1569
| Years: 1566 1567 1568 - 1569 - 1570 1571 1572 | |
| Decades: 1530s 1540s 1550s - 1560s - 1570s 1580s 1590s | |
| Centuries: 15th century - 16th century - 17th century | |
- January 11 - First recorded lottery in England.
- March 13 - Battle of Jarnac - Royalist troops under Marshal Gaspard de Tavannes surprise and defeat the Huguenots under the Prince of Condé, who is captured and murdered. A substantial proportion of the Huguenot army manages to escape under Gaspard de Coligny.
- June 10 - German Protestant troops reinforce Coligny near Limoges
- July - September - Huguenot forces under Coligny and 15 year-old Prince Henry of Navarre besiege Poitiers
- August 24 - Battle of Orthez - Huguenot forces under Gabriel de Montgomery defeat Royalist forces under General Terride in French Navarre
- September - A Royalist army under the Duc d'Anjou and Marshal Tavannes forces Coligny to abandon the siege of Poitiers
- October 3 - Battle of Moncountour - The Royalist forces of Tavannaes and Anjou defeat Coligny's Huguenots.
- Gerardus Mercator devises the Mercator projection
- Assemblies of 3 Lithuanian provinces, Volhynia, Ukraine and Podlasie vote to be incorporated into Poland.
- Poland and Lithuania are united in the Union of Lublin. They form Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
- March 13 - Louis I de Bourbon, Prince de Condé - Prince of the Blood, leader of the Huguenots in France
- Pieter Brueghel the Elder - Flemish painter