The 16th century begins with the Julian year 1501 and ends with either the Julian or the Gregorian year 1600 (depending on the reckoning used; the Gregorian calendar introduced a lapse of 10 days in October 1582).
It is regarded by historians as the century in which the rise of the West occurred. During the 16th century, Spain and Portugal explored the world's seas and opened worldwide oceanic trade routes. Large parts of the New World became Spanish and Portuguese colonies, and while the Portuguese became the masters of Asia's and Africa's Indian Ocean trade, the Spanish opened trade across the Pacific Ocean, linking the Americas with Asia.
This era of colonialism established mercantilism as the leading school of economic thought, where the economic system was viewed as a zero-sum game in which any gain by one party required a loss by another. The mercantilist doctrine encouraged the many intra-European wars of the period and arguably fueled European expansion and imperialism throughout the world until the 19th century or early 20th century.
In Europe, the Protestant Reformation gave a major blow to the authority of the papacy and the Roman Catholic Church. European politics became dominated by religious conflicts, with the groundwork for the epochal Thirty Years' War being laid towards the end of the century. In Italy, Luca Pacioli published the first work ever on accounting and Galileo Galilei made the first thermometer. In United Kingdom, the Italian Alberico Gentili wrote the first book on public international law and divided secularism from canon law and Roman Catholic theology.
In the Middle East, the Ottoman Empire continued to expand, with the Sultan taking the title of Caliph, while dealing with a resurgent Persia. Iran and Iraq were caught by major popularity of the once-obscure Shiite sect of Islam under the rule of the Safavid dynasty of warrior-mystics, providing grounds for a Persia independent of the majority-Sunni Muslim world.
China evacuated the coastal areas, because of Japanese piracy. Japan was suffering a severe civil war at the time.
Mughal Emperor Akbar extended the power of the Mughal Empire to cover most of the South Asian sub continent. His rule significantly influenced arts, and culture in the region.
Copernicus proposed the heliocentric universe, which was met with strong resistance, and Tycho Brahe refuted the theory of celestial spheres through observational measurement of the 1572 appearance of a Milky Way supernova. These events directly challenged the long-held notion of an immutable universe supported by Ptolemy and Aristotle, and led to major revolutions in astronomy and science.
Musicians and composers
Andrea Amati (c. 1520 – c. 1578)
Felice Anerio (c. 1560 – 1614)
Adriano Banchieri (c. 1557 – 1634)
Giovanni Bassano (c. 1558 – 1617)
William Brade (1560–1630)
John Bull (c. 1562 – 1628)
Antonio de Cabezón (c. 1510 – 1566)
Giulio Caccini (c. 1545 – 1618)
Dario Castello (c. 1560 – c. 1640)
Emilio de' Cavalieri (c. 1550 – March 11, 1602)
Jacques Champion (before 1555 – 1642)
Manuel Rodrigues Coelho (c. 1555 – c. 1635)
John Dowland (1563–1626)
Giles Farnaby (1565–1640)
Alfonso Fontanelli (1557–1622)
Hans Leo Hassler (1562–1612)
Sebastian Aguilera de Heredia (1565–1627)
Giovanni Gabrieli (1557–1612)
Joseph Lupo
Peter Lupo (c. 1535 – 1608)
Thomas Lupo (c. 1571 – c. 1627)
Ascanio Mayone (1565–1627)
Cristóbal de Morales (c. 1500 – 1553)
Giovanni Bernardino Nanino (c. 1560 – 1623)
Johannes Nucius (c. 1556 – 1620)
Claudio Merulo (1533–1604)
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, (1525–1594)
Jacopo Peri (1561–1633)
Peter Philips (c. 1560 – 1628)
Hieronymus Praetorius (1560–1629)
Cipriano de Rore (1516–1565)
Paolo Quagliati (c. 1555 – 1628)
Francisco de Salinas (1513–1590)
Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562–1621)
Jean Titelouze (1563–1633)
Lodovico Grossi da Viadana (1564–1627)
Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548–1611)
Juan Martínez de Jáuregui y Aguilar, Spanish poet and painter, (1483–1541)
Mateo Alemán, Spanish novelist and writer (1547 – c. 1615)
Ludovico Ariosto, Italian poet, (1474–1533)
Bâkî, Ottoman Turkish poet. He was known as "Sultan of poets" (1526–1600)
Luís de Camões, Portuguese poet (c. 1524 – 1580).
Baldassare Castiglione, Italian author (1478–1529)
Miguel de Cervantes, Spanish author (1547–1616)
John Donne, English metaphysical poet (1572–1631)
Alonso de Ercilla, Spanish poet (1533–1594)
Luis de Góngora, Spanish poet (1561–1627)
Thomas Heywood, English dramatist (c. early 1570s – 1641)
Malaye Jaziri, Kurdish poet and mystic (1570–1640)
Ben Jonson, English dramatist (c. 1572 – 1637)
Jan Kochanowski, Polish poet (1530–1584)
Fuzûlî, Azerbaijani poet (1483–1556)
Thomas Kyd, English dramatist (1558–1594)
Luis de León, Spanish poet (1527–1591)
Thomas Lodge, English dramatist (1558–1625)
Niccolò Machiavelli, Italian author (1469–1527)
Christopher Marlowe, English poet and dramatist (1564–1593).
Michel de Montaigne, French essayist (1533–1592).
Thomas More, English politician and author (1478–1535).
