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1554 CE

This year falls in the Early modern period (c. 1500–1800). European ships link the Americas, Africa, Europe and Asia into one trading world, and the conquest of the Americas and the Atlantic slave trade follow. Large land empires, among them the Ottoman, Safavid, Mughal and Qing, rule much of Asia, while printing and the Scientific Revolution change how knowledge spreads in Europe.

Within fifteen years

Philosopher · Early modern period · EnglandFrancis Bacon1561–1626English statesman and writer who rose to Lord Chancellor under James I, then fell on a bribery charge. His Novum Organum called for a new logic of experiment to replace Aristotle's. He lived 1561 to 1626.

Ruler · Early modern period · JapanTokugawa Ieyasu1543–1616Founder of the Tokugawa shogunate, shogun from 1603, born in 1543 and dead in 1616. His victory at Sekigahara in 1600 ended a century of civil war in Japan. The shogunate he built ruled Japan in peace for more than two hundred and fifty years.

Ruler · Early modern period · IndiaAkbar1542–1605Mughal emperor from 1556 to 1605, born in 1542, who built the Mughal Empire into India's dominant power. He conquered northern and central India, reformed taxation, and practiced unusual religious tolerance for his age, debating with Jesuits, Hindus and Jains at his court. His reign is the classic age of Mughal India.