Years: 1554 1555 1556 - 1557 - 1558 1559 1560

Decades: 1520s 1530s 1540s - 1550s - 1560s 1570s 1580s

Centuries: 15th century - 16th century - 17th century

Events

• Spain is effectively bankrupt.
• June - Mary I of England joins her husband Philip II of Spain in his war against France.
• August 10 - Battle of St. Quentin - French forces under Marshal Anne de Montmorency are decisively defeated by the Spanish under Duke Emanuel Philibert of Savoy. Montmorency himself is captured, but Philip II refuses to press his advantage, and withdraws to the Netherlands.
• Ozdemir Pasha conquers the Red Sea port of Massawa for the Ottoman Empire
• Emperor Ogimachi ascends to the throne of Japan

Births

• February 11 - John Uijtenbogaert Dutch remonstrant theologian.
• February 24 - Matthias, Holy Roman Emperor
• May 31 - tsar Feodor I of Russia
• Abbas I (Shah of Persia)
• Giovanni Croce, Italian composer of the Venetian school (approximate date)
• Giovanni Gabrieli, Italian composer of the Venetian school (approximate date)
• Jacques Maudit , French composer
• Thomas Morley, most famous English composer of madrigals

Deaths

• January 19 - Jacques Cartier, French explorer (b. 1491)
• June 11 - King John III of Portugal
• July 16 - Anne of Cleves, fourth queen of Henry VIII of England
• November 19 - Bona Sforza, queen of Poland and a second wife of Sigismund I of Poland
• Emperor Go-Nara of Japan
• Mikael Agricola, Finnish scholar