Time of Troubles
Famine, pretenders and invasion — until the Romanovs are chosen
After the Rurikid dynasty died out, Russia was engulfed by famine, pretenders, civil war and Polish and Swedish intervention. Minin and Pozharsky's militia freed Moscow in 1612, and in 1613 an assembly elected Michael Romanov tsar.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 16th century
Did you know
Some scientists think the 1600 eruption of Peru's Huaynaputina caused the cooling behind Russia's Great Famine of 1601–1603, which helped spark the Time of Troubles.
In 1610 Galileo discovered Jupiter's moons — while in Moscow the Seven Boyars ruled and a Polish garrison entered the city.
The last aurochs, the wild ancestor of cattle, died in a Polish forest in 1627 — 14 years after Michael Romanov was elected tsar.
While False Dmitry I ruled in Moscow (1605–1606), the first part of Don Quixote came out in Madrid.
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Europe
- 1582 Gregorian calendar — 16 years earlier
- 1588 Defeat of the Spanish Armada — 10 years earlier
- 1598 Edict of Nantes — same year
- 1600 East India Company founded — 2 years later
- 1618–1648 Thirty Years' War — 20 years later
Africa
- 1591 Battle of Tondibi and fall of Songhai — 7 years earlier
Asia
- 1592–1598 Imjin War — 6 years earlier
- 1600 Battle of Sekigahara — 2 years later
Americas
- 1600 Eruption of Huaynaputina — 2 years later
- c. 1605–1694 Quilombo of Palmares — 7 years later
- 1607 Founding of Jamestown — 9 years later
- 1609 Jesuit reductions among the Guaraní — 11 years later
Alive at the time
- Elizabeth I (aged 65)
- Akbar the Great (aged 56)
- Tokugawa Ieyasu (aged 55)
- Miguel de Cervantes (aged 51)
- William Shakespeare (aged 34)
- Galileo Galilei (aged 34)
- René Descartes (aged 2)
- Philip II of Spain (aged 71)
- Toyotomi Hideyoshi (aged 61)
- Yi Sun-sin (aged 53)