26 March - Amboise ordinance punishing with a 1,000 pounds fine usurpers of nobility in France.[2]
23 May - Election of Paul IV (Gian Pietro Carafa), 223rd Pope of the Catholic Church (end of the pontificate in 1559).[3] He succeeds Pope Marcellus II, dead after 22 days of reign. He reforms the Dataria and the Inquisition. Coming from an ancient Neapolitan family, traditionally hostile to the Aragonese, he makes an alliance with the King of France to expel the Habsburgs from Naples.
15 and 16 July - The French troops are defeated by the Imperials during the battles of Gimnée and Givet, on the border of Netherlands, and must withdraw.[6]
15 August - Nostradamus, invited by the queen, arrives in Paris[7][8] after passing Lyon.[9] He is received at the Court, in Paris and Blois.
10 November - In Brazil, a French expedition strong of three ships[10] and 600 colonists and directed by Nicolas Durand de Villegaignon, lord of Torcy and vice-admiral of Brittany, settles in the bay of Rio de Janeiro, to constitute the starting point of a Protestant[10] colony called "France Antarctique" (Antarctic France).[11] Around Guanabara, where the colony settles, two tribes, the Tupinambás and the Margaïas fight each other continuously, submitting their respective prisoners to the worst abuse.[12] The colony of Fort Coligny, built by Villegaignon and his nephew Legendre de Boissy[10] on the Villegaignon island, will be destroyed by the Portuguese on 16 March 1560.[10][13]
^Bernard, Roussel (1994). ""Faire la Cène" dans les églises réformées du royaume de France au seizième siècle (CA 1555-CA 1575)". Archives de sciences sociales des religions. 85 (85). EHESS: 99–119. JSTOR30128905.
^Blondeau, P. (1984). Au pays des Rièzes et des Sarts. p. 38.
^Histoire de Genève des origines à 1798, publiée par la Société d'histoire et d'archéologie de Genève. Geneva. 1951. pp. 248–250.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Geneva, Arch., Registres de la Compagnie des Pasteurs, vol. B2, fol. 22v.