1595
Dutch Reach the East Indies
A Dutch expedition of four ships under Cornelis de Houtman reached Bantam in Java after a miserable fifteen-month voyage that killed half the crew. They returned with a modest cargo of pepper and a roadmap to the Indies. Dutch merchants, scenting profit, began organizing the companies that would become the VOC.
Hideyoshi Executes His Nephew
Toyotomi Hideyoshi accused his adopted heir Hidetsugu of plotting rebellion and ordered him to commit seppuku on Mount Koya. He then had Hidetsugu's women and children, thirty-nine in all, beheaded in public beside a sandy pit in Kyoto. Hideyoshi had cleared the path for his toddler son Hideyori. The public execution of Hidetsugu's women and children revealed a cruelty that shocked even his most loyal retainers.
Willem Barentsz Reaches Novaya Zemlya
The Dutch navigator Willem Barentsz sailed into the Arctic in search of a Northeast Passage to China and reached the icy coast of Novaya Zemlya. On a later voyage his ship was crushed in the pack ice and his crew wintered over in a driftwood shelter, surviving on polar bear and charity.
Raleigh Searches for El Dorado
Walter Raleigh, exiled from court after secretly marrying one of Elizabeth's maids of honor, sailed up the Orinoco River in search of the legendary golden city of Manoa. He found nothing but fever, disappointment, and a notebook of impressive reports to present on his return. Elizabeth was unimpressed. His account, The Discovery of Guiana, mixed genuine observation with promotional fiction, keeping the myth alive for another generation.
Tasso Dies in Rome
The tormented Italian poet Torquato Tasso, author of the crusading epic Gerusalemme Liberata, died in a Roman monastery just before he was to receive the poet's laurel on the Capitoline Hill. His melancholy and his genius would haunt Italian poetry and, later, European Romanticism. His epic Gerusalemme Liberata became one of the most translated works of Italian literature and a touchstone for European Romanticism.