and the Mendaña ships leave after two weeks. One of the ships, the Santa Ysabel, disappears during the voyage toward the Solomon Islands.
  • November 9 – In India, Prince Man Singh I, Maharaja of Amber within the Mughal Empire, becomes the Mughal Governor (subahdar) of Bengal in what is now Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal. He lays the foundations of a new capital of Bengal, Akbarnagar (now Rajmahal, Jharkhand state).
  • December 9 – What is probably the first performance of William Shakespeare's play, Richard II, takes place in London.

1596 CE74 entries

  • February 14 – Archbishop John Whitgift begins building his hospital at Croydon.
  • March 15 – During Spain's Brittany Campaign during the Anglo-Spanish War, a Spanish ship carrying 25 soldiers invades England after arriving at Cawsand Bay in Cornwall. After starting a fire, the Spanish retreat.
  • September 20 – Diego de Montemayor founds the city of Monterrey, Mexico.

1597 CE93 entries

  • July 28 – After the performance of the satirical play The Isle of Dogs, written by Thomas Nashe and Ben Jonson, at the Swan Theatre, the Privy Council of England concludes that the "lewd play" is full of seditious and slanderous matter. Jonson is arrested, along with two actors, Gabriel Spenser and Robert Shaa, and the three are sent to Marshalsea Prison. A raid on the home of Thomas Nashe seizes his papers, but Nashe is not found. The three prisoners are released later in the year and return to the stage. All copies of The Isle of Dogs script are destroyed.
  • August 28 – Imjin War: Battle of Chilcheollyang – The Japanese fleet defeats the Koreans, in their only naval victory of the war.
  • October 18 – The 3rd Spanish Armada, a fleet of 140 ships, departs from the port of La Coruña with 12,634 soldiers and sailors and a plan to invade the British Isles with a landing at Falmouth in Cornwall.

1598 CE91 entries

  • September 13 – Philip III becomes the new King of Spain upon the death of his father Philip II.
  • September 17 – Second Dutch Expedition to Indonesia: Jacob Corneliszoon van Neck and three ships commanded by him are separated from the Dutch Republic fleet of Admiral Wybrand van Warwyck, and land on a Portuguese-charted island, Ilha do Cisne. Van Neck names the island Mauritius, after Maurice, Prince of Orange. Although Diogo Fernandes Pereira and sailors from Portugal had, in 1507, become the first Europeans to find Mauritius, van Neck's men apparently are the first to sight the dodo, a now extinct bird.
  • November 10 (11th waxing of Tazaungmon 960 ME) – In what is now the Rakhine State of Myanmar, King Min Razagyi of Arakan and the rebel leader Minye Thihathu begin their assault on Pegu, the remaining portion of the Toungoo Empire in southern Burma.

1599 CE73 entries

  • September 21 – The first reported performance at the Globe Theatre in London (erected over Spring/Summer), a presentation of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (probably new to that year), is recorded by Swiss traveller Thomas Platter the Younger.
  • November 10 – The Åbo Bloodbath takes place in Åbo (Turku), in modern-day Finland, which was part of Sweden at the time.
  • 17 December – King James VI, via an act of his Privy Council, decided that Scotland should come into line with other "well governit commonwealths" and adopts 1 January as New Year’s Day. Prior to this 25 March was New Year’s Day. Thus the year 1599 commenced on 25 March 1599 and ended on 31 December 1599 - it was only 9 months long. The next date, in Scotland, was 1 January 1600. This left Scotland at odds with England, where the new year continued to be dated from 25 March. As a consequence 1 January 1600 in Scotland was 1 January 1599 in England. It is sometimes, mistakenly, said that Scotland adopted the Gregorian Calendar at this time. Whilst starting the new year on 1 January was one component of Gregorian reforms, Scotland did not adopt the two more fundamental changes in relation to (1) the computation for leap years and (2) the realignment of the calendar with the solar year, which necessitated the omission of ten days from the existing calendar. Scotland, along with England and Wales, adopted the Gregorian Calendar in 1752 under the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 by which time the omission of eleven days from the older calendar was required.