1570
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Ivan IV (the Terrible), czar of Muscovy, enters the city of Great Novgorod January 8 and begins a 5-week reign of terror. A man of dubious character has accused the Novgorodians of being sympathetic to Poland in the ongoing Livonian War. Ivan has ravaged the approaches to the second richest city in the czardom, and he has batches of Novgorodians from all classes of society massacred each day. He has his men plunder every church, monastery, manor house, warehouse, and farm within a radius of 100 miles, destroying all cattle, leaving the structures roofless. Not until February 13 does he permit rebuilding. Ivan has nearly all of his closest advisers and ministers publicly executed at Moscow July 25 while he watches.
Huguenot leader Gaspard II de Coligny rallies an army in southern France and leads it to the valley of the upper Seine, forcing Charles IX to sign the Treaty of St. Germain August 8 (see 1569). The treaty ends France's third religious war on terms favorable to the Huguenots (see 1571).
Pope Pius V issues a bull February 25 excommunicating and deposing England's Queen Elizabeth, who is considered by Roman Catholics to be an illegitimate daughter of the late Henry VIII. Now 37, Elizabeth tries in September to reopen marriage negotiations with the archduke Charles but finds that he has lost patience and become betrothed to the daughter of the duke of Bavaria. France's Charles IX has also recently been married, and while his younger brother Henri, duc d'Anjou, is eligible, he is only 19 and a notorious womanizer (although he will later become better known as a homosexual and transvestite). Catherine de' Medici is excited by the prospect of her younger son marrying Elizabeth, but, like his mother, he is a staunch Catholic and refuses to embrace Protestantism (see Ridolfi, 1571).
Spain's Felipe II, now 42, chooses his 21-year-old niece Anne of Austria, daughter of the emperor Maximilian II, as his third wife, and they are married November 12 at Segovia.
Danish statesman Johan Friis dies at Koge December 5 at age 76, having helped to reform the nation's state and local governments as chancellor under Kristian III.
The Peace of Stettin December 13 ends a 7-year war between Sweden and Denmark, which recognizes Swedish independence (see 1569). French and Polish diplomats have mediated to negotiate the peace, and the two Scandinavian powers will remain at peace with each other until 1611.
The Ottoman sultan Selim II declares war on Venice at the persuasion of Don Joseph Nasi, a Sephardic Jew who has plans to make Cyprus a refuge for Jews. Venice has elected Alvise Mocenigo, 63, as its new doge and has refused to cede Cyprus. Spain has come to Venice's support. An Ottoman fleet of 360 ships arrives at Limisso July 1, but the Spanish and Venetian fleets are delayed. Lala Mustafa lays siege to Nicosia July 25 with an estimated 52,000 men; he receives a 20,000-man contingent of reinforcements along with an artillery siege train. The Nicosian garrison commanded by Nicolo Dandolo has only 3,000 regulars and 5,000 militiamen, and although they have little powder or ammunition for their artillery they offer stout resistance from behind their earthenwork defenses. The Turks suffer heavy losses but finally take the city by storm September 9, massacring the entire garrison along with all but 2,000 of the civilian population (the survivors are enslaved) (see 1571).
Japanese strongman Nobunaga Oda defeats his brother-in-law, the daimyo Nagamasa Asai, who has challenged the supremacy asserted by Nobunaga 2 years ago, married Nobunaga's sister Oichi, now 22, for political reasons in 1566, and she has used her wiles to help her brother avoid a trap (see 1573).
Five North American tribes confederate under the name Iroquois. The Mohawk brave Hiawatha and the brave Dekanawida, originally a Huron, have persuaded the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca to form a league with a common council, each tribe having a fixed number of chiefly delegates.
Large-scale traffic in black slaves begins between the African coast of Sierra Leone and the Brazilian bulge 1,807 miles away (see 1510; 1581).
Tribesmen in the region that will be called Virginia kill Juan Bautista Seguar and other Jesuits, thus ending Spanish efforts to colonize the region (see 1584).
Missionary-explorer Manoel de Nobréga dies at Rio de Janeiro October 18 (his 53rd birthday), having established São Paulo in 1554.
Nagasaki begins its role as Japan's major port for foreign commerce. A local lord in Kyushu opens the fishing village to foreign trade (see 1638).
The Royal Exchange that opens at London is a prototype department store which rents stalls to retail merchants (see 1565).
Bavarian-born Jesuit mathematician Christopher Clavius (originally Christoph Clau), 33, of the Collegio Romano writes a textbook on astronomy in the form of a commentary on the so-called Spheres of Sacrobosco. It rejects the Copernican system of 1543 as a physical reality and will be the standard text in the Roman Catholic world for three generations (see Galileo, 1613; everyday life [calendar], 1582).
Stirpium adversaria nova by French physician-botanist Matthias de L'Obel, 32, contends that botany and medicine must be based on exact and thorough observation. Written in collaboration with Pierre Pena, it gives data on some 1,200 plants which L'Obel has gathered and attempted to classify into families based on the forms of their leaves (see 1576; Fuchs, 1541; Linnaeus, 1737).
Don Juan de Austria, 23, illegitimate half brother of Spain's Felipe II, puts down the 2-year-old Morisco rebellion in Granada. The Moriscos are dispersed throughout Castile and replaced in Andalusia with 50,000 settlers.
Jerusalem-born mystic Isaac ben Solomon Luria, 36, returns to Palestine and settles at Safed, where he consoles the bereaved, offers a redemptive doctrine of gilgul (transmigration of the soul) to thosse who have misspent their lives, and encourages students to study the Cabala. Raised by an aunt in Cairo after his father's death, Luria found a Cabalistic manuscript when he was 17, spent 6 years studying the Book of Zohar and other Cabalistic works, and then retired to a hut on the Nile where he practiced extreme asceticism.
The Scholemaster by the late English scholar Roger Ascham is a treatise on education: "It is costly wisdom that is bought by experience . . . Learning teacheth more in one year than experience in twenty."
Painting: Moses Striking the Rock by Tintoretto; Portrait of Queen Anne of Austria by Sofonisba Anguissola, whose other works this year include Portrait of the Infantas Isabella Clara Eugenia and Catalina Micaela (daughters of the late Isabel de Valois).
I Quattro Libri dell Architettura by Andrea Palladio is published at Venice.
Architect Philibert Delorme dies at Paris January 8 at age 59 (approximate); sculptor-architect Jacopo Sansovino dies at Venice November 27 at age 84.
A North Sea tidal wave November 2 destroys sea walls from the Lowlands to Jutland, killing more than 1,000.
Slave ships returning from Brazil bring maize, manioc, sweet potatoes, peanuts, and beans to supplement Africa's few subsistence crops. Manioc (cassava) will prove highly resistant to locusts and to deterioration when left in the field, and it will serve as a reserve against famine.
Cooking Secrets of Pope Pius V (Cuoco Secrete di Papa Pio Quinto) by Bartolomeo Scappi is published at Venice with 28 pages of copperplate illustrations that include the first picture of a fork (see 1518).
Only two native villages remain in Hispaniola (see 1548).
Maize from Brazil begins to fuel population growth in Africa, which will provide a steady supply of slaves for the new trade.
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