King Henry IV issues an edict granting substantial religious rights to the Huguenots, ending the French Wars of Religion.
Queen Elizabeth I grants a royal charter to the East India Company, which later comes to rule much of the Indian subcontinent.
Miguel de Cervantes publishes the first part of Don Quixote, often regarded as one of the first modern novels.
The Armada sent by Philip II to invade England is defeated by the English navy at the Battle of Gravelines and scattered during its retreat.
Samuel de Champlain founds Quebec on the St. Lawrence River, which becomes the centre of the colony of New France.
Johannes Kepler publishes Astronomia nova, stating his first two laws of planetary motion, including elliptical orbits.
Observing with his own telescope, Galileo Galilei discovers the moons of Jupiter, publishing them in Sidereus Nuncius in 1610 in support of heliocentrism.