• Rebellion against Spanish rule continues in the Netherlands. Italian-born Spanish general Alessandro Farnese overruns Flanders, capturing Ghent and Ypres and laying siege to Antwerp.
• Japanese warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi clashes with his main rival for control of Japan, Tokugawa Ieyasu, at the indecisive battles of Komaki and Nagakute.
• Sir Walter Raleigh sends Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe to explore the cost of North America. Their glowing account of Roanoke Island (in what is now North Carolina) leads to the establishment of a colony there the following year under Sir Richard Grenville
• Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno writes two dialogues arguing against the idea of the planetary spheres.
• The Accademia di Santa Cecilia, the world's oldest academy of music, is founded in Rome.
• German satirist Nikodemus Frischlin writes Julius Redivivus, a comedy in the style of Aristophanes in which Olympian gods come to Germany to discuss contemporary figures.
• English playwright John Lyly writes Campaspe and Sappho and Phao.
• Cambridge University's Emmanuel College is founded.

These people were born in 1584:

• Legendary Japanese samurai warrior Miyamoto Musashi.
• Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange, the son of William the Silent and future ruler of the Netherlands.
• Matthias, Graf von Gallas, imperial general in the Thirty Years War.
• Pilgrim leader Miles Standish (approximate).
• British explorer William Baffin (approximate).
• English jurist John Selden.
• Dutch orientalist Thomas Erpenius.

These people died in 1584:

• Russian Czar Ivan the Terrible (Ivan IV), succeeded by his son Feodor I.
• William the Silent, Prince of Orange, assassinated by a French Catholic fanatic.
• Francis, Duke of Alençon, brother and heir to French king Henry III. His death precipitates a succession dispute that leads to the so-called "War of the Three Henrys."
• Scottish lord William Ruthven, Fourth Lord of Ruthven and First Earl of Gowrie, author of the Ruthven Raid, beheaded for high treason.

1583 - 1584 - 1585

16th century