Years: 1561 1562 1563 - 1564 - 1565 1566 1567

Decades: 1530s 1540s 1550s - 1560s - 1570s 1580s 1590s

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

Events

• March 8 - Naples bans kissing in public under the penalty of death
• June 22 - Fort Caroline, the first French attempt at colonizing the New World
• September 10 - The Battle of Kawanakajima
• Ottoman Turks invade Malta
• Modern pencil becomes common in England
• Spanish found a colony in the Philippines

Births

• February 6 - Christopher Marlowe, English poet and dramatist
• February 15 - Galileo Galilei, Tuscan astronomer, father of the scientific method, born in Pisa (d. 1642)
• March 9 - David Fabricius, Frisian astronomer.
• April 23 - William Shakespeare, born in Stratford-upon-Avon, later famous poet and dramatist
• September 24 - William Adams, English navigator and Japanese samurai
• Kryštof Harant z Polžic a Bezdružic, Bohemian composer, nobleman and leader of Protestant rebellion, beheaded 1621

Deaths

• February 18 - Michelangelo Buonarroti
• May 27 - John Calvin
• July 27 - Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor
• October 5 - Pierre de Manchicourt, composer