Decades: 1520s 1530s 1540s 1550s 1560s - 1570s - 1580s 1590s 1600s 1610s 1620s

Years: 1565 1566 1567 1568 1569 - 1570 - 1571 1572 1573 1574 1575

• January 23 - The assassination of regent James Stewart, Earl of Moray throws Scotland into civil war
• February 25 - Pope Pius V excommunicates Queen Elizabeth I of England.
• May 20 - Abraham Ortelius issues the first modern atlas.
• August 8 - The Peace of Saint-Germain ends the Third War of Religion in France. Again, the Huguenots are promised religious freedom and political autonomy.
• Académie française founded
• China, the Voyage in Occident, (Novel)

• April 13 - Guy Fawkes, English Gunpowder Plot conspirator
• September 12 - Henry Hudson, English navigator
• - Hans Lippershey, Dutch lensmaker (approximate date) († 1619)

• January 23 - James Stewart, Earl of Moray, regent of Scotland
• The Confucian scholar Yi Hwang (Toegye) of Joseon