Decades: 1510s 1520s 1530s 1540s 1550s - 1560s - 1570s 1580s 1590s 1600s 1610s

Years: 1556 1557 1558 1559 1560 - 1561 - 1562 1563 1564 1565 1566

• The Edict of Orleans suspends the persecution of the Huguenots
• Mary, Queen of Scots is denied passage through England after returning from France. She arrives at Leigh, Scotland on August 19.
• The first Calvinistss settle in England after fleeing Flanders
• Madrid is declared the capital of Spain by Philip II
• St. Paul's Cathedral in London is badly damaged by fire

• January 21 - Sir Francis Bacon, English philosopher, scientist and statesman (+ 1626)
• July 11 - Luís de Góngora y Argote, Spanish baroque poet. (died in 1627).
• August 20 - Jacopo Peri, Italian composer (died in 1633).

• September 25 - Suleiman the Magnificent has his son Bayezid executed.
• Alonso Berruguete, Spanish painter, sculptor and student of Michelangelo (born in 1480)

• The Book of the Courtier (Il Cortegiano) is translated into English by Sir Thomas Hoby
• Poetics by Julius Caesar Scaliger
• Institution of the Christian Religion is translated into English by Thomas Norton
• Basilica of St. Basil in Moscow is finished (started in 1534)
• Michelangelo Buonarroti finishes St. Maria degli Angeli in Rome
• Gabriele Fallopius publishes Observationes anatomicae (anatomical observations)
• Ruy López develops modern techniques of chess playing in Spain\n