Years: 1580 1581 1582 - 1583 - 1584 1585 1586

Decades: 1550s 1560s 1570s - 1580s - 1590s 1600s 1610s

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

Events

• August 5 - Sir Humphrey Gilbert establishes first English colony in North America, at what is now St John's, Newfoundland.
• Toyotomi Hideyoshi commences construction of Osaka Castle in Japan.
• King James VI of Scotland signs a charter creating the Tounis College - what is now the University of Edinburgh. For some unknown reason, the charter was dated a year earlier, as 1582.
• First documented battle of India's independence against an European colonial ruler was fought by the Desais of Cuncolim in Goa against the Portuguese.

Births

• April 10 - Hugo Grotius
• September - Girolamo Frescobaldi, Italian keyboard composer († 1643)
• Nzinga, warrior queen of Ndongo and Matamba , in what is now Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
• Orlando Gibbons, English composer and organist († 1625)
• John Pym, Parliamentary leader during the English Civil War

Deaths

• February 18 - Antonio Francesco Grazzini, Italian author
• July 6 - Edmund Grindal, Archbishop of Canterbury
• 31 December - Thomas Erastus, theologian
• Catherine Jagellonica of Poland, queen of John II of Sweden (b. 1526)