1600 – 1610s

Events in the 1600s 19

• 1521 – 1600 After the conquest -- New Spain rises The destruction of Tenochtitlan in 1521 is not the end of the story but the beginning of a new and terrible chapter. The Spanish build Mexico City directly on the ruins of Tenochtitlan -- the Templo Mayor is demolished, its stones used in the new cathedral. Cuauhtémoc, the last tlatoani, is tortured (his feet burned to make him reveal the location of hidden gold) and eventually hanged in 1525. The encomienda system enslaves the surviving indigenous population; the Inquisition burns the codices; epidemic disease does the rest. Yet Aztec culture does not vanish -- it hybridises. Indigenous communities maintain their languages, their agricultural systems, their oral traditions. The Virgin of Guadalupe, appearing to the indigenous convert Juan Diego in 1531 on a hill sacred to the goddess Tonantzin, is the defining moment of Mexican syncretism. The civilisation is destroyed; the culture endures.
• 1521 – 1600 Cuauhtémoc -- the last eagle Cuauhtémoc ("Descending Eagle," c.1496-1525) is the last tlatoani of Tenochtitlan -- the young ruler who takes power after Cuitláhuac dies of smallpox and leads the defence of the city through the 75-day siege of 1521. He is approximately 25 years old when he becomes tlatoani; he is approximately 26 when the city falls and he is captured attempting to flee by canoe. His capture ends the Aztec empire. Cortés has him tortured (his feet burned over hot coals, to force him to reveal the location of Moctezuma's treasure), then keeps him as a captive for four years, then has him hanged in 1525 on dubious charges of conspiracy during the Honduras expedition. His dignity throughout captivity and torture -- reportedly telling his companion "Am I now in a bed of roses?" when the companion cried out from the pain -- makes him the supreme symbol of Aztec resistance. He is the national hero of Mexico, his statue prominent in Mexico City's Paseo de la Reforma.
• 1528 – 1600 Claude Le Jeune French Renaissance composer Claude Le Jeune was a leading Huguenot composer who applied ancient Greek metrical principles to French verse in musique mesurée, creating a distinctive and influential style.
• 1531 – 1606 Guillaume Costeley French Renaissance composer Guillaume Costeley was organist to King Charles IX of France whose chansons and keyboard works show refined craftsmanship and occasional chromatic experimentation.
• 1536 – 1604 Leonhard Lechner German Renaissance composer Leonhard Lechner was a German composer and pupil of Lassus whose German lieder and sacred works represent the high point of late German Renaissance polyphony.
• 1543 – 1601 Orazio Vecchi Italian Renaissance composer Orazio Vecchi was an Italian composer best known for his L'Amfiparnaso, a comic madrigal cycle that anticipated opera. He was also a prolific composer of sacred music.
• 1544 – 1609 Vincenzo Galilei Italian Renaissance composer and theorist Vincenzo Galilei was a lutenist, composer and music theorist who was father of Galileo Galilei. His advocacy for monody and text expression contributed to the birth of opera.
• 1549 – 1609 Eustache Du Caurroy French Renaissance composer Eustache Du Caurroy was surintendant de la musique to Henry IV of France whose sacred and secular compositions were highly regarded at the French court.
• 1553 – 1602 Luzzasco Luzzaschi Italian Renaissance composer Luzzasco Luzzaschi was court organist at Ferrara whose chromatic madrigals for virtuoso solo voices influenced Gesualdo and Frescobaldi, both of whom he taught.
• 1556 – 1605 Akbar the Great Mughal emperor of tolerance and reform Akbar expanded the Mughal Empire across most of the subcontinent and is remembered above all for his policy of religious tolerance — abolishing the tax on non-Muslims, encouraging dialogue between faiths, and building an efficient, inclusive administration. His reign is considered the empire's political and cultural peak.
• 1557 – 1609 Giovanni Croce Venetian Renaissance composer Giovanni Croce was a Venetian composer and priest whose sacred music and madrigals were widely published and performed throughout Europe in the late Renaissance.
• 1557 – 1602 Thomas Morley English Renaissance composer Thomas Morley was the leading English madrigalist who published important anthologies of Italian and English music. His Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke was widely used.
• 1600 Gilbert — magnetism and Earth as a magnet De Magnete: magnetic declination and Earth's magnetic field In 1600, William Gilbert of Colchester published De Magnete, the first major English scientific work based entirely on experiment. He demonstrated that the Earth itself is a giant magnet, explaining the behaviour of compass needles, described magnetic declination, and distinguished magnetism from static electricity. Gilbert's experimental method was a direct forerunner of the Scientific Revolution.
• 1602 – 1799 Rise and fall of the VOC Two centuries of empire Across nearly two centuries the VOC builds a trading empire from the Cape to Japan before collapsing under debt and corruption, dissolved in 1799.
• 1603 – 1868 Edo period Tokugawa peace, isolation and a flourishing culture For over two and a half centuries the Tokugawa shogunate ruled from Edo (Tokyo), enforcing rigid social order and near-total isolation from the outside world (sakoku). The long peace allowed cities, commerce and a vibrant popular culture to flourish — kabuki theatre, ukiyo-e woodblock prints and haiku poetry.
• 1606 – 1669 Rembrandt Dutch Golden Age · Netherlands Rembrandt van Rijn (July 15, 1606 – October 4, 1669) was a Dutch Golden Age painter and printmaker, master of light and shadow, and one of the greatest portraitists and storytellers in art history. The Night Watch is his most celebrated work.
• 1608 – 1674 John Milton English poet Milton wrote Paradise Lost, an epic poem about the fall of man and moral freedom.
• 1609 Galileo turns the telescope to the sky Moons of Jupiter, mountains on the Moon, phases of Venus In 1609, Galileo Galilei pointed an improved telescope at the night sky and made a series of revolutionary discoveries: mountains on the Moon, four moons orbiting Jupiter, countless stars in the Milky Way, and the phases of Venus. Published in Sidereus Nuncius (Starry Messenger, 1610), his observations provided the first direct observational evidence against the geocentric model of the universe and for the Copernican system.
• 1609 – 1619 Kepler's laws of planetary motion Elliptical orbits — planets move in ellipses, not circles Between 1609 and 1619, Johannes Kepler published three laws describing planetary motion: (1) planets move in elliptical orbits with the Sun at one focus; (2) a planet sweeps equal areas in equal times; (3) the square of a planet's orbital period is proportional to the cube of its distance from the Sun. Based on Tycho Brahe's meticulous observations, these laws replaced 2,000 years of circular orbit theory and gave Newton the data to derive universal gravitation.