1592

"As touching corporations, that they were invisible, immortal and that they had no soul, therefor no supoena lieth against them, because they have no conscience or soul."

- Queen Elizabeth I's Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer Sir Roger Manwood, one of the first to realize that corporations are soulless.

In the year AD 1592...

• Japanese hegemon Toyotomi Hideyoshi's invasion of Korea gets underway, as 70,000 Japanese troops led by Kato Kiyomasa and Konishi Yukinaga land in Pusan and race northward, capturing city after city from the ill-prepared Korean troops, including Seoul and Pyongyang. Kato Kiyomasa even makes it all the way to Manchuria, where he besieges a Jurchen fortress. But the tide begins to turn toward the end of the year as the Korean navy, using the famous "turtle ships" and led by legendary admiral Yi Sun-sin, wins naval battle after naval battle and cuts of Japanese supply lines.
• The wars in the Netherlands and France continue. When the Duke of Parma is recalled back to Holland to deal with the fiesty Dutch, would-be French king Henry IV is once again free to attack Catholic strongholds. So Spanish king Philip II is once again forced to order Parma back into Franch to relieve Henry's siege of Rouen, which he successfully does. But the Duke of Parma dies on his way back to Holland, and Philip thus loses his best general.
• The Scottish Parliament recognises Presbyterianism as the organisational principle of the Scottish Church, as laid out in the Second Book of Discipline.
• William Shakespeare writes his play Richard III.
• Thomas Kyd publishes his wildly popular revenge play, The Spanish Tragedy, many elements of which will later be borrowed by William Shakespeare in Hamlet
• The famous Chinese epic adventure novel "Journey to the West," is published for the first time, all 100 chapters.
• Botanist Carolus Clusius introduces Holland to tulips, for which the country will later become famous.
• Antonio da Ponte completes construction on the Rialto Bridge, one of Venice's most famous landmarks.
• Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland's oldest university, is founded by British queen Elizabeth I.
• Japanese daimyo Ishikawa Kazumasa begins construction on Matsumoto Castle, Japan's first 5-story castle.
• Juan de Fuca (real name Ioánnis Fokás), a Greek sailing on behalf of Spanish Mexico, sails into the straight between Vancouver Island and Olympia, Washington, a straight now called the Strait of Juan de Fuca in his honor.
• Scottish nobleman George Gordon, 1st Marquess of Huntly murders another Scottish nobleman, James Stewart, 2nd Earl of Moray, in an incident which will inspire the famous Scottish ballad, "The Bonnie Earl of Moray".

These people were born in 1592:

• Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, builder of the Taj Mahal.
• Manchu prince Huang Taiji, later first emperor of the Qing Dynasty.
• Chinese-born Zen Buddhist monk Ingen, founder of the Obaku sect of Japanese Zen Buddhism.
• English admiral George Villiers, 1st duke of Buckingham.
• Czech Moravian prelate and educator John Amos Comenius (Jan Komensky), who is claimed to have been offered the job of first president of Harvard University.
• French philosopher and scientist Pierre Gassendi.
• Dutch painter Gerard van Honthorst.
• Swedish soldier Johan Printz, future governor of the New Sweden colony in what is now Delaware, eastern Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.
• Duncan MacLeod, an immortal who would later become known as "The Highlander."

These people died in 1592:

• French philosopher Michel de Montaigne.
• King John III of Sweden, succeeded by his son Sigismund.
• Spanish governor and military commander Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma.
• Flemish court painter Michiel Coxcie.
• English explorer Thomas Cavendish.
• Spanish friar Saint Paschal Baylon
• Celebrated French soldier Armand de Gontaut, Baron de Biron, godfather to Cardinal Richelieu, killed by a cannon-ball at the siege of Épernay.
• Venetian writer and poet Moderata Fonte.
• English author Robert Greene.

1591 - 1592 - 1593

16th century