Year1539 (MDXXXIX) was acommon year starting on Wednesday of theJulian calendar.

• January 4 –Giannandrea Giustiniani Longo is elected two a two year term asDoge of theRepublic of Genoa in Italy, succeedingGiovanni Battista Doria.
• January 12 –Treaty of Toledo:Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (andCharles I of Spain) andFrancis I of France agree to make no further alliances withEngland. The treaty comes afterHenry VIII of England'ssplit with Rome andPope Paul III.
• January –Toungoo–Hanthawaddy War –Battle of Naungyo,Burma: The Toungoos decisively defeat the Hanthawaddys.
• February 9 – The first horse race is held atChester Racecourse, the oldest in use inEngland.^[1]
• March 1 – King Henry VIII of England summons Parliament to meet, with the session to start on April 28.
• March 2 –Askia Isma'il, ruler of theSonghai Empire inWest Africa, dies after a reign of slightly less than two years and is succeeded byAskia Ishaq I.
• March 30 –Canterbury Cathedral surrenders, and reverts to its previous status of 'a college of secular canons.

• April 17 – AtDresden in Germany,Heinrich IV of theHouse of Wettin, nicknamed "Heinrich der Fromme" (Henry the Pious) becomes the newDuke of Saxony within theHoly Roman Empire upon the death of his older brother,Georg der Bärtige ("George the Bearded").
• April 19 – TheTreaty of Frankfurt is signed atFrankfurt-am-Main byCharles V, Holy Roman Emperor on behalf of the Empire's Roman Catholic states, and the Lutheran theologianPhilip Melanchthon, representative of theSchmalkaldic League of Protestant German states.^[2] Effective May 1, the parties agree that no violent actions will be taken by either side against the other during a 15 month truce period.^[3]
• April 28 – TheEnglish Parliament meets for the first time since 1536, after being summoned by King Henry VIII as his seventh Parliament.
• May 5 – The EnglishHouse of Lords creates a committee, balanced between religious reformers and religious conservatives, to examine and determine doctrine, eventually forming the "Six Articles".
• May 25 – The inaugural declaration of theProtestant Reformation takes place inLeipzig (now part of Germany) withMartin Luther present, as Duke Henry IV pledges to adoptLutheranism as the official religion of make theDuchy of Saxony.
• May 30 –Hernando de Soto lands atTampa Bay,Florida with 600 soldiers, with the goal of findinggold. He also introducespigs intoNorth America.
• June 26 –Battle of Chausa in modern-dayBuxar,India:Sher Shah Suri defeats theMughal emperor,Humayun (Sher Shah goes on to form theSur Empire, and take control of nearly all Mughal territory).
• June 28 – TheSix Articles, anAct of theParliament of England, is givenroyal assent reaffirms certainCatholic principles inHenry VIII'sChurch of England.^[4]

• July 13 –Lütfi Pasha becomes the newGrand vizier of the Ottoman Empire after being appointed by the SultanSuleiman the Great following the death ofAyas Mehmed Pasha
• July 18 – Thesiege of Castelnuovo (now the town ofHerceg Novi inMontenegro) is started by GeneralHayreddin Barbarossa, leader of the Ottoman Empire's Army, after the Spanish commanding officer,Francisco de Sarmiento, rejects an offer of honorable surrender with safe passage. Spain had taken the city in war from the Ottomans in 1538, giving the Christian Europeans control of the eastern Mediterranean sea and access to theHoly Land. With 50,000 Ottomans against less than 4,000 Spanish defenders, Castelnuovo falls in less than three weeks.^[5]
• Thesiege of Castelnuovo ends after 19 days and the deaths of as many as 20,000 of the Ottoman attackers. After the city falls, almost all of the surviving Spanish defenders are executed, including Spain's General de Sarmiento.^[6][5]
• August 15 – KingFrancis I of France issues theOrdinance of Villers-Cotterêt, that places the whole ofFrance under the jurisdiction of the royal law courts, and makesFrench the language of those courts, and the official language of legal discourse.
• August 17 – Therevolt of Ghent begins in theSpanish Netherlands (nowBelgium as members of the city'sguilds demand the right to choose their own leaders, and the resignation of the Spanish-sponsored city leaders. Within four days, the city is under the control of nine guild leaders.^[7]
• September 7 –Guru Angad Dev becomes the second Guru of theSikhs.

• October 4 –Henry VIII contracts to marryAnne of Cleves.^[8]
• November 1 –Joachim II Hector introduces Lutheranism in the Margraviate of Brandenburg, becoming the second Prince-Elector after the Prince-Elector of Saxony to turn Protestant.
• November 26 – Abbot Marmaduke Bradley and 31 monks sign the deed surrenderingFountains Abbey to the English Crown.^[9]
• December 7 –Juan Pardo de Tavera, Archbishop of Toledo, begins his administration as the Grand Inquisitor of Spain.^[10]
• December 15 – In the Spanish colony ofNueva Granada (now the Republic ofColombia, Spanish conquistadorBaltasar Maldonado and his troops fight a final battle atDuitama (now theBoyacá Department) against the indigenous armies of theMuisca Confederation, led byTundama.^[11]
• December 27 –Anne of Cleves arrives inEngland in fulfillment of the October 4 contract for marriage to King Henry VIII and the payment of a dowry of 100,000florins to her brother. The Anne and Henry are married 10 days later, but the marriage is annulled on July 12.

