Events and ideas: 1500-1600

* EVENTS

1504 Leonardo paints Mona Lisa

1506 St Peter's basilica begun in Rome (right)

1509 Michelangelo takes three years to paint ceiling of Sistine Chapel

1517 Martin Luther defies the pope with Wittenberg theses

1521 Edict of Worms condemns Luther

1522 Ferdinand Magellan sails around the world

1531 Henry VIII breaks with Rome

1540 Jesuits founded

1545 Roman Catholic Council of Trent spearheads opposition to Protestant Reformation

1553 Mary Tudor becomes queen of England

1555 Peace of Augsburg settles Protestant-Catholic conflicts

1558 Elizabeth I becomes queen

1571 Christians control eastern Mediterranean following defeat of Turks at Lepanto

1572 King Charles IX of France orders St Bartholomew's Day massacre of Huguenots

1588 Defeat of the Spanish Armada (above, right)

1599 First known production at Globe Theatre (right) is Shakespeare's Julius Caesar

* IDEAS

1516 Erasmus edits Greek New Testament

1522 Luther translates Bible into German(above)

1532 Italian political theorist Machiavelli (left) writes The Prince

1543 Copernicus founds modern astronomy with De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium

1564 William Shakespeare born

1571 Galileo Galilei born