Year 1558 (MDLVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events January–June January 7 – French troops, led by Francis, Duke of Guise, take Calais, the last continental possession of the Kingdom of England, in the Siege of Calais. January 22 – The Livonian War begins. February 2 – The University of Jena is founded in Thuringia, Germany. February 5 – Arauco War: Pedro de Avendaño, with sixty men, captures Caupolicán (the Mapuche Gran Toqui), who is leading their first revolt against the Spanish Empire (near Antihuala), encamped with a small band of followers. March 8 – The city of Pori () was founded by Duke John on the shores of the Gulf of Bothnia. April 24 – Mary, Queen of Scots, marries Francis, Dauphin of France, at Notre Dame de Paris. July–December July 13 – Battle of Gravelines: In France, Spanish forces led by Lamoral, Count of Egmont defeat the French forces of Marshal Paul de Thermes. July 18 – The city of Tartu, capital of the Bishopric of Dorpat (in modern-day Estonia) surrenders to Russia. October 17 – Postal history of Poland: King Sigismund II Augustus appoints an Italian merchant living in Kraków to organise a consolidated postal service in Poland, the origin of Poczta Polska. November 17 – The Elizabethan era begins in England: Catholic Queen Mary dies, and is succeeded by her younger Protestant half-sister Elizabeth, who will rule for 44 years. Unknown John Knox's attack on female rulers, The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstruous Regiment of Women, is published anonymously from Geneva. English explorer Anthony Jenkinson travels from Moscow to Astrakhan and Bukhara. He is the first Englishman to note that the Amu Darya changed course, to start flowing into the Aral Sea. Queen Elizabeth I of England grants rest and refreshment to pilgrims and travellers who pass by the Holy Well Spring at Malvern in England. Ongoing 1557 influenza pandemic. Births January or February – Hendrik Goltzius, Dutch painter (d. 1617) January 16 – Jakobea of Baden, Margravine of Baden by birth, Duchess of Jülich-Cleves-Berg by marriage (d. 1597) January 29 – Paul Hentzner, German lawyer (d. 1623) March 7 – Johann VII, Duke of Mecklenburg, Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1576–1592) (d. 1592) April 30 – Mikołaj Oleśnicki the younger, Polish noble (d. 1629) June 15 – Margrave Andrew of Burgau, German