| 1550–1600 | North America, South America, Europe [trade] | New agricultural products are exchanged between the New and Old Worlds. The Spanish introduce potatoes, tomatoes, quinine, cocoa, tapioca, and tobacco to Europe. From Europe, the New World gains barley, oats, rye, sugar cane, cattle, pigs, poultry, rabbits, and horses. |
| 1590–1600 | China, Ming Empire [wars] | The Chinese warlord Yang Yinglong maintains his rebellion against Ming imperial forces in the Huguang–Sichuan–Guizhou border region of China until veterans of the war in Choson (modern Korea) under Li Hualong annihilate the insurgents. |
| 1590 | Rome [Catholicism] | The Italian churchman Nicolo Sfondrati is elected Pope Gregory XIV. He is pope until 1591. |
| 1590 | Italy [churches and temples] | The dome of St Peter's in Rome, Italy, is completed. The original design of 1546 by Michelangelo (Buonarroti) has been modified by the architect Giacomo della Porta, with the assistance of the architect Domenico Fontana. The Sistine Library in Rome is also completed to Fontana's design. |
| 1590 | England [fiction] | The long prose romance Arcadia by the English courtier and poet Philip Sidney is published posthumously. Most of the book was written in 1580. A new, enlarged edition appears in 1593. |
| 1590 | Spain [historical study] | Spanish missionary José de Acosta publishes Historia natural y moral de las Indias/A Natural and Moral History of the Indies. Rich in details of the flora and fauna of the New World as well as accounts of Pre-Columbian civilization, it is read throughout Europe. An English translation appears in 1604. |
| 1590 | England, Europe [media and communication] | The first regular newspaper, the Mercurius Gallobelgicus is printed in London, England, carrying reports of news from continental Europe. |
| 1590 | England [poetry] | The English poet Edmund Spenser publishes the first three books of his vast poetic work The Faerie Queene. The final volumes appear in 1596. |
| 10 May 1590 | France, Savoy, Italy, Holy Roman Empire [political events] | Cardinal Charles de Bourbon, the Catholic candidate for the French crown, dies; a welter of contenders advance their claims in his place, including Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy, who invades Provence and the Dauphiné. |
| August 1590 | North America, England [colonization] | English navigator John White returns to resupply the colony he founded three years earlier on Roanoke Island (in present-day North Carolina), North America, but the only trace remaining is the word ‘Croatoan’ carved on a tree. |
| 4 August 1590 | Japan [political events] | The Japanese regent Toyotomi Hideyoshi receives the submission of Hojo Ujimasa, his last significant rival, and completes the subjugation of the north by the end of the year, unifying Japan under his rule. |
| 15 September - 5 December 1590 | Papal States, Italy [political events] | Giovanni Battista Castagna is elected as Pope Urban VII, Succeeding Sixtus V who died exactly a month earlier. Pope Urban VII, however, dies after only 13 days in office, and is succeeded in turn by Niccolo Sfondrati on 5 December. |
