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| 1551–62 |
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| Renewed war with the Habsburgs. In 1551 the Habsburgs occupied Transylvania, an Ottoman vassal principality. An Ottoman military expedition took Temesvar (July 1552) and most of Transylvania and organized southern Transylvania as the province of Temesvar. The war continued intermittently for another decade in sieges on the frontier and naval clashes in the Mediterranean. The peace agreement signed on June 1, 1562, essentially restored the settlement of 1547. The Habsburgs renounced their claims to Transylvania. | 1 |
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| 1552 |
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| Ottoman occupation of the region of Hasa (al-Ahsa) in eastern Arabia, which was organized as an Ottoman province. | 2 |
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| 1553 |
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| Sultan Suleyman put to death his son Mustafa, governor of Amasya, for building political support for a possible uprising. This removed from the scene the ablest of the princes. | 3 |
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| 1553–55 |
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| Suleyman's third Iranian campaign. His forces ravaged parts of Iran but failed to force a showdown with the shah's army, which withdrew into the mountains of Luristan. In the peace agreement signed at Amasya (May 29, 1555), the shah recognized the existing boundaries and promised to end his propaganda and raids into Ottoman territory. | 4 |
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| 1554 |
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| Death of Piri Reis (b. 1465), the greatest Ottoman admiral and naval hero of the 16th century. In 1521 he wrote a major geographical compendium, Kitab-i Bahriye (Book of the Sea), which compiled knowledge on the seas and navigation as well as his own maritime experience. He also produced (in 1513) a map of the known world in two parts, of which the western portion only has survived. | 5 |
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| 1554 |
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| The Portuguese defeated an Ottoman fleet off Hormuz, frustrating Ottoman attempts to gain control of the Persian Gulf. The gulf remained largely closed to Ottoman shipping thereafter. | 6 |
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| 1554–66 |
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| Construction in Damascus of the religious college (madrasa) and Sufi lodge (takiyya) of Sultan Suleyman, built in the Ottoman imperial style by the great architect Sinan. | 7 |
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| 1555 |
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| A major revolt against the sultan, led by a man claiming to be the dead prince Mustafa, who had supposedly escaped execution. This Mustafa gathered around him discontented holders of timars (military fiefs), peasants, and members of the religious establishment unhappy with the dominance of the devshirme (slave) class in Istanbul. The rebels captured most of Macedonia and Thrace and distributed to the masses wealth seized from government officials. Suleyman's son Bayezid suppressed the revolt and executed its leader. | 8 |
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| c. 1555 |
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| The introduction of coffee and coffeehouses to Istanbul, reportedly by two merchants from Syria. The innovations, which gained great popularity throughout the region, stirred debates among religious scholars, some of whom condemned them as sources of indolence and spiritual laxity. | 9 |
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| 1556 |
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| Death of Mehmed Fuzuli, one of the greatest 16th-century poets. Working in Baghdad under the Safavids and later the Ottomans, he wrote verses in Persian and Turkish that dwelt on mystic love, the unity of divine creation, and the tragic martyrdom of the Shi’ite heroes Hasan and Husayn. His Leyla and Mejnun, a poem on platonic love built on a classic theme, is considered his masterpiece. | 10 |
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| 1557 |
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| The Ottomans captured the ports of Suakin and Massawa on the African shores of the Red Sea, which allowed them to revive for a time the old international trade routes through Egypt. Shortly thereafter they occupied a strip of the hinterland, which became a new province known as Habesh (Abyssinia), governed from Massawa. | 11 |
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| 1559 |
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| Suleyman's son Selim defeated his brother Bayezid in a battle over the succession, fought near Konya. Selim was appointed heir to the sultan, and Bayezid, who had fled to Iran, was executed there at Suleyman's request. | 12 |
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