Explore 199 historical events from 1590–1599.
Sen no Rikyū , also known simply as Rikyū, was a Japanese tea master considered the most important influence on the Japanese tea ceremony, particularly the tradition of wabi-cha. H…
Sen no Rikyū, Japanese exponent of the tea ceremony (born 1522)
John Blitheman was an English composer and organist.
John Blitheman, English organist and composer (born 1525)
Aloysius de Gonzaga, SJ was an Italian aristocrat who became a member of the Society of Jesus. While still a student at the Roman College, he died as a result of caring for the vic…
Aloysius Gonzaga, Italian saint (born 1568)
Vincenzo Galilei was an Italian lutenist, composer, and music theorist. His children included the astronomer and physicist Galileo Galilei and the lute virtuoso and composer Michel…
Vincenzo Galilei, Italian lute player and composer (born 1520)
Jacobus Gallus was a late-Renaissance composer of presumed Slovene ethnicity. Born in Carniola, which at the time was one of the Habsburg lands in the Holy Roman Empire, he lived a…
Jacobus Gallus, Slovenian composer (born 1550)
Luis de León, was a Spanish lyric poet, Augustinian friar, theologian and academic.
Luis de León, Spanish poet and academic (born 1527)
Sir Richard Grenville, also spelt Greynvile, Greeneville, and Greenfield, was an English privateer and explorer. Grenville was lord of the manors of Stowe, Cornwall and Bideford, D…
Richard Grenville, English admiral and politician (born 1542)
Pope Gregory XIV, born Niccolò Sfondrato or Sfondrati, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 5 December 1590 to his death, in October 1591.
Gregory XIV, pope of the Catholic Church (born 1535)
The Eighty Years' War or Dutch Revolt was an armed conflict in the Habsburg Netherlands between disparate groups of rebels and the Spanish government. The causes of the war include…
Eighty Years' War: Dutch and English forces relieved the siege of Knodsenburg in the Spanish Netherlands, having…
Anne of Denmark was Queen of Scotland from her marriage to King James VI on 20 August 1589 and became the Queen of England and Ireland from the union of the Scottish and English Cr…
Anne of Denmark is crowned Queen of Scotland
John White was an English colonial governor, explorer, artist, and cartographer. White was among those who sailed with Richard Grenville in the first attempt to colonise Roanoke Is…
John White, the governor of the Roanoke Colony, returns from a supply trip to England and finds his settlement deserted.
Tokugawa Ieyasu was a Japanese samurai, daimyo and the founder and first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, which ruled from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He wa…
Tokugawa Ieyasu enters Edo Castle. (Traditional Japanese date: August 1, 1590)
Alexander Farnese was an Italian noble and military leader, who was Duke of Parma, Piacenza and Castro from 1586 to 1592, as well as Governor of the Spanish Netherlands from 1578 t…
An army led by Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma forces Henry IV of France to lift the siege of Paris.
Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa was an Italian nobleman and composer. Though both the Prince of Venosa and Count of Conza, he is better known for writing madrigals and pieces of sacred mu…
Prince Gesualdo of Venosa murders his wife and her lover.
John White was an English colonial governor, explorer, artist, and cartographer. White was among those who sailed with Richard Grenville in the first attempt to colonise Roanoke Is…
John White, the governor of the second Roanoke Colony, returns to England after an unsuccessful search for the "lost"…
Ahmed I was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1603 to 1617. Ahmed's reign is noteworthy for marking the first breach in the Ottoman tradition of royal fratricide; henceforth, O…
Ahmed I, Ottoman Emperor (died 1617)
Cosimo II de' Medici was Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1609 until his death. He was the elder son of Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Christina of Lorraine.
Cosimo II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (died 1621)
Philip Bell was Governor of Bermuda from 1626 to 1629, of the Providence Island colony from 1629 to 1636, and of Barbados from 1640 to 1650 during the English Civil War. During his…
Philip Bell, British colonial governor (died 1678)
Pope Clement X, born Emilio Bonaventura Altieri, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 29 April 1670 to his death on 22 July 1676.
Pope Clement X (died 1676)
John Webster was an early colonial settler of New England, serving one term as governor of the Colony of Connecticut in 1656.
John Webster, colonial settler and governor of Connecticut (died 1661)
Henry Rich, 1st Earl of Holland, was an English courtier and politician executed by Parliament after being captured fighting for the Royalists during the Second English Civil War. …
Henry Rich, 1st Earl of Holland, English soldier and politician, Lord Lieutenant of Berkshire (died 1649)
María de Zayas y Sotomayor was a writer during the Spanish Golden Age. She is considered by many modern critics to be one of the pioneers of feminist literature, while others evalu…
María de Zayas, Spanish writer (died 1661)
Charles de Bourbon, known as the Cardinal de Bourbon, was a French noble and prelate. He was the Archbishop of Rouen from 1550 and the Catholic Ligue candidate for King of France f…
Charles de Bourbon French cardinal and pretender to the throne (born 1523)
Charles II Francis of Austria was an Archduke of Austria and a ruler of Inner Austria from 1564. He was a member of the House of Habsburg.
Charles II, archduke of Austria (born 1540)