1587

1587 (MDLXXXVII) was a common year beginning on a Thursday of the Gregorian calendar and a year common started on a Sunday of the Julian calendar.

Events

• The works for the construction of the Chancellery Palace (Grenada) were completed in 1531.
• December 29: At the Teatro de la Cruz in Madrid (Spain) the police arrested and imprisoned Lope de Vega, accused of defamation.
• April 29: in the south of Spain, the British corsair Francis Drake looted Cadiz.
• August 31: A great earthquake causes much destruction in San Antonio de Pichincha and neighboring villages (in the current country of Ecuador). Big and deep cracks that sparked black water and bad smell. In Guallabamba: huge cracks. Many houses collapsed in Cayambe. Overflow and flooding in Lake St. Paul. Chronicles say that the earthquake "lived about half an hour": it follows that there were many immediate replicas. The replicas continued for several days. More than 160 dead.

• In Roanoke (Virginia) The first colony of Anglo-speaking America was founded.
• In Rome, Italy, Pope Sixtus V approves Letter from the Blessed Virgin Mary.
• In the Safavida Empire, the Sha Abás, whose reign marks the political and cultural apogee of the dynasty, has entered the throne.

Art and literature

• Isabean Theatre.
• Christopher Marlowe.
• Tamerlan.
• Torcuato Tasso: poetic letters.
• The heirs of the writer Nicolo Machiavelli edit Florentine stories 60 years after his death.

Science and technology

• Giordano Bruno: From the Lulian combination lamp.

Births

• January 5: Xu Xiake, Chinese geographer (f. 1641).
• January 6: Gaspar de Guzmán, a Spanish aristocrat known as the Count of Olivares (f. 1645).
• September 18: Francesca Caccini, Italian composer and singer (f. after 1641).
• Masatomo Sumitomo, Japanese businessman, founder of the company Sumitomo (which currently exists).

Deaths

• 8 February: Mary Stuart, Scottish queen.
• Adriaen Coenen, Fisherman and amateur biologist