1588

• The massive Spanish Armada, consisting of more than 130 ships and 30,000 men, sails from Spain in an attempt to meet up with Spanish forces in Holland for an invasion of England, but is defeated by a smaller but much more nimble English fleet under the command of Lord Howard of Effingham and Sir Francis Drake in four separate engagements. Unable to link up with the invading troops in Holland, the fleet attempts to sail home to Spain by heading north around Scotland, where most of the remaining ships are destroyed by stoms. The English victory marks the transition from Spanish to English dominance of the seas, which England would retain for nearly four centuries.
• The "War of the Three Henrys" continues in France. When Henry de Guise, leader of the powerful Catholic League, arrives in Paris, Parisians revolt and expel King Henry III from the capital in the so-called "Day of the Barricades." De Guise errs, however, in allowing Henry III to keep his life in exchange for political concessions to the League, and is cruelly rewarded for his clemency when the king has him and his brother Louis assassinated. Meanwhile, the revolt leads to rapproachment between King Henry and Henry of Navarre, paving the way for Navarre's asension to the French throne the following year as King Henry IV
• In the "Great Sword Hunt," Japanese hegemon Toyotomi Hideyoshi bans peasants from possessing weapons, thus preventing anyone from repeating his own route to power. Weapons owned by peasants are rounded up by local lords and forwarded to Kyoto, where they are melted down to make a gigantic statue of the Buddha.
• The Marprelate Controversy as Puritan pamphlets satirizing the Church of England begin publication at a secret printing press under the pseudonym Martin Marprelate. The pamphlets provoke a storm of supporting "Martinist" and opposing "Anti-Martinist" literature, as well as efforts by the Church to find and stamp out the press. The true authors are never discovered, but are believed to have included John Udall and John Penry.
• Timothy Bright publishes a book of symbols for 500-odd words that forms the basis of modern English shorthand.
• Christopher Marlowe writes his most famous play, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus.
• William Morgan publishes the first complete translation of the Bible into Welsh.
• English author Robert Greene publishes the short romance Pandosto, from which Shakespeare would draw the plot for A Winter's Tale.
• The Kokubunji temple is founded in what is now a well-known Tokyo suburb of that name.

These people were born in 1588:

• English political philosopher Thomas Hobbes.
• King of Denmark and Norway Christian IV.
• French courtier Catherine de Vivonne, marquise de Rambouillet, whose salon exercised a profound influence on French literature.
• French humanist and philologist Claudius Salmasius.
• French nobleman Henri II de Bourbon, prince de Condé, son of Henri I.
• English colonist John Winthrop, longtime governor of the Massachusetts Bay colony.
• Uncas, chief of the Mohegan tribe of Native Americans.
• Dutch painter Hendrick Terbrugghen.
• Chinese physician Li Zhongzi.
• French religious poet Robert Arnauld d'Andilly.
• French statesman Pierre, duc de Villemor Séguier.
• Dutch physicist Isaac Beeckman.
• English poet George Wither.

These people died in 1588:

• Leaders of the Catholic league Henri I de Lorraine, 3rd duc de Guise and his brother Louis de Lorraine, Cardinal de Guise, assassinated at Blois on the orders of King Henry III.
• Tibetan mystic Sonam Gyatso, acclaimed by Mongol ruler Altan Khan as the first Dalai Lama.
• Sinan, chief architect in the Ottoman court for 50 years, who constructed or designed most of Suleiman the Magnificent's great mosques and palaces.
• Veronese painter Paolo Veronese.
• French nobleman Henri I de Bourbon, Prince de Condé.
• Chinese general Qi Jiguang, best known for his battles against Japanese pirates.
• English courtier and favorite of Queen Elizabeth Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester.
• French sculptor Jacques Sarrazin.
• Famed Elizabethan court jester Richard Tarlton, believed to have been the inspiration for Yorick in Shakespeare's Hamlet.

1587 - 1588 - 1589

16th century