Year 1562 (MDLXII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events January–June January 6 – Shane O'Neill of Tír Eoghain pleads his cause at the Palace of Whitehall in London, before Queen Elizabeth I of England, who recognises his status. He returns to Ireland on May 26, and resumes his rebellious activities by November. January 17 – Huguenots are recognized under the Edict of Saint-Germain. January 18 The Council of Trent reconvenes, after a gap of 10 years. Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville's play Gorboduc is performed for the first time, before Queen Elizabeth I of England. It is the first known English tragedy, and the first English language play to employ blank verse. March 1 – Over 80 (?) Huguenots are massacred by the ultra-Catholic Francis, Duke of Guise in Wassy-sur-Blaise, marking the start of the First War of Religion in France. Protestant forces, led by Louis I de Bourbon, Prince de Condé and Gaspard de Coligny, quickly seize control of Orléans, Rouen, and other cities throughout France. March – English merchant Anthony Jenkinson has an audience with Ivan the Terrible in Moscow, before continuing his second expedition through the Grand Duchy of Moscow to Qazvin, capital of the Safavid dynasty in Persia. May 1 – Jean Ribault, French navigator, lands in Florida, and later establishes a Huguenot colony at Charlesfort on Parris Island, South Carolina. July–December July 12 – Fray Diego de Landa, acting Bishop of Yucatan, burns the sacred books of the Maya. August – The Wiesensteig witch trial begins. September 20 – The Treaty of Hampton Court, between Queen Elizabeth I of England and Huguenot leader Louis, Prince of Condé, is signed. September 22 – Maximilian, son of the Emperor Ferdinand I, succeeds as king of the Kingdom of Bohemia. October – Privateer John Hawkins undertakes the first of several slave trading voyages, attacking Portuguese slave ships off the West African coast and forcibly transporting the enslaved Africans onboard to Spanish colonies in the Americas to sell. Hawkins arrives at the island of Hispaniola in the Spanish West Indies, where he illicitly sells the enslaved Africans to local colonists, as his presence is technically in violation of Spanish law. October 4 – English forces under Ambrose Dudley, 3rd Earl of Warwick, land at Le Havre to aid the Huguenots against the French Crown. October 19 –