Disasters & Accidents in the 16th century

37 sourced entries, 1500 CE to 1597 CE, oldest first. Also see Disasters & Accidents across every century or everything else in the 16th century.

• 1500March 24 – The day after departing the Cape Verde Islands with the rest of Cabral's fleet, Vasco de Ataíde and his 150 crewmates die when their ship goes down in a storm.source
• 1509September 27 – A violent storm ravages the Dutch coast, killing potentially thousands of people.source
• 1510January 29 – The Mary Rose ship is laid out. The next year the ship is launched on July 29, 1511, and is afterwards towed to London to be fitted, and is finally completed in 1512. In 1545, during the Battle of the Solent, she sank. The reason for her sinking is disputed with contemporary accounts claiming the ship was heeled over or sank by French ships with gunfire, although modern historians believe it was sunk due to being unstable.source
• 1511November 20 – The vessel Frol de la Mar, transporting Afonso de Albuquerque and the valuable treasure of the conquest of Malacca, sinks en route to Goa.source
• 1514January 10 – A great fire breaks out, in the Rialto of Venice.source
• 1526February 9 – In Guatemala, a group of 16 deserters from the Spanish colonial army destroy Iximche, the capital of the indigenous kingdom of the Mayan Kaqchikel people, and burn the palace of the Ahpo Xahilsource
• 1529September 1 – Sancti Spiritu, the first European settlement in Argentina, is destroyed by local natives.source
• 1536February 25 – Tyrolean Anabaptist leader Jacob Hutter, founder of the Hutterites, is burned at the stake in Innsbruck for heresy.source
• 1541October 24 – Algiers Expedition: One day after thousands of Spanish, German and Italian soldiers arrived on the North African coast and proceeded to surround the city of Algiers, heavy storms begin and the Algerian defenders surround King Charles and the other commanders. Fifteen European ships are wrecked onshore, and 33 others sink. Over the next 30 days, the Europeans are forced to retreat.source
• 1544May 7 – Edward Seymour, Lord Hertford, carries out the burning of Edinburgh, capital of the Kingdom of Scotland, by the English Navy, then proceeds to destroy neighboring areas.source
• 1544Mongols, led by Anda, burn the suburbs of Beijing in China.source
• 1545July 19 – The Royal Navy's flagship, the Mary Rose, is sunk along with 365 of its 400 crewsource
• 1547The Chambre Ardente is established in Paris for trying heretics.source
• 1550October 16 – Altan Khan crosses the Great Wall of China and besieges Beijing, burning the suburbs.source
• 1552June 24 – The Portuguese ship São João is wrecked off of the coast of South Africa. While 480 people survive initially, all but 25 of them die during the next 165 days while trying to reach the mouth of the Maputo River in what is now Mozambique.source
• 1553October 27 – Geneva's governing council burns Michael Servetus at the stake as a heretic.source
• 1554January 5 – A great fire breaks out in Eindhoven, Netherlands.source
• 1554June 11 – A gunpowder explosion triggered by lightning causes fires that destroy much of the city of Luxembourg.source
• 1556November 10 – The English ship Edward Bonadventure, commanded by Richard Chancellor is wrecked on the coast of Scotland at Pitsligo, killing most of its crew, including Chancellor. The few survivors include the first Russian ambassador to England, Osip Nepeya.source
• 1559May 13 – At Basel, the body of Dutch Anabaptist leader David Joris is exhumed and burned, following his posthumous conviction of heresy.source
• 1561June 4 – The spire of Old St Paul's Cathedral in the City of London catches fire and crashes through the nave roof, probably as the result of a lightning strike. The spire is not rebuilt.source
• 1561Between 1561 and 1670, 3,229 alleged witches are executed in southwestern Germany, most by burning.source
• 1562October 19 – La Herradura naval disaster: Twenty-five ships sink in a storm off of the coast of Spain in the bay of La Herradura, where 28 ships had been anchored to weather the elements. At least 3,000 people are killed, and perhaps as many as 5,000, while another 2,000 survivors, mostly slaves on the galleys, are able to escape to shore.source
• 1563April 5 – The English galleon ship HMS Grehound strikes a sandbar off of the coast of Rye, East Sussex and sinks with all hands in the English Channel, including the Admiral of the Narrow Seas, John Malyn.source
• 1563August 18 – Merchants from the Bungo Province destroy the Portuguese settlement in Yokoseura, Japansource
• 1564May 31 – The Swedish warship Mars, flagship of the Swedish Navy, catches fire while fighting against the navy of Denmark in the battle of Öland off of the coast of the island of the same name in the Baltic Sea, and sinks along with its crew of 350 sailors and 450 soldiers it had been transporting. The wreckage of the ship will go undiscovered for 447 years until being found on August 19, 2011.source
• 1567November 21 (10th day of 11th month, Eiroku 10) – In Japan, the Tōdai-ji Great Buddha Hall in the Nara Prefecture is destroyed after a six-month siege by Matsunaga Hisahide against Miyoshi Nagaitsu and the Miyoshi clan. Reconstruction of the temple does not take place until 140 years later in 1709.source
• 1571May 24 – Moscow is burnt by the Crimean army, under Devlet I Giray.source
• 1588November 15 – The English Navy ship Great Spaniard, formerly the Spanish Armada ship San Salvador until its capture on August 1, sinks off of the coast of England's Isle of Purbeck, with the loss of 23 of the 57 crew. The survivors are rescued by an English man-o-war boat.source
• 1592The Confucian shrine of Munmyo in Korea is destroyed by fire.source
• 1593May 5 – "Dutch church libel" bills posted in London threaten Protestant refugees from France and the Netherlands, alluding to Christopher Marlowe's plays.source
• 1594June 23 – A cargo ship explosion kills over 700 people the day after three English Navy ships— the Mayflower, Sampson and Royal Exchange— set fire to the Portuguese carrack Cinco Chagas off of the coast of Faial Island during the Anglo-Spanish War. The treasure inside, gathered from the East Indies, sinks in the north Atlantic Ocean. Only 13 people on the Cinco Chagas survive, and the cargo is lost.source
• 1595August 28 – Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Hawkins depart from England, on their final voyage to the Spanish Main, which ends in both of their deaths.source
• 1596January 20 – Francis Drake, unable to receive a ransom for the town of Nombre de Dios, orders the town and all Spanish ships in harbor to be burned. At the same time, General Baskerville leads 750 men on a mission to clear the Isthmus of Spanish parties.source
• 1596October 18 – The Second Armada, a Spanish fleet sent to attack England in revenge for the raid on Cadiz, is wrecked in storms off Cape Finisterre; nearly 5,000 men and 44 ships are lost including five galleonssource
• 1596December 8 – In Japan, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Chancellor of the Realm, orders the arrest of the 26 Roman Catholic Christians who had the misfortune of being shipwrecked in Kyoto on October 19; each of the ones arrested has a part of the left ear cut off, then sent on a forced march to Nagasaki on January 4, then has them killed on February 5.source
• 1597February 5 – In Japan, 26 European Catholic Christians are executed in Nagasaki by crucifixion. They had the misfortune of being shipwrecked on the Japanese coast on October 19, 1596.source