16th century

The  was of particular interest to the Doctor, mainly for a few events that he kept revisiting. He was particularly fascinated by the political and human transition from the reign of Jane Grey to Mary I to Elizabeth I, having attended all three queens at various points. He was also intensely interested in the life and career of William Shakespeare, whom he ran into at several points, both at the end of this century and the beginning of the next.


 * 1500: The Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith are briefly seen as ghosts. (MA: The Ghosts of N-Space, BBCR: The Ghosts of N-Space)


 * 1505: The Doctor arrives at Leonardo da Vinci's studio from the year 1979 seeking clues to Count Scarlioni's plot to steal the Mona Lisa in that year. He discovers that Leonardo is painting copies of his most famous work for his new patron, Captain Tancredi. He learns that both Scarlioni and Tancredi are temporal splinters of the same person, Scaroth, last of the Jagaroth. After being briefly captured and interrogated by Tancredi, the Doctor escapes back to 1979 after writing "This is a fake" on Leonardo's canvasses in felt tip. (DW: City of Death)


 * 1519: Hernando Cortez lands on the shores of Mexico, according to the First Doctor (DWN: The Aztecs) and Bernice Summerfield. (NA: The Left-Handed Hummingbird)
 * 1520: According to Barbara Wright and Susan Foreman, Hernando Cortez landed in Mexico this year and began his conquest of the Aztecs. (DW: The Aztecs)
 * 1526: On 23rd March, the Doctor and Amy Pond arrive in the lost city of Anglica and face Weeping Angels. (VG: Angels in the Shadows)


 * 1540: The Haemovariform's shooting star crashes in the Glen of St Catherine. (TS: Tardisode 2)


 * 6th Juy 1553: King Edward VI dies and his will removes Mary and Elizabeth from the succession and appoints Lady Jane Grey as his heir.
 * 1553: The Doctor meets Lady Jane Grey. Mary I of England deposes Jane Grey and imprisons her in the Tower of London under charges of treason. (ST: The Nine-Day Queen) Rani Chandra arrives from the future and saves Jane from a murder attempt. (SJA: Lost in Time)
 * 1554: The Doctor visits Jane Grey in the Tower of London just prior to her execution. (BFA: The Marian Conspiracy)
 * Jane Grey is beheaded for treason by Mary I of England. The Doctor foresaw this, but knew he could not prevent it. (VD: The Nine-Day Queen)
 * Mary I of England enacts Heresy Laws against English Protestants, especially those who voice support for her sister, Elizabeth. (BFA: The Marian Conspiracy)
 * 1555: In January, the Doctor visits England with Evelyn Smythe, a history lecturer from 2000, in pursuit of the source of a temporal nexus that is causing Smythe's family to disappear from the timestream. Posing as Queen Mary's physician, the Doctor discovers that it is Smythe's own actions in encouraging an attempt on Mary's life that are paradoxically causing the nexus. Averting these attempts - after a spell in the Tower of London - the TARDIS leaves England, with Mary praying for the Doctor to return and the safe birth of an heir, neither of which come to pass. (BFA: The Marian Conspiracy)


 * The Doctor and Chris Cwej arrive in feudal Japan, encountering Penelope Gate and Joel Mintz. (NA: The Room With No Doors)
 * 1562: Over 25 Huguenots are killed at Wassy by Francis, Duke of Guise. The act starts the First War of Religion in France and is noted ten years later when the First Doctor and Steven Taylor visit France. (DW: The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve)


 * 1568: The Doctor and Evelyn Smythe meet John Dee. (ST: Mortlake)
 * 1572: The Doctor and Steven Taylor visit Paris. (DW: The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve)
 * Boscombe Hall was built on the former site of the Convent of the Little Sisters of St. Gudula at Boscombe. Earlier in the century, Henry VIII had sealed the unhappy fate of the convent, headed by Cessair of Diplos posing as its Mother Superior, by conducting his so-called "Dissolution of the Monasteries" campaign. (DW: The Stones of Blood)


 * The Doctor takes Amy and Rory to Venice for a romantic break before their wedding, only to battle the last of the Saturnynians. (DW: The Vampires of Venice)
 * 1582: The Doctor and Ace make a stopover in Rome during their search for the Timewyrm. (NA: Timewyrm: Revelation)
 * 1587: The west wing of Chase Mansion is completed. (DW: The Seeds of Doom)
 * The Greld attack the Roanoke colony, implanting mind-control devices in the colonists together with components of a meta-cobalt bomb. Christopher Marlowe escapes and returns to England with a Greld control device in his brain. (MA: The Empire of Glass)
 * 1588: The Doctor is playing nine pins or bowls with Francis Drake when Drake is called away to fight the Spanish Armada. The Doctor lets Drake win so he can get away in time to join the fight. (DW: Four to Doomsday, NA: Birthright)
 * 1589: John Dee returns to England, having parted company with Edward Kelly during their tour of Europe. (MA: Managra)
 * 1593: At some point after August of last year English playwright and spy Christopher Marlowe was mortally wounded during a duel in a London tavern. Marlowe survived, and the control device implanted in his brain by the Greld during their attack on the Roanoke colony was removed by the attending surgeon, who was unaware of its true nature. Some time after his brush with death, Marlowe left London, allowing others to believe him dead. He will later turn up in Venice using the name Giovanni Chigi. (MA: The Empire of Glass)
 * 1594: A Zygon spacecraft, crippled during an attack on its fleet by the Xaranti, crashes on Earth. Its crew hides amongst the human inhabitants of London for the next three centuries. (EDA: The Bodysnatchers)
 * 1597: Mr Chadwick and Gregario join Joanna Harris' vampire coven. (EDA: Vampire Science)

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 * 1599: The Doctor takes Martha Jones to the Globe Theatre in London to meet William Shakespeare. There, the Carrionites attempt to release their brethren and invade Earth, but are stopped by Shakespeare himself. The Doctor meets Queen Elizabeth I for the first time, in his timeline, and she orders her guards to "stop that pernicious Doctor!" The Doctor and Martha narrowly escape (DW: The Shakespeare Code)