1562
Massacre of Vassy
The Duke of Guise's armed retinue, passing through the Champagne town of Vassy, slaughtered dozens of Huguenots worshiping illegally in a barn. News spread across France within days. The French Wars of Religion had begun, and would not truly end until the Edict of Nantes in 1598. The death toll of thirty to seventy crossed the threshold from political intimidation to religious violence that defined France for thirty-six years.
John Hawkins's First Slave Voyage
The Plymouth captain John Hawkins, backed by London merchants, sailed to Sierra Leone, seized three hundred Africans, and sold them in Hispaniola. It was the first English transatlantic slaving voyage, conducted in defiance of Spanish monopolies. A grim new line of commerce had opened for Elizabethan England. The commercial success demonstrated the slave trade's profitability and encouraged further English involvement in the traffic.
Akbar Marries a Rajput Princess
Akbar married the Hindu princess Hira Kunwari of Amber, cementing the Mughal alliance with the most powerful Rajput clan. Rajput nobles began serving in Mughal armies and courts. The marriage inaugurated a policy of religious tolerance that would distinguish Akbar's reign from every other Muslim monarchy of the era. The marriage established Mughal-Rajput alliance, integrating Hindu warriors into the highest levels of Muslim imperial governance.
Hawkins Begins Triangular Trade
John Hawkins fitted out his first slaving voyage at Plymouth, underwritten by Elizabeth I and by prominent London aldermen. The pattern of English ships carrying trade goods to Africa, enslaved Africans to the Caribbean, and tropical goods back to England, took its grim first shape. Elizabeth I's personal investment, including the loan of a royal warship, implicated the English crown in the slave trade from its earliest beginnings.