• After decades of careful observtions of the heavens and years of dithering Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus finally publishes De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium ("On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres], proposing a heliocentric theory of the Solar System.
• Andreas Vesalius publishes his groundbreaking book on human anatomy De Humanis Corporis Fabrica ("On the Fabric of the Human Body").
• The first guns arrive in Japan when a portuguese ship carrying matchlocks wrecks on Tanegashima.
• King Henry VIII of England marries his sixth and final wife Catherine Parr.

These people were born in 1543:

• Tokugawa Ieyasu, uniter of Japan and founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate.
• Sonam Gyatso, acclaimed the first Dalai Lama ("Ocean of Wisdom") by Mongol ruler Altan Khan.

These people died in 1543:

• Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, of a stroke, according to legend just after having the first copy of De Revolutionibus placed in his hands so he could see that his magnum opus had been published.
• Noted Italian painter Polidoro Caldara da Caravaggio, who is different from the more famous Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio.

1543 - 1543 - 1544

16th century

This is a collaboratively edited writeup. You are encouraged to assimilate and supersede it.