1558
Years:
1555 1556 1557 - 1558 - 1559 1560 1561Decades:
1520s 1530s 1540s - 1550s - 1560s 1570s 1580sCenturies:
15th century - 16th century - 17th century
Events
- January 7 - French troops led by Francis, Duke of Guise take Calais, the last continental possession of England
- July 13 - Battle of Gravelines: In France, Spanish forces led by Count Lamoral of Egmont defeat the French forces of Marshal Paul des Thermes at Gravelines.
- April 24 - Mary I of Scotland marries Francis II of France
- November 17 - Elizabethan era begins: Queen Mary I of England dies and is succeeded by her half-sister Elizabeth.
- Tobacco comes to France
Births
- September 9 - Philippe Emmanuel, Duke of Mercoeur, French soldier (d. 1602)
- October 12 - Archduke Maximilian III of Austria (died 1618)
- François, Prince of Conti (died 1614)
- Hendrik Goltzius, Dutch painter (died 1617)
- Robert Greene, English writer (died 1592)
- Thomas Kyd, English playwright (died 1594)
- Meir Lublin, Polish rabbi (died 1616)
- Koriki Masanaga, Japanese military commander (died 1599)
- Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Monts, merchant (died 1628)
- Bessho Nagaharu, Japanese nobleman
- Oda Nobutaka, Japanese nobleman
- Olivier van Noort, first Dutchman to circumnavigate the world (died 1627)
- George Peele, English dramatist (died 1598)
- Chidiock Tichborne, English conspirator and poet (died 1586)
- Tokuhime, Japanese noblewoman
- Mihai Viteazul, Prince of Wallachia (1593-1601)
Deaths
- February 25 - Eleonore of Austria, Queen of Portugal and France (born 1498)
- March 25 - Marcos de Niza, French Franciscan explorer
- April 18 - Roxelana, wife of Suleiman the Magnificent
- April 20 - Johannes Bugenhagen, German reformer (born 1485)
- May 31 - Philip Hoby, English politician (born 1505)
- September 21 - Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (born 1500)
- October 18 - Maria of Austria, queen of Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia (b. 1505)
- October 21 - Julius Caesar Scaliger, humanist scholar (born 1484)
- November 17 - Queen Mary I of England (born 1516)
- November 17 - Reginald Cardinal Pole, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 1500)
- December 15 - Thomas Cheney, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports
- December 28 - Hermann Finck, German composer (born 1527)
- Archibald Campbell, 4th Earl of Argyll, Scottish nobleman and politician (born 1507)
- Hugh Aston, English composer (born 1485)
- Jean Fernel, French physician (born 1497)
- Robert Recorde, Welsh physician and mathematician (born 1510)
- Francisco de Sa de Miranda, Portuguese poet (born 1485)
- Melin de Saint-Gelais, French poet (born 1487)