Early Modern
Battle of Nagashino (1575): Guns Against the Takeda Cavalry
Decisive Oda-Tokugawa victory; the Takeda lost many senior commanders and never recovered their former power.
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
Martin Frobisher's Arctic Voyages (1576-1578) and Fool's Gold
Frobisher failed to find a Northwest Passage or gold; the ore he brought home proved worthless, the Company of Cathay collapsed, and several Inuit taken to England died there.
Early Modern
Spanish Fury (1576): Mutinous Spanish Troops Sack Antwerp
Antwerp was looted and several thousand inhabitants were killed; four days later the provinces signed the Pacification of Ghent against the Spanish troops.
Early Modern
Battle of Haldighati (1576): Maharana Pratap Against Akbar
Mughal tactical victory; Maharana Pratap escaped and continued resisting Mughal rule for the rest of his life.
Early Modern
Azuchi Castle (1576): Oda Nobunaga's Lost Fortress Palace
Azuchi Castle became the model for the great Japanese castle towers, but its main buildings burned in June 1582, days after Nobunaga's death.
Early Modern
Founding of Luanda (1576): Portugal's Slave Port in Angola
Portugal gained a permanent base in West Central Africa, which became the capital of colonial Angola and a leading port of the Atlantic slave trade.
Early Modern
Tycho Brahe and Uraniborg (1576): Astronomy Before the Telescope
Tycho's observations at Uraniborg were the most accurate before the telescope and allowed Kepler to discover the laws of planetary motion.
Early Modern
Francis Drake's Circumnavigation (1577-1580) in the Golden Hind
Drake completed the second circumnavigation of the world and the first by a captain who survived the whole voyage, returning with enormous Spanish treasure and receiving a knighthood.
Early Modern
Yermak's Conquest of Siberia (1582): The Fall of Qashliq
Yermak's Cossacks captured Qashliq in October 1582 and broke the power of the Khanate of Sibir; although Yermak was killed in 1584, Russia went on to conquer all of Siberia.
Early Modern
Tensho Embassy (1582): Japanese Envoys Visit the Pope in Rome
The first official Japanese embassy to Europe was received by Philip II, Gregory XIII and Sixtus V, and returned to Japan with a European printing press.
Early Modern
Honno-ji Incident (1582): The Betrayal and Death of Oda Nobunaga
Nobunaga and his heir Nobutada died; Akechi Mitsuhide was defeated by Hideyoshi at Yamazaki eleven days later, opening the way for Hideyoshi's rise.
Early Modern
Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1582-1598): The Peasant Who Unified Japan
Hideyoshi brought all of Japan under one authority by 1590 and laid the social and fiscal foundations of early modern Japan, but his invasions of Korea failed and his dynasty did not survive him.