1596
Kepler's Mysterium Cosmographicum
A young German mathematician named Johannes Kepler published his Mysterium Cosmographicum, arguing that the orbits of the six known planets corresponded to the five Platonic solids. The theory was wrong, but Kepler had committed himself publicly to Copernican astronomy. Better discoveries were ahead of him. The theory was wrong, but it committed Kepler publicly to Copernican astronomy and led to his appointment as Brahe's assistant in Prague.
Descartes Born in La Haye
On March 31, in the Touraine village that would later be renamed in his honor, a sickly boy named Rene Descartes was born into a minor noble family. He would grow up to sleep late, join the Thirty Years War, sit inside a Bavarian stove, and declare I think, therefore I am.
English Sack Cadiz
An English expedition under the Earl of Essex and Lord Howard of Effingham stormed the Spanish port of Cadiz in a dawn attack, burned ships and warehouses, and sailed off with plunder. The raid humiliated Philip II and showed that the Armada's failure had not been a fluke. Essex returned a popular hero.
Philip II's Third Bankruptcy
For the third time in his reign, Philip II's crown defaulted on its debts to Genoese and German bankers. Crown revenues had been pledged out for years in advance. Spain's golden century was showing the unmistakable cracks of overreach, and Philip himself was aging in the Escorial, tired and still devout.
Shakespeare's Son Hamnet Dies
William Shakespeare's eleven-year-old son Hamnet was buried in Stratford's Holy Trinity Church. The playwright was in London. Scholars have argued ever since about whether this grief echoes through Twelfth Night, Hamlet, and the late romances. Shakespeare never had another son. The plays he wrote afterward, including King John and Hamlet, have been searched for traces of paternal grief ever since.