| 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. |
| 1542–1549 | New Spain, Central America [colonization] | The Spanish conquistador leader Francisco de Montejo subdues bitter resistance by the Maya in the southern half of the Yucatán Peninsula in Central America. Their resistance causes him to abandon attempts to conquer the rest of the peninsula. |
| 13 February 1542 | England [crime and punishment] | King Henry VIII of England has Catherine Howard, his fifth wife, beheaded in the Tower of London for adultery. |
| 21 May 1542 | Spain, North America [exploration] | After the death of Hernando de Soto, leader of the Spanish expedition to southeastern North America, the remnants of his expedition return to New Spain (Mexico) by raft the following year. With the failure of Francisco Vázquez de Coronado's western expedition, this deters the Spanish from further exploration north of the Caribbean. |
| July 1542 | France, Sweden, Habsburg Monarchy [treaties] | King Francis I of France signs a treaty of alliance with King Gustavus I Vasa of Sweden against the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and his advancement of Dorothea, daughter of the former king Christian II, towards the Scandinavian crowns. |
| August 1542 | Denmark-Norway, France, Holy Roman Empire, Spanish Netherlands [political events] | King Christian III of Denmark-Norway, allied with King Francis I of France against the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V's attempts to install the Catholic daughter of the former king Christian II, Dorothea, on the Danish throne, declares war and closes the Sound, and thus the Baltic, to shipping from the Netherlands. |
| 15 October 1542 | Mogul Empire [births and deaths] | Akbar, Mogul emperor of India 1556–1605, who brought most of India under Mogul rule, born (–1605). |
| November 1542 | Sweden [wars] | The peasant insurgents under the Swedish bandit Nils Dacke, rising against enforcement of the Reformation in Sweden, gain a truce from King Gustavus I Vasa by their defeat of royal forces in the Dacke War. |
| 8 December 1542 | Scotland [births and deaths] | Mary Queen of Scots, Queen of Scotland 1542–67, who was deposed because of her marital affairs and political incompetence and was forced to flee to England, born in Linlithgow Palace, Lothian, Scotland (–1587). |
| 14 December 1542 | Scotland [political events] | Following the death of King James V of Scotland ‘of a broken heart’ on hearing the news of the bloody Scottish defeat at Solway Moss, he is succeeded by his six-day-old daughter, Mary Queen of Scots. Cardinal David Beaton claims the regency. |
