Early Modern
Tobacco Comes to Europe (1560s): Jean Nicot and Early Use
Tobacco became established in Europe first as a medicine and then as a popular habit, and grew into a major colonial cash crop.
Era · c. 1500 – 1800
Early Modern
Voyages of exploration, the Reformation and the age of revolutions that reshaped Europe and the wider world.
Early Modern
Lope de Aguirre and the Marañón Expedition (1560–1561)
The expedition collapsed into mutiny and murder; Aguirre's rebellion ended when he was killed by royal forces at Barquisimeto in October 1561.
Early Modern
Scottish Reformation (1560): John Knox and the Kirk
The Scottish Parliament rejected papal authority, banned the Mass and adopted a Reformed Confession of Faith, founding the Protestant Church of Scotland.
Early Modern
Battle of Djerba (1560): Piyale Pasha Routs a Spanish Fleet
Decisive Ottoman victory; roughly half the Christian fleet was lost, the Djerba garrison was captured, and Ottoman naval power in the Mediterranean reached its peak.
Early Modern
Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582): The First Great Unifier of Japan
Nobunaga ended the Ashikaga shogunate and brought much of central Japan under his control, laying the foundations on which Hideyoshi and Ieyasu completed unification.
Early Modern
French Wars of Religion (1562–1598): Catholics vs Huguenots
Henry IV converted to Catholicism, reunited France and granted the Huguenots limited toleration in the Edict of Nantes of 1598.
Early Modern
John Hawkins's Slave Voyages (1562-1568): England Joins the Trade
Hawkins made large profits on his first two voyages, but the third ended with the loss of most of his fleet at San Juan de Ulua in 1568, and organised English slave trading did not resume for decades.
Early Modern
Triangular Trade: How Europe, Africa and the Americas Were Linked
A system of Atlantic commerce forcibly transported millions of Africans to American plantations and helped enrich European ports and merchants.
Early Modern
Idris Alooma: Bornu's Warrior King and His Musketeers
Idris Alooma expanded and centralised the Bornu kingdom, defeated the Bulala in Kanem and made Bornu the dominant state of the central Sudan for the next century.
Early Modern
Urdaneta's Tornaviaje (1565): The Return Route across the Pacific
The San Pedro reached Acapulco after about 130 days at sea, establishing a reliable eastward route across the Pacific and enabling Spanish rule in the Philippines.
Early Modern
Sokollu Mehmed Pasha: Grand Vizier of Three Ottoman Sultans
He guided Ottoman policy for 14 years, keeping the empire stable through two successions, until his assassination in 1579.
Early Modern
Humayun's Tomb, Delhi: The First Great Mughal Garden Tomb
The tomb set the model for monumental Mughal garden tombs, culminating in the Taj Mahal, and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993.