• The fifth of the French Wars of Religion ends with the Peace of Monsieur (named for Francis of Alençon, who for the time being sides with the Huguenots). The Peace is a triumph for the Huguenots, granting freedom of worship throughout France except in Paris following ratification by the Edict of Beaulieu.
• Mughal Emperor Akbar completes his conquest of Bengal.
• The Netherlands are in revolt against Spanish rule. The provinces of the Netherlands unite behind William the Silent under the terms of the Pacification of Ghent for the purpose of expelling the Spanish. Meanwhile, in a savage attack known as the "Spanish Fury," Spanish forces sack Antwerp and kill almost 7,000 of its inhabitants.
• Plague strikes in Venice, Milan, and Mexico.
• Polish king Stephen Báthory beseiges the city state of Gdansk but the city holds out, thwarting his attempt to annex it.
• English navigator Sir Martin Frobisher makes the first of his three voyages to the Arctic in search of the Northwest Passage.
• Japanese warlord Oda Nobunaga begins construction on Azuchi Castle, revolutionizing Japanese castle design and signaling his immense influence over the Japanese heartland.
• James Burbage builds the first permanent theatre in London, called simply, "The Theatre." The building will later be moved and renamed to become the Globe Theatre of Shakespearian fame.
• George Gascoigne publishes The Steel Glass, thought of as the first English satire.
• French political philosopher Jean Bodin is the first to propose the concept of sovereignty in his Six Livres de la Republique (tr. "Six Bookes of the Commonweale," 1606).
• Venitian painter Paolo Veronese paints his most famous work, The Rape of Europa, now in the Doge's Palace.
• French writer François de Belleforest publishes Histoires Tragiques, a translation of earlier works containing a version of the story of Prince Hamlet of Denmark that may have been known to Shakespeare.

These people were born in 1576:

• French engineer and physicist Salomon de Caus, the first person to conceive of the steam engine.
• English satirist and dramatist John Marston.
• Italian-born Spanish court painter Vincenzo Carducci.
• Italian painter Lionello Spada.
• Thomas Dudley, colonial governor of Massachusetts and one of the founders of Harvard University.
• Swiss Calvinist scholar and theologian Giovanni Diodati.

These people died in 1576:

• Titian, the great Venitian painter.
• Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II, succeeded by his son Rudolf II.
• Persian shah Tahmasp I, succeeded by his son Ismail II.
• Italian physician and mathematician Geronimo Cardano, of suicide.
• German poet Hans Sachs.
• Italian composer and theorist Nicola Vincentino, of plague.

1575 - 1576 - 1577

16th century