1588
Spanish Armada Sails
A fleet of one hundred and thirty ships under the reluctant Duke of Medina Sidonia entered the English Channel in a crescent formation, meaning to rendezvous with Parma's army in Flanders and ferry it to England. English guns, fireships, and a Protestant wind would ensure the rendezvous never took place.
Hideyoshi's Sword Hunt
Toyotomi Hideyoshi decreed that all peasants must surrender their swords, spears, and firearms. The weapons were supposedly melted down for the nails and clamps of a new giant Buddha statue. Japan's social classes hardened into warrior, peasant, craftsman, and merchant, a stratification that would outlast Hideyoshi by centuries. The systematic disarmament created the rigid social stratification of the Tokugawa period that persisted for over two hundred and fifty years.
Battle of Gravelines
Off the Flemish sandbanks of Gravelines, English ships scattered the Armada with long-range gunnery and forced it north into the gales of the North Sea. Medina Sidonia lost perhaps half his fleet on the return voyage around Scotland and Ireland. Spanish invincibility died in Hebridean surf. The victory shattered Spanish invincibility and announced England's emergence as a major naval power for the next four centuries.
Rome's Obelisk Raised
Pope Sixtus V's architect Domenico Fontana, using eight hundred men, one hundred forty horses, and an elaborate system of capstans, erected an ancient Egyptian obelisk in the middle of Saint Peter's Square. A crowd of forty thousand watched in absolute silence as the stone slid into position, and the pope crowned it with a bronze cross.