| 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. |
| 1543 | Poland [astronomy] | The Polish astronomer and priest Nicholas Copernicus has finally worked out to his satisfaction the details of the heliocentric theory, and they are published in his most important work De revolutionibus orbium coelestium/On the Revolutions of the Celestial Sphere as he lies dying of a cerebral haemorrhage. |
| 1543 | England [historical study] | The History of Richard the Third by the English statesman and scholar Thomas More is published posthumously. A landmark in the development of English historical writing, it was written between 1513 and 1518. It is the source for the Shakespeare play Richard III. |
| 31 January 1543 | Japan [births and deaths] | Tokugawa Ieyasu (original name Tokugawa Takechiyo), Japanese shogun (military ruler), founder of the Tokugawa (or Edo) shogunate, born in Okazaki, Japan (–1616). |
| February 1543 | Sweden [wars] | The peasant armies in Småland, Sweden, under the bandit leader Nils Dacke, are crushed by troops under King Gustavus I Vasa, ending the Dacke War over enforcement of the Reformation in Sweden. Dacke dies in battle, the other leaders are executed, and the county made to pay a fine. |
| 21 February 1543 | Ethiopia, Adal [wars] | The Ethiopian forces of Emperor Galawdewos (Claudius) ambush the army of Adal at Weyna Dega near Lake Tana, Ethiopia, killing its leader Ahmad Grañ; the invasion force withdraws and Adali attempts to conquer Ethiopia come to an end. |
| 24 May 1543 | Prussia, Poland [births and deaths] | Nicolaus Copernicus, Polish astronomer, who put forward the theory that the Earth revolved about its axis and around the Sun, dies in Frauenberg, East Prussia, now Frombork, Poland (70). |
| 12 July 1543 | England [political events] | King Henry VIII of England marries Catherine Parr, widow of Lord Latimer; she is his sixth wife. |
| 4 September 1543 | Ottoman Empire, Holy Roman Empire, Hungary [Habsburg–Ottoman Wars (1525–1718)] | Ottoman forces under Sultan Suleiman I the Magnificent assault and take the fortress of Székesfehérvár (Stuhlweissenberg), Hungary, southwest of Buda (now Budapest). The sultan returns to Constantinople, having strengthened the Danube frontier. |
