Shaanxi earthquake
Loess cave homes collapse in history's deadliest disaster
On 23 January 1556 an earthquake in the Wei River valley killed an estimated 830,000 people, the deadliest on record. Many lived in yaodong cave dwellings cut into loess cliffs, which collapsed. The same year, Ivan the Terrible annexed Astrakhan.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 16th century
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Europe
- 1534 Henry VIII breaks with Rome — 22 years earlier
- 1543 Copernicus publishes heliocentrism — 13 years earlier
- 1571 Battle of Lepanto — 15 years later
- 1572 St Bartholomew's Day Massacre — 16 years later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1547 Ivan IV crowned Tsar — 9 years earlier
- 1555–1561 Saint Basil's Cathedral — 1 year earlier
- 1569 Union of Lublin — 13 years later
Americas
- 1532 Capture of Atahualpa at Cajamarca — 24 years earlier
- 1542 Orellana sails down the Amazon — 14 years earlier
- 1545–1548 Cocoliztli epidemic — 11 years earlier
Alive at the time
- Michelangelo (aged 81)
- Ivan the Terrible (aged 26)
- Elizabeth I (aged 23)
- Akbar the Great (aged 14)
- Tokugawa Ieyasu (aged 13)
- Miguel de Cervantes (aged 9)
- Bartolomé de las Casas (aged 72)
- Suleiman the Magnificent (aged 62)
- Charles V (aged 56)
- Hurrem Sultan (Roxelana) (aged 51)