At the very beginning of 1602 CE, the English were, according to the new Gregorian calendar used by Irish and Spanish at the time, completing their defeat of the rebellion in Ireland (though the English were still using the old Julian calendar and pegged the events to the end of 1601.) Anyway, it all lasted … Continue reading 1602: Dutch East India Company (VOC) launched →

In 1601 CE, the big stories covered earlier continued to unfold: the Earl of Essex’s ill-planned little (possible) revolt in February; the East India Company’s launching of its first fleet in April. The new big stories of the year were as noted above. Ireland first, then Matteo Ricci. Big defeat for the Irish in Kinsale … Continue reading 1601: Defeat for Irish, Ricci in Beijing →

I have long held that under the system of counting the years from the imagined year of Jesus’s birth, the year the “17th century” should be considered as starting only on January 1, 1601. But I know that is counter-intuitive to many. So I hereby declare that in this project, we are now entering the … Continue reading 1600: England’s East India Company launched →

Some interesting events, eddies, and side-eddies in world history in 1599 CE. I think we have to start in Ireland: Elizabeth’s protege the Earl of Essex fails badly in Ireland Robert Devereux, the 2nd Earl of Essex, born in 1565, had at one stage been quite a favorite of the queen, who was a distant … Continue reading 1599: English rout in Ireland (again); Persia; Kerala →

1598 CE was a year of numerous developments in world affairs. Some empires saw setbacks, some saw steps forward– and two, the Spanish and the English, saw both happening in different parts of their operations. Here were the main developments, in mainly chronological order: Russia’s Tsar Feodor died To no-one’s surprise he was replaced by … Continue reading 1598: Empires stalling, expanding– or doing both →

Well, here’s a quick sitrep for 1597 CE. As we know, various multi-year stories are playing out this year, including the Ottoman battles in Hungary, the Safavid battles in Khorasan, the Dutch expeditions in the Spice Islands, Spanish conquistadores in the Americas, the Dutch uprising against Spanish remnants in Netherlands, etc etc. But we’ll just … Continue reading 1597: Japanese in Korea, Anglo-Spanish sea battles, etc →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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… →