| 1533–1545 | Dai Viet [political events] | Nguyen Kim restores the south of Dai Viet to the Le dynasty, governing from Hue. The usurping Mac family remains in control of the north from Hanoi. |
| 1535–1545 | Holy Roman Empire, Spanish Netherlands [crime and punishment] | After the failure of the revolution in Münster and the risings elsewhere, about 30,000 Anabaptists are executed in the Netherlands alone; the remainder follow the new pacifist Dutch prophet Menno Simons and cease to be a political force. |
| March 1537 - March 1540 | England [political events] | The dissolution of the greater monasteries of England and Wales proceeds through inducement, coercion, and the trial and execution of abbots, directed by King Henry VIII's minister Thomas Cromwell. |
| c. 1540 | Europe [agriculture] | The potato is introduced into Europe from the Spanish colonies in South America. Sir Francis Drake introduced potatoes to England a second time in 1586; the first time they didn't take. |
| 1540 | Flanders, Italy, Greece [anatomy] | The Flemish anatomist Andreas Vesalius performs dissections on human cadavers at the University of Bologna. His discoveries contradict the writings of the ancient Greek physician Galen, until now the highest authority. |
| 1540 | Ethiopia [colonization] | The Oromo people of the Horn of Africa begin to advance northwards in a series of eight-yearly campaigns (based on the emergence of new generations of warriors) into the Ethiopian highlands, wresting control from the Ethiopians; they also become the world's major producers of coffee as it gains a steadily wider market. |
| 6 January - 9 July 1540 | England [political events] | King Henry VIII of England marries Anne of Cleves, his minister Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex's German diplomatic trophy, but is repelled by her; he favours his new mistress, Catherine Howard. Cromwell falls from power. |
| May 1540 | Mogul Empire, India [Mughal conquest of India (1526–1707)] | Sher Khan, the rebel Mogul governor of Punjab, who has conquered the Indian kingdom of Bihar in his own right and now rules Delhi, again defeats the Mogul ruler Humayun at Kannauj; Humayun is forced to retreat via Lahore and Rajputana to Sind (modern Pakistan). |
| 23 July 1540 | Hungary, Transylvania, Austria, Habsburg Monarchy, Holy Roman Empire, Ottoman Empire [political events] | Janos Zápolya, Voivode (governor) of Transylvania dies; his infant son John Sigismund is acclaimed king of Hungary. Archduke Ferdinand I of Austria invades on the basis that the 1538 Peace of Nagyvárad stated that he should succeed to the throne of Hungary. His siege of the capital Buda (modern Budapest) in turn provokes the intervention of the Ottoman sultan Suleiman I the Magnificent. |
| 28 July 1540 | England [political events] | King Henry VIII of England marries his young mistress, Catherine Howard, while his minister Thomas Cromwell, earl of Essex, is being executed elsewhere for having arranged his previous (fourth) marriage, to Anne of Cleves. The Lord Treasurer, Thomas Howard, duke of Norfolk, who is Catherine's uncle, becomes his principal minister. |
| 27 September 1540 | Papal States, Italy [political events] | Pope Paul III approves the formation and regulation of the Jesuit Order (The Society of Jesus), as militant Catholic preachers under the Spaniard Ignatius Loyola, by the papal bull Regimini militantis ecclesiae/On the Governance of the Church Militant. |
| 2 October 1540 | Venice, Italy, Ottoman Empire [treaties] | Venice signs a peace treaty with the Ottoman sultan Suleiman I the Magnificent in Constantinople; it surrenders its last fortresses in the Morea (Peloponnese), Napoli, and Monemvasia, and acknowledges the Ottoman conquests in the Cyclades. |
