1566

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Year 1566 (MDLXVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar.

Events

January–March

January 7 – Cardinal Michele Ghislieri is elected as the new Pope by two-thirds of the College of Cardinals, to succeed Pope Pius IV, who had died 28 days earlier on December 8. Ghislieri becomes the 225th pope, and takes the regnal name Pope Pius V.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
February 24 – In one of the first gun assassinations in Japanese (if not world) history, Mimura Iechika, the daimyō (warlord) of the Bitchū Province, is shot dead by two brothers (Endo Matajiro and Yoshijiro), sent by his rival Ukita Naoie.
March 28 – The foundation stone of Valletta, which will become Malta's capital city, is laid by Jean Parisot de Valette, Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
March – The Hanseatic city of Lübeck launches the galleon Adler von Lübeck, probably the largest ship in the world at this time.<ref>Van der Horst(e), Peter (1676). Beschreibung von der Kunst der Schiffahrt – Zum andernmahl auffgeleget und mit einem Anhang vermehret, worin beschrieben wird der Anfang und Fortgang der Schiffahrt. 2nd ed. Lübeck: Schmalhertzens Erven. (PDF).</ref>

April–June

April 5 – The Compromise of Nobles is presented to Margaret of Parma, Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands, but it succeeds only in delaying the beginning of the Eighty Years' War in the Netherlands.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
May 1
- Charles IX, King of France, completes his grand tour of his kingdom, returning to Paris a little more than 27 months and Template:Convert after his departure on January 24, 1564.<ref>Les Lettres de pardon du voyage de Charles IX (1565-1566), ed. by (Société de l'Histoire de France, 2010)</ref>
- Suleiman the Magnificent, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, begins his last campaign, departing from Constantinople at the head of one of the largest armies he has ever commanded, with a plan to attack Vienna, capital of the Holy Roman Empire.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> However, he dies in September.
May 13 – Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor imposes a Reichsexekution upon John Frederick II, Duke of Saxony. Augustus, Elector of Saxony is directed to carry out the order to begin the siege of the city of Gotha and John Frederick's home at the Grimmenstein Castle.
May 25 – King Philip II of Spain issues laws against the remaining Spanish Muslims, including a ban against use of the Arabic language, wearing of traditional Arab or Muslim clothing, a requirement that doors in their homes and buildings be kept open every Friday and on Muslim feast days (in order to verify that Muslim rituals are not observed), and forces the tearing down of public and private bathhouses (to prevent purification rites).<ref>Rodrigo de Zayas, Les Morisques et le racisme d'état (La Différence, 1992) p. 230</ref>
May 30 – The Augsburg Imperial Coin Edict issues from the Holy Roman Empire, authorizing a new coin, the thaler. The new unit of money, the Reichsthaler, follows standards providing that the weight should be based on one-ninth of a Cologne mark of silver (the "9 Thaler standard") with each minted coin to weigh 29.23 grams and to contain 25.96 grams of silver.<ref>Wolfgang Trapp, Kleines Handbuch der Münzkunde und des Geldwesens in Deutschland (Reclam, 1999) p. 87.</ref> The word thaler, an abbreviation for the "Joachimsthaler" minted from the silver mines at Joachimsthal (modern-day Jáchymov in the Czech Republic), is anglicized to dollar, the name of currencies in many nations.
June 10 – In Znojmo (in the modern-day Czech Republic), Wilhelm von Rosenberg, commander of the Army of the Kingdom of Bohemia, begins raising an army to fight an expected invasion by the Ottoman Empire.<ref>"Rosenberg (Familienartikel)", by Annemarie Enneper, in Neue Deutsche Biographie (in German) (Duncker & Humblot, 2005), vol. 22, pp. 57–58</ref>