Miyamoto Musashi, famous warrior in Japan, author of The Book of Five Rings, a treaty on strategy and martial combat. (1584–1645)
François Rabelais, French author (c. 1493 – 1553).
Mikołaj Rej, Polish writer (1505–1569).
Pierre de Ronsard, French poet. Called the "Prince of poets" of his generation. (1524–1585).
William Shakespeare, English playwright (1564–1616).
Edmund Spenser, English poet (c. 1552–1599)
Gian Giorgio Trissino, Italian humanist, poet, dramatist, diplomat, and grammarian (1478–1550)
Garcilaso de la Vega, Spanish poet (1501–1536)
Lope de Vega, Spanish dramatist (1562–1635).
Benedetto Varchi, Italian humanist, a historian and poet (1502/1503 – 1565)
Sharaf Khan Bidlisi, Kurdish politician, historian and poet (1543–1603)
Science and philosophy
Mulla Sadra, (1571–1641), the single most important and influential philosopher in the Muslim world in the last four hundred years who introduced Transcendent Theosophy or al-hikmah al-muta'liyah
Sir Francis Bacon, (1561–1626) was an English philosopher, statesman, and essayist.
Pietro Bembo (1470–1547), Italian scholar, poet, literary theorist and a cardinal.
Tycho Brahe, (1546–1601), Danish astronomer.
Giordano Bruno, Italian philosopher and astronomer/astrologer (1548–1600).
Tommaso Campanella (1568–1639), Italian philosopher, theologian, astrologer, and poet.
Demetrios Chalkokondyles, (1423–1511), Greek humanist, scholar.
Nicolaus Copernicus, (1473–1543) astronomer, developed the heliocentric (Sun-centered) theory using scientific methods.
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (sometimes known as Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam) (October 27, 1466/1469, Rotterdam – July 12, 1536, Basel was a Dutch Renaissance humanist and Catholic Christian theologian.
Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642) was a Tuscan (Italian) physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the scientific revolution.
Konrad Gessner (1516–1565) was a Swiss naturalist, bibliographer, Botanist, His three-volume Historiae animalium (1551–1558) is considered the beginning of modern zoology
William Gilbert, also known as Gilberd, (1544 – 1603) was an English physician and a natural philosopher.
Francesco Guicciardini, (1483–1540) Italian historian and statesman.
Johannes Kepler, (1571–1630), German mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the scientific revolution.
Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527), Italian historian, politician, diplomat, philosopher, humanist, and writer.
Gerardus Mercator (5 March 1512 – 2 December 1594), famous cartographer.
Michael Servetus (1509 or 1511 – 27 October 1553), Spanish theologian, physician, cartographer, and Renaissance humanist.
Francisco Suarez (1548–1617), Spanish philosopher and theologian.
Andreas Vesalius (Brussels, December 31, 1514 – Zakynthos, October 15, 1564) was an anatomist, physician, and author of one of the most influential books on human anatomy, De humani corporis fabrica (On the Workings of the Human Body). Vesalius is often referred to as the founder of modern human anatomy.
Edward Wright, (baptized 1561; died 1615), English mathematician and cartographer who determined the mathematical basis of the Mercator projection and produced the first maps in England according to this method
Related article: List of 16th century inventions.
The Columbian Exchange introduces many plants, animals and diseases to the Old and New Worlds.
Introduction of the spinning wheel revolutionizes textile production in Europe.
The letter J is introduced into the English alphabet.
1500: First portable watch is created by Peter Henlein of Germany.
1513: Juan Ponce de León sights Florida and Vasco Núñez de Balboa sights the eastern edge of the Pacific Ocean.
1519–22: Ferdinand Magellan and Juan Sebastián Elcano lead the first circumnavigation of the World.
1519–1540: In America, Hernando de Soto expeditions map the Gulf of Mexico coastline and bays.
1525: Modern square root symbol (√)
1540: Francisco Vásquez de Coronado sights the Grand Canyon.
1541–42: Francisco de Orellana sails the length of the Amazon River.
1543: Copernicus publishes his theory that the Earth and the other planets revolve around the Sun
1545: Theory of complex numbers is first developed by Gerolamo Cardamo of Italy.
1558: Camera obscura is first used in Europe by Giambattista della Porta of Italy.
1559–1562: Spanish settlements in Alabama/Florida and Georgia confirm dangers of hurricanes and local native warring tribes.
1565: Spanish settlers outside New Spain (Mexico) colonize Florida's coastline at St. Augustine.
1565: Invention of the graphite pencil (in a wooden holder) by Conrad Gesner. Modernized in 1812.
1568: Gerardus Mercator creates the first Mercator projection map.
1572: Supernova SN 1572 is observed by Tycho Brahe in the Milky Way.
1582: Gregorian calendar is introduced in Europe by Pope Gregory XIII and adopted by catholic countries.
c. 1583: Galileo Galilei of Pisa, Italy identifies the constant swing of a pendulum, leading to development of reliable timekeepers.
1585: earliest known reference to the 'sailing carriage' in China.
1589: William Lee invents the stocking frame.
1591: First flush toilet is introduced by Sir John Harrington of England, the design published under the title 'The Metamorphosis of Ajax'.
1593: Galileo Galilei invents a thermometer.
1596: William Barents discovers Spitsbergen.
1597: Opera in Florence by Jacopo Peri.
16th century Wikipedia (Text) CC BY-SA
