April 9 – A Burmese Army force of 16,000 men, commanded by Thado Dhamma Yaza II of Prome and Nawrahta Minsaw of Lan Na to suppress the rebellious of the Shan States in the modern-day Yunnan province of China, is welcomed by King Nanda Bayin at the royal capital, Pegu, after a successful punitive expedition. The commanders bring with them the rebel chief from the Sanda state.[4]
April 19 – Queen Elizabeth dissolves the English Parliament which had been convened in 1572 but last met in 1581.[5]
April 25 – In a clash between a 50,000-man Persian Empire force and the Ottoman Empire for control of the Caucasus region in modern-day Russia, the Ottomans are routed.[7]
May 28 – The first installment of the translation by Jurij Dalmatin of the Bible into the Slovene language, Bibilija, tu je vse svetu pismu stariga inu noviga testamenta (The Bible, featuring the complete Old and New Testaments), is published in Wittenberg.[10]
June 17 – Spanish troops under the command of Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma overwhelm a combined army of Dutch, French and English soldiers at the Battle of Steenbergen in the modern-day Netherlands. The multinational force sustains 3,200 people killed or wounded.[11]
June 18 – In England, the first known life insurance policy is issued. The Royal Exchange of London accepts a premium from William Gibbons, agreeing to pay a group of 30 beneficiaries a total of £383, 6s. 8d if he dies on or before June 17, 1584. Gibbons dies on May 29, 1584, and the Royal Exchange refuses to pay until a court rejects the insurer's argument that a month is actually four weeks or 28 days.[12]
August 29 – English ship Delight, with Humphrey Gilbert's expedition, becomes the first of over 350 ships over time to run aground and be wrecked on Sable Island in the North Atlantic.[15]
September 9 – English ship Squirrel, the flagship of explorer, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, sinks in a storm with all hands along with all but one of Gilbert's colonial expedition.[17] Gilbert and his men had been returning from North America after claiming Newfoundland in the name of Queen Elizabeth.[18]
October 14 – In Scotland, the University of Edinburgh holds its first classes, accepting more than 80 students as "Tounis College".[19] In continuous operation for more than 440 years, the University will have more than 41,000 students.[20]
October 17 – Peter the Lame becomes Prince of Moldavia (in modern-day Romania) for the third and last time, reigning until 1591.[22]
October 18 – In South America, the Third Council of Lima comes to an end after two months after being convened to provide a consistent doctrine for the Roman Catholic Church in the Viceroyalty of Peru. Among other things, the Council approves the treatment of the native population "not like slaves but as free men" as part of evangelism and conversion to Christianity, as well as the use of the Quechua language and the Aymara language to spread the gospel. The use of Spanish is ordered for church services, and Latin is forbidden.
November 5 – Willem IV van den Bergh, the Stadtholder of Guelders for the Dutch Republic is arrested along with his family and charged with treason on suspicion of having allowed the Spanish Army to seize Zutphen.[25] Imprisoned for five months, he is released in March after promising to retire from public service.[26]
The world's oldest, intact, surviving amusement park, Dyrehavsbakken, is founded north of Copenhagen.
The Bunch Of Grapes pub is built on Narrow Street in Limehouse, London.[28] Referred to by Charles Dickens in Our Mutual Friend as "The Six Jolly Fellowship Porters", it still stands in the 21st century, much rebuilt and renamed 'The Grapes'.
^"Dalmatin, Georg", by Ludwig Theodor Elze, in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, vol. 4 (Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1876), pp. 712–713
^James Tracy, The Founding of the Dutch Republic: War, Finance, and Politics in Holland 1572–1588 (Oxford University Press, 2008) p.216.
^"Insurance", by Charlton Lewis and Thomas Ingram, in Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th edition, Vol. 14 (Cambridge University Press, 1911) pp. 657–658
^"Scotland", in The Manual of Dates a Dictionary of Reference to All the Most Important Events in the History of Mankind to be Found in Authentic Records, ed. by George H. Townsend (Frederick Warne & Company, 1867) p. 886
^"Ruthven, William", by T. F. Henderson, in Dictionary of National Biography, Volume 50 (Smith, Elder, & Co., 1897)
^Thomas Thomson, Collection of Inventories (Record Commission of Great Britain, 1815), pp. 307-309
^"Fairfax Eighth Eclogue", by W. W. Greg, Modern Language Quarterly (July 1901).
^E. Hepple Hall, "Newfoundland: Past, Present and Future", in The Journal of the Society of Arts (February 1882)
^"The Foundation of the College of Edinburgh", by Robert Kerr Hannay, in The History of the University of Edinburgh 1883-1933, ed. by A. Logan Turner (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1933), pp. 1-16.
^Henry Kamen, Philip of Spain (Yale University Press, 1999) p.400
^Constantin Rezachevici, Cronologia critică a domnilor din Țara Românească și Moldova, a. 1324–1881 ("Critical timeline of the gentlemen of Wallachia and Moldavia, 1324-1881"), Volume 1 (Editura Enciclopedică, 2001) p.432
^Bart Vander Schelden, De Gentse stadsmagistraat tijdens de calvinistische Republiek (1577-1584)("The Ghent city magistrate during the Calvinist Republic (1577-1584)"
^N. M. Sutherland, Henry IV of France and the Politics of Religion: 1572 - 1596 (Elm Bank Publishing, 2002) p.54
^Petrus Johannes Blok, History of the People of the Netherlands: The War with Spain (Putnam's Sons, 1900) p.170
^Sergio Buonadonna, Rosso Doge: I dogi della Repubblica di Genova dal 1339 al 1797 ("Red Doge: The Doges of the Republic of Genoa from 1339 to 1797) (De Ferrari, 2007)
^Jamia Millia Islamia, Subah of Allahabad under the Great Mughals, 1580-1707 (Jamia Millia Islamia, 1974) p.85
