1572

Centuries: 15th century - 16th century - 17th century

Decades: 1520s 1530s 1540s 1550s 1560s - 1570s - 1580s 1590s 1600s 1610s 1620s

1567 1568 1569 1570 1571 - 1572 - 1573 1574 1575 1576 1577

• January 16 - The Duke of Norfolk is tried for treason for his part in the Ridolfi plot to restore Catholicism in England.
• April 1 - The Sea Beggars[?], Netherlandish Calvinist rebels, capture the port city of Brill[?]. This leads to a wave of uprisings in Holland and Zealand, leaving most of those provinces (with the exception of Amsterdam, under rebel control.
• August 18 - Wedding in Paris of the Huguenot King Henry III of Navarre with Marguerite de France[?], sister of King Charles, in a supposed attempt to reconcile Protestants and Catholics.
• August 24 - St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in Paris. Catholics in Paris murder thousands of Protestants, including Gaspard de Coligny[?], at the order of King Charles IX. Henry of Navarre and the Prince of Condé barely escape the same fate. This brings about the Fourth War of Religion[?] in France.
• December - The Duke of Alva[?], Spanish commander in the Netherlands, lays siege to Haarlem.
• Ending of the Muromachi period in Japan
• Tycho Brahe observes supernova in Cassiopeia
• Vilcapampa[?], last independent remnant of the Inca Empire, conquered by Spanish

Births

• June 9 - Jeanne d'Albret, Queen of Navarre
• August 24 - Gaspard de Coligny[?], French Huguenot Leader
• Emperor Go-Yozei of Japan
• Johann Bayer, German astronomer.
• John Donne, English poet
• Ben Jonson, English dramatist

Deaths

• Humanistic scholar Pierre de la Ramée[?] who was first to make a distinction between I and J.
• John Knox