History
1600
General
Population: 540 Million*
- Architecture: End of Renaissance architecture and start of Baroque period
- Climate: Little Ice Age begins to 1850 - worst to 1720
- Entertainment: Writers include Shakespeare Hamlet and The Merry Wives of Windsor, Thomas Dekker The Shoemaker's Holiday,
Thomas Nashe (satire),
Art includes Caravaggio "Doubting Thomas",
Music includes Giulio Caccini and Jacopo Peri "Eurydice" operas, Sethys Calvisius (history of music), Emilio de Cavalieri (opera), harps used in orchestras,
Thomas Morley (music book), Recorder flute popular in England
- Fashion: Wigs and dress trains become fashionable
- Science: Giordano Bruno burned as heretic in Rome by Spanish Inquisition for saying the Earth moves around the sun
Tycho Brahe and Johann Kepler work together in Prague
William Gilbert writes treatise on magnetism and electricity
- Technology: Athanasius Kircher invents magic lantern
Caspar Lehmann the jewel cutter to Emperor Rudolf II begins cut-glass process
Dutch opticians invent the telescope
- Deaths: Violin maker Andrea Amati, Scientist Giordano Bruno (in Inquisition)
Africa
- General: Portuguese, french and Dutch establish African colonies
Kalonga kingdom north of Zambezi river becomes rich through ivory trade
Hausaland dominates trade routes through Sahara
- South: Great Zimbabwe replaced by split kingdom capitals of Transvaal, Botswana and Zimbabwe
- West: Oyo empire begins to flourish
Americas
- General: Kircher fails at attempting to decipher Mayan
- Peru: Huaynaputina volcano erupts
- South America: Malaria outbreaks
Asia
- General: English, Dutch, Danish and French East India Companies started to be founded
Asian landowners begin tenant farming to 20th century
- China: First Englishman shipwrecked in China
- Japan: End unificaion under Ashikaga shoguns
Battle of Sekigahara Japan – Tokugawa Ieyasu defeats rivals (including Portugal)and the Tokugawa (Edo) period begins
English navigator William Adams becomes Tokugawa's advisor on shipbuilding
- Tibet: Alignment with China begins
Europe
- General: English and Dutch form East India Companies
Maurice of Nassau defeats Archduke Albert's army at Nieuport
Virtual end of Hanseatic League of guilds
- England: Fortune theater in London opened
English East India Company founded with starting capital of 70,000 pounds
Jarmans of Colnbrook ENG kill wealthy customers in inn
- France: Henry IV marries Maria de Medici
- Holland: Amsterdam Bank founded
- Ireland: Earl of Essex is tried for misdemeanors in Ireland and loses offices at court
- Italian States: Scottish College founded in Rome
Building of Royal Palace in Naples started
Artist Reubens goes to Italy
- Russia: Famine and plague kill about 500,000
- Spain: Spain sends army to support Irish Earl of Tyrone's rebellion
- Sweden: Persecution of Catholics under Charles IX
Middle East
- Persia: Abbas I introduces reforms into Persia
Pacific
- Easter Island: Beginning of building of "tupa" or stone towers on Easter Island
- Tonga: Leadership passes from Tu'i Tonga dynasty to Tu'i Kanokupolu dynasty