January–March •
January 8 –
Ivan the Terrible begins the
Massacre of Novgorod. •
January 23 – The
assassination of Scottish regent
James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray, by
James Hamilton, the first known shooting of a national leader, throws Scotland into
civil war. Having loaded a carbine rifle and carried it into the
Linlithgow home of his uncle, the
Archbishop of St Andrews, Hamilton stands at an upstairs window overlooking the street where Moray will ride by on horseback as part of cavalcade. Once Moray comes into range, Hamilton fires and fatally wounds the regent for King James VI. •
February 8 – An
estimated 8.3 magnitude earthquake occurs in
Concepción, Chile. •
February 5 –
Venus occults Jupiter; this will next happen in
1818. •
February 25 –
Pope Pius V excommunicated Queen
Elizabeth I of England with the papal bull
Regnans in Excelsis. •
March 28 – The ambassador of the Ottoman Sultan
Selim II goes before the governing Council of the
Venetian Republic and requests that Venice surrender the island of
Cyprus. The Council rejects the demand and
prepares to go to war with the Ottoman Empire.
April–June •
April 7 – In Scotland,
Colin Campbell of Glenorchy receives permission from the Regent, the
Earl of Morton, to execute the chief of
Clan Gregor, his son-in-law Gregor Roy MacGregor, and carries out MacGregor's beheading at Balloch in front of the
Earl of Atholl. •
April 27 –
Pope Pius V excommunicates Queen
Elizabeth I of England, and all persons who show allegiance to her, with the bull
Regnans in Excelsis. •
May 20 –
Abraham Ortelius publishes the first modern
atlas,
Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, in
Antwerp. •
May 24 –
Battle of Manila: The Spanish, led by
Martín de Goiti, defeat the forces of
Rajah Sulayman. •
June 10 – The
Kingdom of Livonia is established.
July–September •
July 3 – The
Ottoman conquest of Cyprus begins as more than 350 Ottoman ships and over 60,000 troops land near
Larnaca and then march toward the Cypriot capital,
Nicosia. •
July 14 –
Pope Pius V issues
Quo primum, promulgating the 1570 edition of the
Roman Missal. •
July 22 •
Thomson Snell & Passmore is founded in England, the oldest law firm in operation. •
The siege of Nicosia by the Ottoman Empire begins in
Cyprus and lasts for seven weeks. •
August 8 – The
Peace of Saint-Germain ends the
Third War of Religion in France. Again, the Huguenots are promised religious freedom and political autonomy. •
August 16 – The
Treaty of Speyer is signed between
John Sigismund Zápolya,
Prince of Transylvania and
Maximilian II,
King of Hungary. •
September 9 –
Nicosia falls to the Turks under the command of General Lala Mustafa Pasha. After the Ottomans breach the walls, the Venetian defenders are massacred and the women and boys are sold into slavery. •
September 25 (26th day of 8th month of
Genki 1) – The 10-year-long
Ishiyama Hongan-ji War begins in Japan as
Oda Nobunaga stages simultaneous attacks on two fortresses (Ishiyama Hongan-ji and
Nagashima) of the
Ikkō-ikki faction near
Osaka.
October–December •
October 3 –
Princess Anna of Austria arrives in
Spain to become the Queen Consort of Spain as the bride of her uncle
King Philip of Spain, whom she had married by proxy on May 4. Having traveled through the Netherlands, she asks King Philip to spare the life of the rebel
Floris of Montmorency, but the King arranges the strangulation of Floris on October 14. •
November 17 –
A major earthquake strikes the Italian city of
Ferrara at 3:00 in the morning local time, destroying 40 percent of the buildings in the city, but causing only 171 deaths. After the initial shocks, a sequence of
aftershocks continue for four years, with over 2,000 in the period from November 1570 to February 1571. •
December 13 – The
Treaty of Stettin ends the
Northern Seven Years' War.
Date unknown • Spanish
conquistador Juan de Salcedo (in the service of
Miguel López de Legazpi) begins the conquest of the
Kingdom of Maynila. • Construction of the original
Catedral Nuestra Señora de La Asunción, the oldest church in
Venezuela, begins. • The
Whitechapel Bell Foundry is known to be in existence in London. By
2017, when it closes its premises in Whitechapel, it will be the oldest manufacturing company in Great Britain. •
Andrea Palladio publishes ''
I quattro libri dell'architettura'' in
Venice. •
Volcanic eruption in the
Santorini caldera begins. • The
Andean population of the
Viceroyalty of Peru reaches 1.3 million. == Births ==