1600

1600 (MDC) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) and a century leap year of the Gregorian calendar (it was a leap year starting on Tuesday using the 10-day slower Julian calendar).

January–June

• January 1 – Scotland adopts January 1 as New Year's Day.

July 2: Battle of Nieuwpoort.

• February 17 – Giordano Bruno is burned at the stake for heresy in Rome.
• February 19 – Huaynaputina volcano undergoes a catastrophic eruption, the worst to be recorded in South America.
• May 6 – Prince Sigismund Bathory of Transylvania loses the city of Suceava to the Voivode Michael the Brave of Wallachia, during the internecine conflict in Hungary and the Danubian Principalities. For the first time, Transylvania, Moldavia, and Wallachia became one country (known today as Romania). However, the union ends one year later when Michael the Brave is killed.

Undated

• Sumo wrestling becomes a professional sport in Japan.
• William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream is first performed and his play The Merchant of Venice is published.
• William Gilbert publishes De Magnete, which describes the Earth's magnetic field and is the beginning of modern Geomagnetism.
• Fabritio Caroso's Nobiltà de dame is published.
• Ulster chieftains, with the lead of Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone, resist the English reconquest of Ireland.
• A Persian embassy arrives in Prague and meets with Rudolf II.

Births

• January 1 – Friedrich Spanheim, Dutch theologian (d. 1649)
• January 17 – Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Spanish playwright (d. 1681)
• January 28 – Pope Clement IX (d. 1669)
• February – Edmund Calamy the Elder, English presbyterian (d. 1666)
• February 2 – Gabriel Naudé, French librarian and scholar (d. 1653)
• March 3 – George Ghica, Prince of Wallachia (d. 1664)
• May 13 – Empress Xiao Duan Wen of the Qing Dynasty (d. 1649)
• August 16 – Maria Celeste, nun, daughter of Galileo Galilei
• November – John Ogilby, English writer and cartographer (d. 1676)
• November 19
  • Leo Aitzema, Dutch historian and statesman (d. 1669)
  • King Charles I of England, Scotland, and Ireland (ex. 1649)
• date unknown
  • Marin le Roy de Gomberville, French poet and novelist (d. 1674)
  • Sir Richard Grenville, 1st Baronet, English Royalist leader (d. 1658)
  • Peter Heylin, English ecclesiastical writer (d. 1662)
  • Antoine de Laloubère, French Jesuit mathematician (d. 1664)
  • Anna Alojza Ostrogska, Polish noblewoman (d. 1654)
  • William Prynne, English puritan politician (d. 1669)
  • Brian Walton, English divine and scholar (d. 1661)
• probable
  • Jonas Bronck, Swedish colonist in America (d. 1643)
  • Piaras Feiritéar, Irish language poet (d. 1653)
  • Samuel Rutherford, Scottish theologian and controversialist (d. 1660)

Deaths

• February 13 – Gian Paolo Lomazzo, Italian painter (b. 1538)
• February 17 – Giordano Bruno, Italian philosopher (burned at the stake) (b. 1548)
• April – Thomas Deloney, English writer (b. 1543)
• July 17 – Hosokawa Gracia, Japanese noblewoman (b. 1563)
• August 5 – John Ruthven, 3rd Earl of Gowrie, Scottish conspirator (b. 1577)
• August 27 – Mizuno Tadashige, Japanese nobleman (b. 1541)
• September 1 – Tadeáš Hájek, Czech physician and astronomer (b. 1525)
• September 26 – Claude Le Jeune, French composer (b. 1530)
• October 12 – Luis Molina, Spanish Jesuit (b. 1535)
• October 21 – Toda Katsushige, Japanese warlord (b. 1557)
• November 3 – Richard Hooker, Anglican theologian (b. 1554)
• November 6
  • Ishida Mitsunari, Japanese feudal lord (decapitated) (b. 1560)
  • Konishi Yukinaga, Japanese Christian warlord (b. 1555)
• November 8 – Natsuka Masaie, Japanese warlord (b. 1562)
• November 17 – Kuki Yoshitaka, Japanese naval commander (b. 1542)
• date unknown
  • José de Acosta, Spanish Jesuit missionary and naturalist (b. 1540)
  • Abe Masakatsu, Japanese nobleman (b. 1541)
  • Antonio Monserrate, Spanish Jesuit (b. 1536)

References

• Spielvogel – Western Civilization—Volume II: Since 1500 (5th Edition), p. 401