Years: 1555 1556 1557 - 1558 - 1559 1560 1561

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

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

Events

• January 7 - French troops led by Francis, Duke of Guise take Calais, the last continental possession of England
• July 13 - Battle of Gravelines: In France, Spanish forces led by Count Lamoral of Egmont defeat the French forces of Marshal Paul des Thermes at Gravelines.
• April 24 - Mary I of Scotland marries Francis II of France
• November 17 - Elizabethan era begins: Queen Mary I of England dies and is succeeded by her half-sister Elizabeth.
• Tobacco comes to France

Births

• October 12 - Archduke Maximilian III of Austria (d. 1618)
• Giovanni Bassano, Italian composer and cornettist
• Hendrik Goltzius, Dutch painter (d. 1617)
• Robert Greene, English writer (d. 1592)
• Thomas Kyd, English playwright (d. 1594)
• Chidiock Tichborne, English conspirator and poet (d. 1586)

Deaths

• April 18 - Aleksandra Lisowska, wife of Suleiman the Magnificent
• September 21 - Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1500)
• October 21 - Julius Caesar Scaliger, humanist scholar (b. 1484)
• November 17 - Queen Mary I of England (b. 1516)
• Reginald Cardinal Pole, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 1500)