April 28 – The English Parliament meets for the first time since 1536, after being summoned by King Henry VIII as his seventh Parliament.
May 5 – The English House of Lords creates a committee, balanced between religious reformers and religious conservatives, to examine and determine doctrine, eventually forming the "Six Articles".
July 18 – The siege of Castelnuovo (now the town of Herceg Novi in Montenegro) is started by General Hayreddin 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 the Holy Land. With 50,000 Ottomans against less than 4,000 Spanish defenders, Castelnuovo falls in less than three weeks.[5]
The siege 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 17 – The revolt of Ghent begins in the Spanish Netherlands (now Belgium as members of the city's guilds 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]
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 surrendering Fountains Abbey to the English Crown.[9]
December 27 – Anne of Cleves arrives in England in fulfillment of the October 4 contract for marriage to King Henry VIII and the payment of a dowry of 100,000 florins to her brother. The Anne and Henry are married 10 days later, but the marriage is annulled on July 12.
Teseo Ambrogio's Introductio in Chaldaicam lingua, Syriaca atq Armenica, & dece alias linguas, published in Pavia, introduces several Middle Eastern languages to western Europe for the first time.
^Everett, Jason M., ed. (2006). "1539". The People's Chronology. Thomson Gale.
^ abArsenal, León; Prado, Fernando (2008). Rincones de historia española (in Spanish). EDAF. pp. 26–34. ISBN978-84-414-2050-2.
^Martínez Laínez, Fernando; Sánchez de Toca Catalá; José María (2006). Tercios de España: la infantería legendaria (in Spanish). Madrid: EDAF. p. 116. ISBN978-84-414-1847-9.
^"The Press in Colonial America"(PDF). A Publisher’s History of American Magazines — Background and Beginnings. Archived from the original(PDF) on June 27, 2016. Retrieved August 22, 2013.
^Frieda, Leonie (2013). The deadly sisterhood : a story of women, power and intrigue in the Italian Renaissance, 1427-1527 (Paperback ed.). London: Phoenix. p. 358. ISBN978-0-7538-2844-1.