Decades: 1500s 1510s 1520s 1530s 1540s - 1550s - 1560s 1570s 1580s 1590s 1600s
Years: 1553 1554 1555 1556 1557 - 1558 - 1559 1560 1561 1562 1563
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. Births Robert Greene, English playwright, poet, pamphleteer, and prose writer Thomas Kyd, English playwright Deaths April 18 - Aleksandra Lisowska, wife of Suleiman the Magnificent September 21 - Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor October 21 - Julius Caesar Scaliger, humanist scholar November 17 - Queen Mary I of England.\n