1566

This article is about the year 1566.

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	15th century – 16th century – 17th century
Decades:	1530s  1540s  1550s  – 1560s –  1570s  1580s  1590s
Years:	1563 1564 1565 – 1566 – 1567 1568 1569

1566 in other calendars

Gregorian calendar	1566 MDLXVI
Ab urbe condita	2319
Armenian calendar	1015 ԹՎ ՌԺԵ
Assyrian calendar	6316
Bengali calendar	973
Berber calendar	2516
English Regnal year	8 Eliz. 1 – 9 Eliz. 1
Buddhist calendar	2110
Burmese calendar	928
Byzantine calendar	7074–7075
Chinese calendar	乙丑年 (Wood Ox) 4262 or 4202     — to — 丙寅年 (Fire Tiger) 4263 or 4203
Coptic calendar	1282–1283
Discordian calendar	2732
Ethiopian calendar	1558–1559
Hebrew calendar	5326–5327
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	1622–1623
- Shaka Samvat	1488–1489
- Kali Yuga	4667–4668
Holocene calendar	11566
Igbo calendar	566–567
Iranian calendar	944–945
Islamic calendar	973–974
Japanese calendar	Eiroku 9 (永禄９年)
Julian calendar	1566 MDLXVI
Korean calendar	3899
Minguo calendar	346 before ROC 民前346年
Thai solar calendar	2108–2109

The Stari Most bridge is built.

Selim II

Year 1566 (MDLXVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.

Events

January–June

• January 7 – Pope Pius V succeeds Pope Pius IV as the 225th pope.
• March 28 – The foundation stone of Valletta, Malta's capital city, is laid by Jean Parisot de Valette, Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.
• April 5 – The Compromise of Nobles is presented to Margaret of Parma, Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands, but succeeds only in delaying the beginning of the Eighty Years' War in the Netherlands.

July–December

• August 5 – The Siege of Szigetvár is begun by Suleiman the Magnificent, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire.
• August 10 – Beeldenstorm: Outbreak of destruction by Calvinists of religious art in the Low Countries.
• September 7 – Suleiman the Magnificent dies in his tent at the Siege of Szigetvár and Selim II succeeds him as Sultan of the Ottoman Empire.
• September 7 – The Siege of Szigetvár ends in battle with 2,300 Hungarian and Croatian defenders including their general, Nikola Šubić Zrinski, annihilated by an army of 90,000 soldiers of the Ottoman Empire under Sokollu Mehmed Pasha.

Date unknown

• The Spanish gold escudo, worth 16 silver reales, is first minted during the reign of Philip II of Spain.
• Pope Pius V expels most prostitutes from Rome.
• Between July 19, 1566 and July 7, 1567 – The first bridge crossing the Neretva river at Mostar (in modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina) is completed by the Ottoman Empire. The white marble bridge becomes known as Stari Most ("Old Bridge").

Births

• March 8 – Carlo Gesualdo, Italian music composer (d. 1611)
• May 26 – Mehmed III, Ottoman Emperor (d. 1603)
• June 19 – King James VI of Scotland/James I of England and Ireland (d. 1625)
• June 20 – King Sigismund III Vasa of Poland and Sweden (d. 1632)
• August 12 – Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia of Spain (d. 1633)
• September 1 – Edward Alleyn, English actor (d. 1626)
• October 13 – Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork, Irish politician (d. 1643)
• December 11 – (baptised) – Manuel Cardoso, Portuguese composer (d. 1650)
• December 20 – Edward Wightman, English Baptist martyr (d. 1612)
• December 22 – Jan Jesenius, Slovak physician (d. 1621)
• date unknown
  • Pietro Cerone, Italian music theorist (d. 1625)
  • Giovanni Baglione, Italian painter and historian of art (d. 1643)
  • Michal Sedziwój, Polish alchemist (d. 1636)
  • James Sempill, Scottish theologian (d. 1626)

Deaths

Suleiman the Magnificent

• January 7 – Louis de Blois, Flemish mystical writer (b. 1506)
• February 3 – George Cassander, Flemish theologian (b. 1513)
• March 9 – David Rizzio, Italian secretary of Mary, Queen of Scots (b. 1533)
• March 26 – Antonio de Cabezón, Spanish composer and organist (b. 1510)
• March 28 – Sigismund von Herberstein, Austrian diplomat (b. 1486)
• April 25 – Diane de Poitiers, mistress of King Henry II of France (b. 1499)
• April 25 – Louise Labé, French poet (b. 1525)
• May 4 – Luca Ghini, Italian physician and botanist (b. 1490)
• May 10 – Leonhart Fuchs, German physician and a botanist (b. 1501)
• July 2 – Nostradamus, French astrologer (b. 1503)
• July 13 – Thomas Hoby, English diplomat and translator (b. 1530)
• July 17 – Bartolomé de Las Casas, Spanish priest (b. 1484)
• July 30 – Guillaume Rondelet, French doctor (b. 1507)
• September 2 – Taddeo Zuccari, Italian painter (b. 1529)

• September 7 – Suleiman the Magnificent, Ottoman Sultan since 1520 (b. 1494)
• September 22 – Johannes Agricola, German Protestant reformer (b. 1494)
• September 27 – Marco Girolamo Vida, Italian poet (b. 1490)
• December 26 – Kimotsuki Kanetsugu, Japanese samurai (b. 1511)
• date unknown
  • Charles Dumoulin, French jurist (b. 1500)
  • Richard Edwards, English poet (b. 1523)
  • Calvagh O'Donnell, Irish chieftain
• probable - Jacob Acontius, Swiss jurist, theologian, philosopher and engineer (b. 1492)