History
1601
General
Population: 541 Million*
- Entertainment: Bento Teixeira Pinto (Brazilian epic), Shakespeare Troilus and Cressida and Hamlet performed, Pierre Charron (Stoic philosophy),
John Wheeler (treatise on commerce)
Art includes Caravaggio "Conversion of St. Paul"
Music includes Caccini (new vocal style), Carlo Gesualdo (madrigals), Thomas Morley "Truimphs of Oriana"
- Exploration: Dutch navigator Olivier van Noort returns fron circumnavigation
- Deaths: Earl of Essex Robert Devereux - executed for treason against Robert Cecil and Queen Elizabeth, Poet Thomas Nashe,
Christian II of Saxony, Tycho Brahe (reportedly burst bladder),
Asia
- General: John Lancaster leads first East India Company voyage from Torbay to Sumatra
- China: Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci admitted to Peking
- India: Famine and plague
Europe
- General: Michael Prince of Moldavia assassinatrd by Hungarians
Postal agreement between France and Germany
- England: Elizabeth I delivers "Golden Speech" to Parliament detailing her achievements
Abolition of monopolies
Poor Law relief for property owners
Queen Elizabeth starts promoting King James of Scotland as England
Elizabethan Poor Law charges parishes with providing for needy
- France: Govelin family of dyers lend their factory in Paris to King Henry IV who sets up 200 workmen to make tapestries
- German States: German "Badestuben" (brothels) closed by authorities due to venereal disease
- Holy Roman Empire: Archduke Albert of Austria besieges Ostend
Kepler becomes astronomer and astrologer to Emperor Rudolf II
- Ireland: Irish rebellion under Hugh O'Neill put down
- Italian States: University of Parma founded
- Russia: "False Dmitri" claiming to be son of Czar Ivan IV appears in Poland to win support for invasion of Russia
Middle East
- General: Akbar annexes Khandest
West and Pacific
- California: Freak cold wave