René of Châlon was a Prince of Orange and stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht and Gelre. René was born in Breda, the only son of Count Henry III of Nassau-Breda and Claudia of Châlon. Claudia's brother, Philibert of Châlon, and the anc...

Henry II was King of France from 31 March 1547, until his death in 1559. Henry was born in the royal Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, near Paris, the son of Francis I and Claude, Duchess of Brittany (daughter of Louis XII of France and Ann...

Pedro Menéndez de Avilés was a Spanish admiral and explorer, best remembered for founding St. Augustine, Florida in 1565. This was the first successful Spanish foothold in La Florida and remained the most significant city in the region for...

Uluj Ali was a Muslim corsair of Italian origin, who converted to Islam and later became an Ottoman admiral (Reis) and Chief Admiral of the Ottoman Fleet in the 16th century. He was also known by several other names in the Christian countri...

Catherine de' Medici was born in Florence, Italy, as Caterina Maria Romula di Lorenzo de' Medici. Both of her parents, Lorenzo II de' Medici, Duke of Urbino, and Madeleine de La Tour d'Auvergne, Countess of Boulogne, died within weeks of h...

A fundamental work by one of the greatest political and military theorists of Western civilization. Voltaire said, "Machiavelli taught Europe the art of war; it had long been practiced, without being known." For Machiavelli, war was war, an...

Catherine Howard (born between 1520 and 1525; died February 13, 1542) was the fifth queen consort of Henry VIII of England (1540-1542), and sometimes known by his reference to her as "the rose without a thorn." Her birth date and place of b...

Pedro Cieza de León was a Spanish conquistador and chronicler of Peru. He is known primarily for his history and description of Peru, Crónicas del Perú. He wrote this book in four parts, but only the first was published during his lifetime;...

Christophe Plantin was an influential Renaissance humanist and book printer and publisher. Besides the polyglot Bible, Plantin published many other works of note, such as editions of St. Augustine and St. Jerome, the botanical works of Dodo...

William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley KG PC, was an English statesman, the chief advisor of Queen Elizabeth I for most of her reign, twice Secretary of State (1550–53 and 1558–72) and Lord High Treasurer from 1572. Albert Pollard says, "From 15...

The Siege of Rhodes of 1522 was the second and ultimately successful attempt by the Ottoman Empire to expel the Knights of Rhodes from their island stronghold and thereby secure Ottoman control of the Eastern Mediterranean. The first siege...

Count Lamoral of Egmont was a Flemish general and statesman. He was Fillips II's supreme commander and achieved important victories on the French. Therefore he became appointed by Fillips II as governor of Flanders and Artesia, as a member...

Margaret, Duchess of Parma, Governor of the Netherlands from 1559 to 1567 and from 1578 to 1582, was the illegitimate daughter of Charles V and Johanna Maria van der Gheynst. She was a Duchess consort of Florence and a Duchess consort of Pa...

Some of the Protestant reformers, in particular Andreas Karlstadt, Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin, encouraged the removal of religious images by invoking the Decalogue's prohibition of idolatry and the manufacture of graven images of God...

The German Peasants' War or Great Peasants' Revolt (German: Deutscher Bauernkrieg) was a widespread popular revolt in the German-speaking areas of Central Europe, 1524–1525. It failed because of the intense opposition of the aristocracy, wh...