July–September

July 22 – Pope Pius V issues an edict to expel most prostitutes from Rome, and the Papal States.<ref>Christina J. Moose, Great Events from History: The Renaissance & Early Modern Era, 1454-1600, Volume 2 (Salem Press, 2005) p.701</ref> The edict is soon reversed because of the loss of revenue from the taxation of houses of prostitution.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
July 25 – Feodor Stefanovich Kolychov is consecrated as the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church as Philip II, Metropolitan of Moscow with the approval of the Tsar Ivan the Terrible,<ref>"Hieromartyr Philip, Metropolitan of Moscow and All Russia", Orthodox Church in America</ref> but soon defies the Tsar. Philip will be deposed in 16 months later and put to death on December 23, 1568.
July 28 – John Sigismund Zápolya, uncrowned claimant to the throne of the King of Hungary, leads an invasion of Upper Hungary on the orders of Ottoman Sultan Suleiman.<ref>László Kontler, Millennium in Central Europe: A History of Hungary (Atlantisz Publishing, 1999) p.148</ref>
July 31 – King Philip II of Spain sends a final letter to the administrators and Catholic bishops of the Spanish Netherlands, rejecting a request to abolish ordinances treating Protestants as heretics.<ref>Ernst H. Kossman and Albert F. Mellink, Texts Concerning the Revolt of the Netherlands. Cambridge University Press, 1974) pp. 69-75</ref> The decision leads to an uprising against Spain by Calvinists and ultimately to the Eighty Years War.
August 6 – The siege of Szigetvár is begun by Suleiman the Magnificent, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> This is the Ottoman Empire at its greatest extent.
August 10 – The Beeldenstorm, also called the "Iconoclastic Fury", begins as Protestant Calvinists engage in widespread destruction of religious art in what are now the Netherlands and Belgium.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
August 16 – The Beeldenstorm arrives at Ypres and the St Martin's Cathedral is plundered, with the library and artifiacts of Bishop Martin Rythovius burned.
August 25 – The vandalism of the Beeldenstorm reaches Leiden.
September 7 – Suleiman the Magnificent dies in his tent of natural causes aged 71 the day before the end of the siege of Szigetvár,<ref name="sul">Template:Cite book</ref> and Selim II succeeds him as Sultan of the Ottoman Empire.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
September 8 – The siege of Szigetvár ends in a fierce battle with the annihilation of 2,300 Hungarian and Croatian defenders, including their general, Nikola Šubić Zrinski, annihilated by an army of 90,000 soldiers of the Ottoman Empire, under Sokollu Mehmed Pasha.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Before charging out with his remaining 600 troops, General Zrinski orders the gates to the fortress to be opened and fires a large cannon, loaded with broken iron, killing hundreds of Ottoman attackers as they enter.<ref name=Shelton>Edward Shelton, The Book of Battles: or, Daring Deeds by Land and Sea (Houlston and Wright, 1867) pp.82-83</ref> As a final measure, according to one source, Zrinski orders a long fuse to be lit to the fortress gunpowder magazine and the powder explodes while thousands of Ottomans are inside.<ref name="Shelton" />

October–December

October 2 – Richard Onslow (Solicitor General) is elected as the Speaker of the English House of Commons by a vote of 82 to 70.
October 8 – Catherine of the Austrian Habsburgs, Queen of consort of Poland since 1553 as wife of Sigismund II Augustus, leaves Poland to return to Austria after the failure of her marriage. She never comes back to Poland, though she remains the official queen consort until her death in 1572.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
October 19 – Gastón de Peralta, 3rd Marquess of Falces becomes the Viceroy of New Spain, replacing Francisco Ceinos. Peralta is removed from office by King Philip II after charges are made that Peralta is planning a rebellion against the crown.<ref>Manuel García Puron, México y sus gobernantes (in Spanish)(Joaquín Porrua Publishing, 1984)</ref>
October 28 – In Kneiphof, a city in the Duchy of Prussia (modern-day Ostrov Immanuinga Kanta in Russia), Albert, Duke of Prussia has three of the town's five councilors beheaded on charges of causing political and religious disputes with the other Prussian states. Johann Funck, Matthias Horst, and Hans Schnell are executed in the town's marketplace, while Paul Skalich and Johann Steinbach are able to flee the country.<ref>"Funck, Johann", by Paul Tsackert in The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, ed. by Samuel Macauley Jackson (Funk and Wagnalls Co., 1909) pp.410-411</ref>
November 5 – Queen Elizabeth I of England addresses the English Parliament and champions English nationalism, asking "Was I not born in this realm? Were my parents born in any foreign country? Is there any cause I should alienate myself from being careful over this country? Is not my kingdom here?"<ref>Elizabeth I: Collected Works, ed. by Leah S. Marcus, Janel Mueller, and Mary Beth Rose, (University of Chicago Press, 2002), p.95</ref>
November 23 – By decree of King Philip II of Spain, the content of gold in the Spanish gold escudo, is raised from 350 maravedis (equivalent to 338 centigrams) of gold to 400 (386 cg) and equivalent to 16 silver reales.<ref>"El Marviedi— Su Grandeza y Decadencia", in Revista de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos (March–April, 1905) p.218</ref>
November 26 – At the Craigmillar Castle, the advisers to Mary, Queen of Scots – James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray; Secretary of State William Maitland of Lethington; Lord Chancellor George Gordon, 5th Earl of Huntly; Archibald Campbell, 5th Earl of Argyll; and James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell – advise her to divorce her husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. She refuses and the advisers decide that Darnley must be killed.<ref>Letters of Mary, Queen of Scots, ed. by Agnes Strickland (Henry Colburn, 1848) p.37.</ref>
December 17 – The baptism of Prince James, son of Mary Queen of Scots, takes place at Stirling Castle

Date unknown

Between July 19, 1566 and July 7, 1567 (during the Islamic calendar year 974 AH) – The first bridge crossing the Neretva River at Mostar in Herzegovina is completed by the Ottoman Empire. The white marble bridge becomes known as Stari Most ("Old Bridge").