• Protestant Reformation
  • Lutheranism is forcibly introduced intoIceland, despite the opposition of BishopJón Arason.
  • Beaulieu Abbey,Bolton Abbey,Colchester Abbey,Newstead Abbey,St Albans Abbey,St Mary's Abbey, York andHartland Abbey (the last) fall prey to theDissolution of the Monasteries in England.
  • The first edition of theCalvinistGenevan Psalter is published.
• InHenan province,China, a severe drought with swarms of locusts is made worse, by a majorepidemic outbreak of theplague.
• The first printing press inNorth America is set up inMexico City.^[12]
• Teseo Ambrogio'sIntroductio in Chaldaicam lingua, Syriaca atq Armenica, & dece alias linguas, published inPavia, introduces several Middle Eastern languages to western Europe for the first time.

• January 28 –Nicolò Donato, Doge of Venice (d.1618)
• February 13 –Elisabeth of Hesse, Electress Palatine by marriage (1576-1582) (d.1582)
• February 23
  • Henry XI of Legnica, thrice Duke of Legnica (d.1588)
  • Salima Sultan Begum, Empress of the Mughal Empire as a wife of Emperor Akbar (d.1613)
• February 27 –Franciscus Raphelengius, Dutch printer (d.1597)
• March 5 –Christoph Pezel, German theologian (d.1604)
• March 18 –Maria of Nassau, Countess of Nassau (d.1599)
• April 5 –George Frederick, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach (d.1603)
• April 6 –Amalia of Neuenahr, German noble (d.1602)
• April 7
  • Tobias Stimmer, Swiss artist (d.1584)
  • Strange Jørgenssøn, Norwegian businessman (d.1610)
• April 30 –Archduchess Barbara of Austria, Austrian archduchess (d.1572)
• May 22 –Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford (d.1621)
• May 29 –Thomas Pounde, English Jesuit lay brother (d.1613)
• June 6 –Catherine Vasa, Regent of East Frisia (1599-1610) (d.1610)
• June 13 –Jost Amman, Swiss printmaker (d.1591)
• June 23 –William Darrell of Littlecote, English politician (d.1589)
• July 4 –Louis VI, Elector Palatine (d.1583)
• September 18 –Louis Gonzaga, Duke of Nevers, Italian-French dignitary and diplomat (d.1595)
• October 1 –Peter Vok, Czech noble (d.1611)
• November 1 –Pierre Pithou, French lawyer and scholar (d.1596)
• December 5 –Fausto Paolo Sozzini, Italian theologian (d.1604)
• December 20 –Paulus Melissus, German composer (d.1602)
• December 31 –John Radcliffe, English politician (d.1568)
• date unknown
  • José Luis Carvajal y de la Cueva, Portuguese explorer (d.1590)
  • Hasegawa Tōhaku, Japanese painter (d.1610)
  • Laurence Tomson, English Calvinist (d.1608)
  • Humphrey Gilbert, English adventurer, explorer, member of Parliament and soldier (d.1583)

• January 24 –Anneke Esaiasdochter, Dutch Anabaptist writer (b.1509)
• February –Narapati of Prome, king ofProme in Burma.
• February 6 –John III, Duke of Cleves (b.1491)
• February 13 –Isabella d'Este, Marquise of Mantua (b.1474)^[13]
• March 5 –Nuno da Cunha, Portuguese governor in India (b.1487)
• March 12 –Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire, English diplomat and politician (b.1477)
• March 19 –Lord Edmund Howard, English nobleman (b. c.1478))
• April 17 –George, Duke of Saxony (b.1471)
• April 19 –Katarzyna Weiglowa, Jewish martyr (b.1460)
• April 30 –John Bourchier, 1st Earl of Bath, English noble (b.1470)
• May 1 –Isabella of Portugal, Holy Roman Empress (b.1503)^[14]
• May 7 –Ottaviano Petrucci, Italian printer (b.1466)
• May 7 orSeptember 22 –Guru Nanak, founder of Sikhism (b.1469)
• June 20 –Philip III, Count of Waldeck-Eisenberg (1524–1539) (b.1486)
• July 5 –St Anthony Maria Zaccaria, Italian saint (b.1502)
• July 9 –Adrian Fortescue, English Roman Catholic martyr (b.1476)
• August –Vannoccio Biringuccio, Italian metallurgist (b.1480)
• September 8 –John Stokesley, English prelate (b.1475)^[15]
• November 14 –Hugh Cook Faringdon, English Abbot of Reading
• December 12 –Bartolomeo degli Organi, Italian musician (b.1474)
• December 20 –Johannes Lupi, Flemish composer (b. c.1506)
• date unknown
  • James Beaton, Scottish church leader (b.1473)
  • Cura Ocllo, Inca queen