Famous People Born In 1540

Francis Drake was an English explorer and naval officer. He is remembered for his Raiding Expedition, a prominent historical maritime event which unfolded between 1577 and 1580. Although Drake is considered a hero in the United Kingdom, his privateering led the Spanish to refer to him as a pirate. His expedition has also had a major cultural impact in Britain.

Spanish Jesuit missionary José de Acosta had penned the earliest available treatise on the New World, Natural and Moral History of the Indies. While on his mission in Peru, he wrote the first printed book of the country. The altitude sickness he experienced is now named Acosta's disease.

Islamic historian Abd al-Qadir Badayuni was the first Grand Mufti of India. Initially in the service of a local prince in Patiala, he later served Akbar. Known for his treatises such as Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh, he later also translated Sanskrit texts and the Indian epics the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata.

Joseph Justus Scaliger was a French Calvinist scholar and religious leader. His works on chronology were regarded as one of the most important contributions of Renaissance scholars. Joseph Justus Scaliger is best remembered for inflating the idea of classical history from ancient Roman and Greek history to include Babylonian, Persian, ancient Egyptian, and Jewish history. 

French chronicler Pierre de Bourdeille, seigneur de Brantôme began his life as a soldier, traveling across Europe, meeting personalities like Mary, Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I, fighting in important wars, later writing about them in capricious style. Although not a reliable source of history, his posthumously-published Mémoires de Messire Pierre de Bourdeilles provide a picture of the contemporary court-life.

Robert Browne had been in prison 32 times for leading his branch of separatists, the Brownists, who drifted away from the Church of England. His supporters were hanged for circulating his treatises. He gained the nickname The Father of the Pilgrims, due to the Mayflower passengers who followed him.

Catholic Jesuit priest Saint Edmund Campion was hailed as a martyr after being hanged for treason at Tyburn by Queen Elizabeth I’s government. Born to a bookseller in London, Campion taught at Oxford, before being ordained. He was later canonized as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.

Merchant and explorer Olivier Brunel, the first Flemish navigator of the Arctic Ocean, is noted for establishing trade routes between the Netherlands and Russia. He explored northern coast of Russia to search a route to China and the East Indies. He made attempts to find a northeast route and was finally drowned when his ship capsized in the Pechora River.