1565
Talikota and the End of Vijayanagara
A coalition of Deccan sultanates routed the Hindu empire of Vijayanagara at Talikota in a single bloody afternoon. The capital city of Hampi, one of the richest in Asia, was sacked and burned for six months. Hindu temple culture in southern India never recovered its medieval grandeur. Hampi's ruins lay forgotten until nineteenth-century archaeologists rediscovered them beneath the jungle.
Great Siege of Malta Begins
An Ottoman armada of nearly two hundred ships landed thirty thousand troops on Malta. For four months the Knights Hospitaller under Jean Parisot de Valette defended a tiny peninsula of baking stone against almost daily assaults. Malta held. Europe, for once, stopped squabbling long enough to notice. The defense by fewer than six hundred Knights became one of Europe's most celebrated military actions, establishing Malta as Christendom's frontier fortress.
Urdaneta Finds the Return Route
The Augustinian navigator Andres de Urdaneta sailed north from the Philippines into the high latitudes, found the westerlies, and rode them back to Acapulco. The tornaviaje he mapped would power the Manila Galleon trade for two hundred and fifty years, linking Chinese silk directly to Mexican silver. The route, arcing north to catch the westerlies before turning south along the California coast, was followed virtually unchanged for over two centuries.
Saint Augustine Founded
Pedro Menendez de Aviles landed on the Florida coast and founded Saint Augustine, hoping to flush French Huguenots from Fort Caroline. He slaughtered the surrendered French garrison weeks later at Matanzas Inlet. Saint Augustine, oldest continuously inhabited European town in the continental United States, was born in massacre. The settlement's survival through centuries of hurricanes and attacks makes it the oldest continuously occupied European settlement in the continental United States.
Benin Bronze Plaques Continue
In the kingdom of Benin, in what is now Nigeria, guild craftsmen continued producing elaborate brass and ivory plaques depicting the royal court, warriors, and Portuguese traders. The bronzes adorned the palace of the oba and would, centuries later, become some of the most contested artifacts in European museums. The bronzes' sophistication challenged European assumptions about African civilization when first studied by Western scholars in the late nineteenth century.
Sigismund Augustus Supports Reformation
The Polish king Sigismund Augustus, tolerant and pragmatic, permitted Protestant worship throughout his realm. Lutheran, Calvinist, and radical communities flourished alongside Catholics and Orthodox Christians. For a few decades Poland-Lithuania was the most religiously tolerant state in Europe, a reputation it would gradually lose after his death. The Warsaw Confederation of 1573 was one of sixteenth-century Europe's most remarkable documents of religious tolerance.