January 7 – Shakespeare's play, Henry V, copyrighted 1600, is given its earliest recorded performance, presented by the Lord Chamberlain's Men for King James I of England.[3]
January 16 – The first part of Miguel de Cervantes' satire on the theme of chivalry, Don Quixote (El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha, "The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha"), is published in Madrid. One of the first significant novels in the western literary tradition, it becomes a global bestseller almost at once.[4]
February 10 – Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice is given its earliest recorded performance, presented by the King's Men Players at the Palace of Whitehall for King James I of England. A second performance is given on February 12, Shrove Tuesday, at the King's request.[6]
February 25 – Admiral Steven van der Hagen leads a fleet of ships for the Dutch East India Company and makes the first capture of land for the Netherlands in what will become the Dutch East Indies, and later Indonesia. Hagen's men capture the Portuguese citadel of Forte Amboino and the rest of Ambon Island, and make it the capital of the Dutch possessions in Asia.
March 11 – A proclamation declares all people of Ireland to be the direct subjects of the British Crown and not of any local lord or chief.[7]
March 3 – Pope Clement VIII dies at the age of 69 after a reign of 13 years, prompting the assembling of cardinals to elect as successor.
April 1 – Cardinal Alessandro Ottaviano de' Medici, the Bishop of Pistoia, is elected by the assembled 61 cardinals at the heated Papal conclave after 17 days of balloting. He takes the regnal name of Pope Leo XI to become the 232nd pope, but serves for less than four weeks.[8]
April 27 – Pope Leo XI dies suddenly from a cold at the age of 69, after a reign of only 26 days, prompting the return of the cardinals for the second papal conclave in less than two months. During his brief reign, the Pope issued a bull requiring secret balloting in papal conclaves.
May 8 – A group of 59 Roman Catholic cardinals assemble at Rome for another papal conclave to elect a successor to Pope Leo XI. During the meeting, a fistfight breaks out among the cardinals over the two rival candidates, Antonio Sauli and Domenico Toschi, neither of whom receive the necessary 40 votes for a two-thirds election. In the fight, Cardinal Alfonso Visconti sustains several fractures.[11]
May 16 – Camillo Borghese, Cardinal Vicar of Rome and cardinal-priest of Sant'Eusebio is elected the 233rd pope, and takes the name of Pope Paul V. Another "Year of Three Popes" will not occur until 373 years later, in 1978. Borghese is elected as a compromise candidate after the physical disagreements during the conclave.[12]
June 1 – Russian troops in Moscow imprison Feodor II and his mother, later executing them.
August 14 – A Spanish attack on the Moorish fortress of Hammamet, in Ottoman Tunisia, ends in a disaster for the Spaniards. Although Spanish troops had managed to scale the walls and open the gates, they are suddenly ordered to retreat and are massacred while waiting on the coast for the return of the ships that brought them.
August 19 – Eighty Years' War: The siege of the Dutch city of Lingen, by 13,000 Spanish troops and 3,000 cavalry, ends with the surrender of Captain Maerten Cobben after nine days of defense. Although the Dutch Republic's stadtholder, Maurice, Prince of Orange, had proclaimed that Lingen must be held at all costs, Dutch troops failed to come to Cobben's aid and Don Ambrogio Spinola of Spain peacefully takes control of the city.[14]
November 5 (O.S.) – The Gunpowder Plot, a scheme to bomb England's Palace of Westminster during the opening of Parliament, is foiled after Sir Thomas Knyvet is tipped off, and finds Catholic plotter Guy Fawkes in a cellar below the Parliament building. Knyvet orders a search of the area and 36 barrels of gunpowder are found. Fawkes is arrested for trying to assassinate King James I and the members who had been scheduled to sit together in Parliament the next day.[16]
December 6 – In England Thomas Bonham petitions to become a member of the College of Physicians in order for his practice to be legal, and is rejected. Dr. Bonham continues to practice, and is eventually imprisoned on November 13, 1606, leading to the landmark decision in Dr. Bonham's Case in 1610.
December 21 – On behalf of Spain, Portuguese navigator Pedro Fernandes de Queirós begins his expedition to the South Pacific Ocean with 160 men on three ships. Queiros departs from Callao in the Viceroyalty of Peru with his flagship, San Pedro y San Pablo, and San Pedro and Los Tres Reyes.
"Cases of Tensho, Bunroku, and Keicho periods, the appointment of samurai families and the granting of the Toyotomi surname", by Kohei Murakawa, Komazawa Shigaku (2013) pp. 112-129
