1569

In the year AD 1569...

• The Third War of Religion rages in France between Royalist Catholics and Protestant Huguenots.
  • In the Battle of Jarnac, Royalist troops under Marshal Gaspard de Tavannes surprise and defeat the Huguenots under the Prince of Condé, who is captured and summarily executed.
  • Another Huguenot army, led by Gaspard II de Coligny and the 15-year-old Prince Henry of Navarre and reinforced by German Protestant troops, besieges Poitiers, but the siege fails due to the arrival of the Royalist army, led my Marshal Tavannes and Henry, Duc d'Anjou.
  • Meanwhile, Huguenot forces under Gabriel, comte de Montgomery defeat Royalist forces under Antoine de Lomagne, Viscount of Terride at the Battle of Orthez in French Navarre. The Catholics surrender on the condition that their lives be spared. The Huguenots agree, but then massacre the Catholics anyway.
  • Finally the two main armies meet in the Battle of Moncountour, with the Royalists led by Tavannes and Anjou defeating the Huguenots led by Coligny and Navarre. Coligny and his surviving troops retreat to the southwest to lick their wounds over the winter, only to launch a devastating raid across the south of France the following spring.
• The Thai capital of Ayutthaya falls to an invading army led by Burmese king Bayinnaung. Thai king Maha Chakkraphat passes away during the seige, so Bayinnaung installs his Thai ally Maha Thammarachathirat as the new king of Siam.
• In the Union of Lublin, the states of Poland and Lithuania unite to form a new state, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, which would last all the way up to 1795.
• Mughal emperor Akbar founds the city Fatehpur Sikri to be his new capital. The city will serve as the capital of the Mughal Empire until 1585 before being abandoned due to lack of sufficient water supply.
• In the "Rising of the North," Catholic nobles from northern England lead a rebellion against Queen Elizabeth I in an attempt to place the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots on the English throne, but finding little popular support and met by a much larger army loyal to the Queen, are forced to flee to Scotland.
• Pope Pius V issues the papal bull Hebraeorum gens sola, expelling Jews from most of the Papal States, with the exception of the cities of Rome and Ancona.
• In a separate decision, the Pope declares that drinking chocolate does not break the Friday fast.
• The Mercator projection is used for the first time by Belgian cartographer Gerardus Mercator for his world map Nova et Aucta Orbis Terrae Descriptio ad Usum Navigantium Emendata.
• Spanish Lutheran theologian Casiodoro de Reina publishes a vernacular Spanish translation of the Bible that will become the basis of the Reina-Valera version of the Bible still in use to this day.

These people were born in 1569...

• Mughal emperor Jahangir.
• Yodo-Gimi, the principal wife of Japanese warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
• English poet and lawyer John Davies.
• Italian poet Giambattista Marino.
• Flemish painter Frans Pourbus the Younger.

These people died in 1569...

• Maha Chakkraphat, king of the Ayutthaya kingdom in what is now Thailand.
• Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
• French Huguenot general Louis, Prince of Condé, murdered following the Battle of Jarnac.
• French Royalist general Antoine de Lomagne, Viscount of Terride, murdered following the Battle of Orthez.
• Spanish mystic John of Ávila.
• Portuguese poet António Ferreira.
• Chinese poet Huang E.
• Converted Jew and Roman Catholic theologian Sixtus of Siena.

1568 - 1569 - 1570

16th century

How they were made