1596

This article is about the year 1596. For the number, see 1596 (number).

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	15th century – 16th century – 17th century
Decades:	1560s  1570s  1580s  – 1590s –  1600s  1610s  1620s
Years:	1593 1594 1595 – 1596 – 1597 1598 1599

1596 in other calendars

Gregorian calendar	1596 MDXCVI
Ab urbe condita	2349
Armenian calendar	1045 ԹՎ ՌԽԵ
Assyrian calendar	6346
Bengali calendar	1003
Berber calendar	2546
English Regnal year	38 Eliz. 1 – 39 Eliz. 1
Buddhist calendar	2140
Burmese calendar	958
Byzantine calendar	7104–7105
Chinese calendar	乙未年 (Wood Goat) 4292 or 4232     — to — 丙申年 (Fire Monkey) 4293 or 4233
Coptic calendar	1312–1313
Discordian calendar	2762
Ethiopian calendar	1588–1589
Hebrew calendar	5356–5357
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	1652–1653
- Shaka Samvat	1518–1519
- Kali Yuga	4697–4698
Holocene calendar	11596
Igbo calendar	596–597
Iranian calendar	974–975
Islamic calendar	1004–1005
Japanese calendar	Bunroku 5 / Keichō 1 (慶長元年)
Julian calendar	Gregorian minus 10 days
Korean calendar	3929
Minguo calendar	316 before ROC 民前316年
Thai solar calendar	2138–2139

1596 (MDXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday (dominical letter GF) of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Thursday (dominical letter DC) of the Julian calendar, the 1596th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 596th year of the 2nd millennium, the 96th year of the 16th century, and the 7th year of the 1590s decade. Note that the Julian day for 1596 is 10 calendar days difference, which continued to be used from 1582 until the complete conversion of the Gregorian calendar was entirely done in 1929.

Events

January–June

• February 14 – Archbishop John Whitgift begins building his hospital at Croydon.
• April 9 – Siege of Calais : Spanish troops capture Calais.
• May 18 – Willem Barents leaves Vlie on his third and final Arctic voyage.
• June – Sir John Norreys and Sir Geoffrey Fenton travel to Connaught to parley with the local Irish lords.
• June 10 – Barents and Jacob van Heemskerk discover Bear Island.
• June 17 – Barents discovers Spitsbergen.
• June 24 – Cornelis de Houtman arrives in Banten, the first Dutch sailor to reach Indonesia.

July–December

• July 5 – An English fleet, commanded by Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, and Lord Howard of Effingham, sacks Cádiz.
• July 14 – King Dominicus Corea (Edirille Bandara) is beheaded by the Portuguese in Colombo, Ceylon.
• August - David Fabricius discovers the star Mira.
• September 17 – The Spanish capture Amiens.
• September 20 – Diego de Montemayor founds the city of Monterrey, Mexico.
• October 8–October 10 – The Union of Brest: The Ukrainian Church west of the Dnipro becomes known as the Ukrainian rite of Catholicism, whereas the East officially renounces the authority of the Pope.
• October 18 the "Second Armada", a Spanish fleet sent to attack England in revenge to the raid on Cadiz, is wrecked in storms between Corcubion and Cape Finisterre. 2,000 men are lost.
• October 24–October 26 – Battle of Keresztes: The Turks defeat a combined Habsburg–Transylvanian army.

Date unknown

• Elizabeth I of England decrees that all Africans should be removed from the British realm in reaction to the food crisis.
• The first water closet, by Sir John Harington, is installed in a manor near Kelston in England.
• King Sigismund III Vasa moves the capital of Poland from Kraków to Warsaw.
• Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, is founded.
• The Black Death hits parts of Europe.
• Dutch ships, commanded by Frederick de Houtman, reach Sumatra and Java for the first time.
• The 4th of a 5 year run of poor harvests, largely caused by the weather, a pattern typical of the last third of the century. This causes famine throughout Europe, which leads to food riots in Britain.

• Serb Uprising of 1596–97

Births

• January 13 – Jan van Goyen, Dutch painter (d. 1656)
• February 2 – Jacob van Campen, Dutch artist and architect (d. 1657)
• March 31 – René Descartes, French philosopher and Mathematician (d. 1650)
• May 9 – Abraham van Diepenbeeck, painter (d. 1675)
• June 23 – Johan Banér, Swedish soldier (d. 1641)
• June 29 – Emperor Go-Mizunoo of Japan (d. 1680)
• July 12 – Michael I of Russia (d. 1645)
• August 16 – Frederick V, Elector Palatine (d. 1632)
• August 18 – Jean Bolland, Belgian Jesuit, Founder of the Bollandist (d. 1665)
• August 19 – Elizabeth Stuart, later Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia (d. 1662)
• September
  • James Shirley, English dramatist (d. 1666)
  • Moses Amyraut, French Protestant theologian (d. 1664)
• September 4 – Constantijn Huygens, Dutch poet (d. 1687)
• October 18 – Edward Winslow, American Pilgrim leader (d. 1655)
• November 1 – Pietro da Cortona, Italian painter (d. 1669)
• December 3 – Nicolò Amati, Italian violin maker (d. 1684)
• December 21
  • Peter Mogila, Orthodox Metropolitan of Kiev and Galicia (d. 1646)
  • Thomas Francis, Prince of Carignano (d. 1656)
• date unknown
  • John Dury, English minister (d. 1680)
  • Bevil Grenville, English royalist soldier (d. 1643)
  • Franz von Hatzfeld, Prince-Bishop of Würzburg (d. 1642)
  • Lucas Holstenius, German humanist (d. 1661)
  • Georg Jenatsch, Swiss political leader (d. 1639)
  • Richard Mather, American clergyman (d. 1669)
  • Horio Tadaharu, Japanese warlord (d. 1633)

Deaths

• January 27 – Sir Francis Drake, English explorer, English sea captain, privateer, navigator, slaver, pirate and politician (b. 1540)
• February 17 – Friedrich Sylburg, German classical scholar (b. 1536)
• March 23 – Henry Unton, English diplomat (b. 1557)
• May 6 – Giaches de Wert, Flemish composer (b. 1535)
• July 23 – Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon (b. 1526)
• August 11 – Hamnet Shakespeare (b. 1585), son of William Shakespeare
• September 15 – Leonhard Rauwolf, German physician and botanist (b. 1535)
• October 3 – Florent Chrestien, French writer (b. 1541)
• November 1 – Pierre Pithou, French lawyer and scholar (b. 1539)
• November 10 – Peter Wentworth, English Puritan politician (b. 1530)
• November 29
  • William Gibson (martyr), English Catholic martyr
  • Hattori Hanzo, Ninja under Tokugawa Ieyasu (b. 1541)
  • Venerable William Knight, English Catholic martyr (b. 1572)
• date unknown
  • Jean Bodin, French jurist (born 1530)
  • Blaise de Vigenère, French cryptographer, diplomat, scientist, and author (b. 1523)
• probable – Henry Willobie, English poet (b. 1575)