1604January 1 – The earliest recorded performance of William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream takes place at Hampton Court prior to the main presentation, The Masque of Indian and China Knights, which is performed by courtiers of King James. January 14 – The Hampton Court Conference is held between James I of England, the Anglican bishops and representatives of the Puritans. Work begins on the Authorized King James Version of the Bible and revision of the Book of Common Prayer.
1501Year 1501 (MDI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. January 17 – Cesar Borgia returns triumphantly to Rome, from Romagna. February 1 – The Duchy of Bavaria-Dachau, created in Germany in 1467 after Sigismund, Duke of Bavaria was granted his own state following his resignation from the throne of the Duchy of Bavaria-Munich, reverts to Bavaria-Munich's control upon Sigismund's death.
1656January 5 – The First War of Villmergen, a civil war in the Confederation of Switzerland pitting its Protestant and Roman Catholic cantons against each other, breaks out but is resolved by March 7. The Lutheran cantons of the larger cities of Zurich, Bern and Schaffhausen battle against seven Catholic cantons of Lucerne, Schwyz, Uri, Zug, Baden Unterwalden (now Obwalden and Nidwalden) and St. Gallen. January 17 – The Treaty of Königsberg is signed, establishing an alliance between Charles X Gustav of Sweden and Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg.
1494Year 1494 (MCDXCIV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. January 4 – The Cetinje Octoechos (Цетињски октоих, an Eastern Orthodox octoechos (liturgy), first tone), the first incunabulum written in the Serbian recension of Church Slavonic, and the first book printed in Cyrillic in Southeast Europe, is completed in Cetinje. January 25 – Alfonso II becomes King of Naples. May – Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, recognises the pretender Perkin Warbeck as rightful King of England.
1653January 3 – By the Coonan Cross Oath, the Eastern Church in India cuts itself off from colonial Portuguese tutelage. January– The Swiss Peasant War begins after magistrates meeting at Lucerne refuse to hear from a group of peasants who have been financially hurt by the devaluation of the currency issued from Bern. February 2 – New Amsterdam (later renamed New York City) is incorporated. February 3 – Cardinal Mazarin returns to Paris from exile.
16481648 has been suggested as possibly the last year in which the overall human population declined, coming towards the end of a broader period of global instability which included the collapse of the Ming dynasty and the Thirty Years' War, the latter of which ended in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia. January 15 – Manchu invaders of China's Fujian province capture Spanish Dominican priest Francisco Fernández de Capillas, torture him and then behead him.
1597January 4 – Japan's Chancellor of the Realm, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, sends 26 European Christians, arrested on December 8, on a forced march from Kyoto to Nagasaki. The group is executed on February 5. January 24 – Battle of Turnhout: Maurice of Nassau defeats a Spanish force under Jean de Rie of Varas, in the Netherlands. February 5 – In Japan, 26 European Catholic Christians are executed in Nagasaki by crucifixion. They had the misfortune of being shipwrecked on the Japanese coast on October 19.
1500Year 1500 (MD) was a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. The year 1500 was not a leap year in the proleptic Gregorian calendar. The year was seen as being especially important by many Christians in Europe, who thought it would bring the beginning of the end of the world. Their belief was based on the phrase "half-time after the time", when the apocalypse was due to occur, which appears in the Book of Revelation and was seen as referring to 1500.
1509NOTOC Year 1509 (MDIX) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. January 21 – The Portuguese first arrive at the Seven Islands of Bombay and land at Mahim after capturing a barge of the Gujarat Sultanate in the Mahim Creek. February 3 – Battle of Diu: The Portuguese defeat a coalition of Indians, Muslims and Italians. March 18 – Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, names Margaretha land guardians of the Habsburg Netherlands.
