1593

"Surely, Paris is worth a mass."

- French king Henry IV, explaining his decision to convert from Protestantism to Catholicism.

In the year AD 1593...

• The War of the Three Henrys, last of the French Wars of Religion, finally comes to a close when French king Henry IV renounces Protestantism and accepts Catholicism.
• The Ottoman Empire renews its assault on Hapsburg-dominated Eastern Europe, innaugurating the "Long War" that would last until 1606. The Ottoman advance is checked for a time when they are beaten at the Battle of Sisak in Croatia, the first time the heretofore invincible Ottomans have ever been defeated on European soil.
• Toyotomi Hideyoshi's first attempt to invade Korea is defeated when Chinese forces intervene and drive the Japanese out.
• In an effort to suppress dissent in the recently conquered Songhai Empire, the Sultan of Morocco has all the books in Timbuktu confiscated and all the scholars either executed or deported to Morocco.
• Swedish king Charles IX has Lutheranism declared the official state religion of Sweden.
• Russian tsar Fyodor I orders all the mosques in Tatarstan destroyed.
• Michael the Brave is installed as Prince of Wallachia by the Ottomans, but will soon rebel against his overlords and begin the unification of Romania.
• English privateer Richard Hawkins purchases the ship Dainty and sets sail on an ill-fated voyage to plunder the Spanish Main that will end in his capture and imprisonment by the Spanish but will ultimately win him knighthood from Queen Elizabeth I.
• Galileo invents the first thermometer.
• The sixth and final volume of the Kralice Bible, the first version of the Bible written in Czech, is published.
• William Shakespeare pens his lyrical poem full of playful sexual innuendo, "Venus and Adonis".

These people were born in 1593:

• Mumtaz Mahal, the wife of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, whose untimely death in 1631 would move him to construct the Taj Mahal in her memory.
• Toyotomi Hideyori son and heir of Japanese hegemon Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
• English poet George Herbert.
• Italian painter Artemisia Gentileschi.
• Flemish painter Jacob Jordaens.
• French painter Georges de la Tour.
• Swiss engraver Matthäus Merian.
• English nobleman Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford.
• English nobleman Francis Russell, 4th Earl of Bedford.
• English explorer and colonial administrator John White.
• Dutch trader and colonial administrator Anthony van Diemen.
• French Jesuit missionary and martyr Saint Jean de Brébeuf.
• Portuguese Jesuit missionary Jeronimo Lobo.
• Legendary English fisherman Izaak Walton, author of the beloved fishing tome, The Compleat Angler.

These people died in 1593:

• English playwright Christopher Marlowe, murdered under mysterious circumstances while under house arrest for heresy.
• Italian painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo, best known for his portraits of human heads made out of fruits, vegetables, flowers, etc.
• Japanese emperor Ogimachi.
• Italian physician and pioneering archaeologist Michele Mercati.
• Korean painter Kim Che.
• Korean poet Jeong Cheol.
• Polish nobleman Krzysztof Kosiñski, leader of two rebellions against the Polish crown, killed while attempting to raise an army for a third.
• English Puritan separatists Henry Barrowe, John Greenwood, and John Penry, executed on the trumped up charge of "devising and circulating seditious books."

1592 - 1593 - 1594

16th century