I realize I’ve been pretty England-heavy recently, so today I’ll start with the coming of the Safavid Empire’s Shah Abbas. Since it is International Women’s Day, I thought I should look for some women’s news from 1587 CE. The main item in that department has to be the execution in February 1587 of Mary, Queen … Continue reading 1587: Shah Abbas, Francis Drake →

Things of great impact were, of course, happening all around the world in 1588 CE (including in Portuguese Ceylon.) But since what I’m tracking here essentially the rise of the “West”, and the world into which it was rising, then today’s post has to keep its focus on events happening in the North Sea and … Continue reading 1588: England, Spain (the Armada), Netherlands, & France →

I’ll start with two developments in places not on the North Sea/ Atlantic coast then come back to that hub of geopolitical ferment. Bozhou chieftain rebels against the Ming dynasty 1589 CE saw the start of a rebellion against Ming rule by the Tusi (chieftain) of the Bozhou region. The tusi system of indirect rule … Continue reading 1589: China, Russia, France, England/Spain →

We’ll start with the peace treaty concluded in 1590 between the Ottomans and Safavids, look at England’s still-sputtering attempts to establish colonies in North America, then look at a couple of ways in which the pursuit of empire placed costs on the citizens of societies pursuing empire (though still, of course, far far smaller than … Continue reading 1590: Ottomans, Safavids, costs of empire, etc →

I think the “big” story this year, 3 years after the defeat of the Spanish Armada and generally undaunted by the 1589 defeat of the English Counter-Armada, is to see how many different naval expeditions the various investors’ groups of London were launching, to numerous different parts of the Spanish-dominated world… But before we look … Continue reading 1591: English adventurers abroad, & more →

We’ll start with the Spanish Empire. Then, scroll on down to learn about two very successful English plunder-raids; about a German women printer who died in 1592; and about Japan launching a big invasion of Korea that year. It’s the centennial of Columbus’s first contact with the “New World”! How better could those rapacious, globe-girdling … Continue reading 1592: Japanese invade Korea, Spain’s Empire at 100, etc →

Happy Pi Day everyone! How fortuitous that today I write about 1593, which had a “Super-Pi” Day: 3/14, 1593. (During 1593, the Flemish mathematician Adriaan van Roomen arrived at 15 decimal places of Pi using the polygon approximation method.) Today, I’ll be brief: January 1593 was when the Ming Chinese allies came to help the … Continue reading 1593: The Korean War, Ottomans & Habsburgs, and more… →

1594 CE was a great year for the military-industrial complex both in Europe and worldwide. In East Asia, the Chinese and Koreans continued to battle Japan’s invasion of Korea. In Eastern Europe, the land war between the Habsburgs and the Ottomans continued… Here were some other interesting things that were happening that year. I’ll start … Continue reading 1594: Battles in Europe & and globally →

Lots of familiar events in 1595 CE. In Constantinople, Sultan Murad III died, being succeeded by Mehmed III, one of whose first acts was to– guess what!– kill off a record number of 19 of his brothers. (Intriguingly, at one point earlier on, Murad’s sister Ismihan had been worried he was impotent and not producing … Continue reading 1595: São Tomé slave rebellion; Anglo-Spanish battles; Ottoman succession; Shakespeare →

The short version of what was happening in world politics in 1596 was that, as the English and Spanish duked it out in big sea battles in the North Sea (also, in the Caribbean), and the Ottomans and Habsburgs duked it out in big land battles in Hungary– suddenly, poof!– the wily Dutch snuck around … Continue reading 1596: Dutch eruption onto world scene →