1560
Okehazama: Nobunaga's Breakthrough
At the narrow gorge of Okehazama, the young Oda Nobunaga launched a sudden storm-cover attack on an army ten times his size under Imagawa Yoshimoto. Yoshimoto was decapitated in his traveling headquarters within minutes. Japan's political landscape tilted sharply, and Nobunaga's name spread through the provinces. The attack, launched during a thunderstorm against a feasting enemy, demonstrated Nobunaga's willingness to gamble everything on audacious strokes.
Francis II Dies, Catherine Becomes Regent
The sickly young Francis II of France died of an ear infection, leaving his widow, Mary Queen of Scots, a childless dowager queen and his mother, Catherine de Medici, regent for her ten-year-old brother Charles IX. Catherine would steer France through decades of civil war with relentless cunning. Catherine's emergence as France's dominant political figure made her perhaps sixteenth-century Europe's most powerful woman.
Geneva Bible Published
English Calvinist exiles in Geneva produced an English translation of the Bible with marginal commentary, a concordance, and a handy pocket size. It became the preferred Bible of Puritans and, later, of the Mayflower passengers. Shakespeare quoted it constantly, sometimes without realizing he was doing so. Its roman type, verse numbering, and marginal notes made it the most popular English Bible for a century, until the King James Version.
Treaty of Edinburgh
French and English commissioners signed a treaty at Edinburgh providing for the withdrawal of French troops from Scotland and the end of the auld alliance. Mary of Guise was already dead. The Scots parliament lost no time in passing acts abolishing papal authority and the Latin Mass. The treaty ended French influence in Scotland and cleared the way for the Reformation that transformed the country within a generation.
Scottish Reformation Parliament
The Scottish Parliament, meeting in Edinburgh, passed legislation abolishing papal jurisdiction, banning the Mass, and adopting a Calvinist Confession of Faith. The reformed Church of Scotland, or Kirk, was established as the national church. The legislation was never formally ratified by the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots. The legislation created a kirk session system of local discipline shaping Scottish social life and education for centuries.
Sengoku Warfare Intensifies
Across central Japan, rival daimyo concentrated their bases in massive hilltop castles and began hiring commoners as ashigaru foot soldiers armed with spears and matchlocks. Warfare shifted from small samurai duels to disciplined mass engagements. The Japanese military revolution was reshaping the archipelago independently of Europe. The shift to massed infantry mirrored European military revolutions, though the Japanese development was entirely independent.