| 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. |
| 1545–1547 | Italy [Catholicism] | The first session of the Council of Trent is held in Trent, Italy. A council of the Roman Catholic Church, it is convened to formulate a response to the spread of Protestantism. Other sessions open in 1551 and 1562. |
| 1547–1552 | Russia, Central Asia [wars] | Tsar Ivan IV (‘the Terrible’) of Russia mounts two unsuccessful assaults on Kazan before taking the city and deposing its khan, beginning the Russian conquest of the Tatar lands. |
| January 1547 | Holy Roman Empire, Tirol, Habsburg Monarchy [Catholicism] | A decree of the reforming Catholic Council of Trent in Tirol (present-day Trento, Italy) on the doctrine of justification by faith ends hope of reconciliation with the Lutherans. |
| 16 January 1547 | Russia [political events] | Ivan IV (‘the Terrible’) is crowned as first ‘Tsar of All the Russias’ in Moscow, aged 16. He marries the princess Anastasia Romanovna the following month. |
| 28 January 1547 | England [political events] | Following the death of Henry VIII, king of England 1509–47, at Whitehall, London, England, he is succeeded by his son, Edward VI, aged nine. |
| 28 January 1547 | England [births and deaths] | Henry VIII, king of England 1509–47, who broke with the Roman Catholic Church and had six wives, two of whom he executed and two of whom he divorced, dies in London, England (55). |
| 24 February 1547 | Bavaria, Holy Roman Empire [births and deaths] | Don John of Austria, illegitimate son of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and half-brother of King Philip II of Spain, who defeated the Ottoman Turks at the Battle of Lepanto (1571), born in Regensburg, Bavaria (now Germany) (–1578). |
| 31 March 1547 | France, Scotland [political events] | Following the death of King Francis I of France, he is succeeded by his son Henry II, an outspoken Catholic. Henry is dominated by Francis, duke of Guise, and by his mistress Diane of Poitiers. Guise negotiates the marriage of the dauphin Francis to Mary Queen of Scots. |
| 13 June 1547 | Habsburg Monarchy, Ottoman Empire, Hungary [treaties] | The Archduke Ferdinand I of Austria, king of the Romans (the German king) and of Bohemia, agrees a five-year peace with the Ottoman sultan Suleiman I the Magnificent; he will pay 30,000 ducats annual tribute for the title ‘king of Hungary’ and for control of the northern and western fringes of the kingdom. |
| 20 June 1547 | Holy Roman Empire, Hesse, Germany [Schmalkaldic War (1546–53)] | Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, the sole unconquered member of the German Protestant Schmalkaldic League, surrenders and is taken prisoner by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at Halle, but is assured of his life. |
| 29 September 1547 | Spain [births and deaths] | Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, celebrated Spanish novelist, dramatist, and poet, whose best-known work is Don Quixote (1605, 1615), born in Alcalá de Henares, near Madrid, Spain (–1616). |
