The Portuguese reach Japan
The first Europeans reach Japan, and so do arquebuses
In 1543 a Chinese junk carrying Portuguese traders, the first Europeans in Japan, drifted to the island of Tanegashima. The local lord bought two arquebuses from them, his smiths copied them, and within a few decades thousands of Japanese guns were deciding the battles of the Sengoku era.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 16th century
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Whole world
- 1526–1867 Atlantic slave trade — 17 years earlier
Europe
- 1529 Siege of Vienna — 14 years earlier
- 1534 Henry VIII breaks with Rome — 9 years earlier
- 1543 Copernicus publishes heliocentrism — same year
- 1545–1563 Council of Trent — 2 years later
- 1555 Peace of Augsburg — 12 years later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1547 Ivan IV crowned Tsar — 4 years later
- 1555–1561 Saint Basil's Cathedral — 12 years later
- 1556 Russia annexes Astrakhan — 13 years later
- 1558–1583 Livonian War — 15 years later
Middle East
- 1520–1566 Reign of Suleiman the Magnificent — 23 years earlier
Africa
- 1529–1543 Ahmad Gragn invades Ethiopia — 14 years earlier
Americas
- 1519–1522 Magellan's circumnavigation — 24 years earlier
- 1521 Fall of Tenochtitlan — 22 years earlier
- 1532 Capture of Atahualpa at Cajamarca — 11 years earlier
- 1542 Orellana sails down the Amazon — 1 year earlier
- 1545–1548 Cocoliztli epidemic — 2 years later
Alive at the time
- Nicolaus Copernicus (aged 70)
- Michelangelo (aged 68)
- Martin Luther (aged 60)
- Ivan the Terrible (aged 13)
- Elizabeth I (aged 10)
- Akbar the Great (aged 1)
- Tokugawa Ieyasu (aged 0)
- Bartolomé de las Casas (aged 59)
- Hernán Cortés (aged 58)
- Francysk Skaryna (aged 53)