Events

• February 8 - Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, rebels against Elizabeth I of England - revolt is quickly crushed
• February 25 - Robert Devereux beheaded

• Jesuit Matteo Ricci arrives in China
• Bad harvest in Russia due to rainy summer
• Dutch troops drive Portuguese from Malaga
• Battle of Kinsale, Ireland

Year in topic

• 1601 in literature:
  • Mark Twain's 1601, subtitled "Conversation, as it was by the Social Fireside , in the Time of the Tudors", is a vulgar satire supposedly taken from Pepys' diaries.

Births

• May 2 - Athanasius Kircher, German Jesuit scholar
• August 20 - Pierre de Fermat, French mathematician
• September 27 - King Louis XIII of France (d. 1643)

Deaths

• Tycho Brahe - Danish astronomer
• Scipione Ammirato - Italian historian