1597

January 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. February 8 – Sir Anthony Shirley, England's "best-educated pirate", raids Jamaica. February 24 – The last battle of the Cudgel War is fought on the Santavuori Hill in Ilmajoki, Ostrobothnia. March 11 – Amiens is taken by Spanish forces. April 10 – The Serb uprising of 1596–97 ends in defeat for the rebels, at the field of Gacko (Gatačko Polje). April 19 – Prince Nyaungyan Min ignores the orders of King Nanda Bayin of Burma and seizes control of the Kingdom of Ava (now in Upper Myanmar) April 23 – Probable first performance of William Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor. April 27 – Johannes Kepler marries Barbara Muhleck. May 13 – King Henry IV of France and England's General Thomas Baskerville begin the siege of the city of Amiens in France, which had been captured on March 11 by the Spanish Army. The city is recaptured by September 25. May 27 – The Kingdom of Kotte, on most of the western side of the island of Sri Lanka, upon the death of King Dharmapala. With no heirs, Dharmapala had made a will bequeathing the entire kingdom to the European nation of Portugal, creating the territory of Portuguese Ceylon (Puruthugisi Lankawa or Porthueka Ilankai). June 13 – The Staten-Generaal of the Dutch Republic approves a proposal for the Generaliteitscollege, a common board for the Republic's five separate navies, the Admiralty of Amsterdam, the Admiralty of Rotterdam, the Admiralty of Zeeland, the Admiralty of the Noorderkwartier and the Admiralty of Friesland. July 14 – Scottish poet Alexander Montgomerie is declared an outlaw, after the collapse of a Catholic plot.