1555

February 4: John Rogers is burned at the stake.

Year 1555 (MDLV) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar.

Events

January–March

January 22 – The Kingdom of Ava in Upper Burma falls.
February 2 – The Diet of Augsburg begins.
February 4 – John Rogers is burned at the stake at Smithfield, London, becoming the first of the 284 Protestant martyrs of the English Reformation to be killed during the five and one-half year reign of Queen Mary I of England.<ref name=CBH>Template:Cite book</ref> His death is followed within the week by that of Laurence Saunders on February 8 in Coventry, and Rowland Taylor, Rector of Hadleigh, Suffolk, and John Hooper, deposed Bishop of Gloucester on February 9.
February 26 – The Muscovy Company is chartered in England to trade with the Tsardom of Russia<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Goldsmid, E. (ed.) (1886). The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation, collected by Richard Hakluyt, Preacher, Vol. III: North-Eastern Europe and Adjacent Countries, Part II: The Muscovy Company and the North-Eastern Passage. Edinburgh: E. & G. Goldsmid. pp. 101-112.</ref> and Richard Chancellor negotiates with the Tsar.
March 25 – Valencia, Venezuela, is founded by Captain Alonso Díaz Moreno.

April–June

April 9 – Marcello Cervini degli Spannocchi is unanimously chosen as the successor to Pope Julius III, who died on March 23, and takes the name of Pope Marcellus II as the 222nd Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church. He will reign for 22 days.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
April 17 – After 18 months of siege, the Republic of Siena surrenders to the Florentine–Imperial army.
May 1 – Foundation of St John's College, Oxford, England, to teach Catholic theology.
May 30 – Foundation of Trinity College, Oxford, England, to teach Catholic theology.
May 15 – The conclave opens with 42 of the 56 Roman Catholic cardinals to choose a successor to Pope Marcellus II, who had died on May 1.<ref>Chacón, col. 810-811; Panvinio, s. 427-428; por. Setton, s. 617.</ref>
May 23 – Giovanni Pietro Carafa, Cardinal of Naples, is elected as the new Pope after Giacomo del Pozzo fails to obtain the necessary two-thirds approval.<ref>Pastor, Ludwig von. History of the Popes. T. 14. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1924</ref> Carafa, the 223rd Pope, takes the name Pope Paul IV.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
May 25 – Jeanne d'Albret becomes the Queen of Navarre upon the death of her father, King Henry II.<ref name="Love2001">Template:Cite book</ref>
June 1 – The Treaty of Amasya between the Ottoman Empire and Safavid Persia concludes the Ottoman-Safavid War.
June 22 – Adil Shah Suri becomes the Sultan of the Sur Empire at Delhi in India after Sikandar Shah Suri is forced to flee from the Mughal Empire forces.

July–September

July 12 – Pope Paul IV creates the Roman Ghetto, the first Jewish ghetto in Rome.
August 24 – England's Thomas Thirlby, the first and only Roman Catholic Archbishop of Norwich and Queen Mary's envoy to Pope Paul IV, returns to London from bearing a papal bull that confirms Queen Mary's jurisdiction over Ireland.<ref>Template:DNB</ref>
September 25 – The Peace of Augsburg is signed between Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, and the Lutheran Schmalkaldic League, establishing the principle Cuius regio, eius religio, that is, rulers within the Empire can choose the religion of their realm.
September – The 1555 Kashmir earthquake causes widespread destruction and death in Kashmir, India.<ref name="NOAA">Template:Cite web</ref>

October–December

October 16
- (1st day of 10th month Tenbun 24) – At the Battle of Miyajima Island, Mori Motonari defeats Sue Harukata.<ref>Stephen R. Turnbull, The Samurai: A Military History, ( New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1977) pp. 131–134</ref>
- The first two Protestant Oxford Martyrs, Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, are burned at the stake in England.
October 25 – Charles V abdicates as Holy Roman Emperor and is succeeded by his brother Ferdinand.
November 1 – French Navy Vice-Admiral Nicolas Durand de Villegaignon leads a small fleet of two ships and 200 soldiers and colonists to take possession of Serigipe Island, near modern-day Rio de Janeiro in Brazil at Guanabara Bay, and builds Fort Coligny.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
November 13 – Thomas Cranmer is officially removed from office as the Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury by order of Pope Paul IV and Queen Mary I.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
December 11 – Cardinal Reginald Pole is made a cardinal-priest in the Roman Catholic Church and made the administrator of the See of Canterbury in England,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> though he will not become the new Archbishop of Canterbury until the following March 20.

Date unknown

Russia breaks a 60-year-old truce with Sweden by attacking Finland.
Humayun resumes rule of the Mughal Empire.
The Adal Sultanate in the Horn of Africa collapses.
English captain John Lok returns from Guinea, with five Africans to train as interpreters for future trading voyages.
Richard Eden publishes The Decades of the Newe Worlde or West India, a translation into English of parts of Pietro Martire d'Anghiera's De orbe novo decades, the Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés work Natural hystoria de las Indias and others, urging his countrymen to follow the lead of Spain in exploring the New World;<ref>Template:Cite ODNB</ref> the work includes the first recorded use in English of the country name 'China'.
Establishment in England of the following grammar schools: Boston Grammar School, Gresham's School at Holt, Norfolk (founded by Sir John Gresham) and Ripon Grammar School (re-foundation).
William Annyas becomes the Mayor of Youghal, Ireland, the first Jew to hold such a position in Ireland.<ref name="Affairs1987">Template:Cite book</ref>
John Dee is charged, but cleared, of treason in England.
Orlande de Lassus' first book of madrigals is published, in Antwerp.