A samurai embassy reaches Spain
Japanese samurai cross two oceans to reach Rome
An embassy sent by the daimyo Date Masamune under Hasekura Tsunenaga crossed via Mexico to Spain in 1614 and met Pope Paul V in Rome in 1615. Some of the Japanese stayed in Coria del Río near Seville, where hundreds of people today bear the surname Japón.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 17th century
Did you know
In a small town near Seville, hundreds of people bear the surname Japón — "Japan". They are thought to descend from samurai of Hasekura's embassy who reached Spain in 1614 and never went home. Share →
In 1615 a Japanese samurai was made an honorary citizen of Rome. Hasekura Tsunenaga met the pope, but when he got home in 1620 Christianity had been banned in Japan. Share →
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1598–1613 Time of Troubles — 16 years earlier
- 1612 Minin and Pozharsky liberate Moscow — 2 years earlier
- 1613 Election of Michael Romanov as Tsar — 1 year earlier
Africa
- 1591 Battle of Tondibi and fall of Songhai — 23 years earlier
- 1624–1663 Nzinga becomes Queen of Ndongo — 10 years later
Asia
- 1592–1598 Imjin War — 22 years earlier
- 1600 Battle of Sekigahara — 14 years earlier
- 1632–1653 Building of the Taj Mahal — 18 years later
Americas
- 1600 Eruption of Huaynaputina — 14 years earlier
- c. 1605–1694 Quilombo of Palmares — 9 years earlier
- 1607 Founding of Jamestown — 7 years earlier
- 1609 Jesuit reductions among the Guaraní — 5 years earlier
Alive at the time
- Tokugawa Ieyasu (aged 71)
- Miguel de Cervantes (aged 67)
- William Shakespeare (aged 50)
- Galileo Galilei (aged 50)
- René Descartes (aged 18)
- Rembrandt (aged 8)
- James I (aged 48)
- Johannes Kepler (aged 43)
- Abbas the Great (aged 43)
- Nur Jahan (aged 37)