1581

1581 (MDLXXXI) was a common year starting on Sunday in the Julian calendar.

 Events 
 January 16 – English Parliament outlaws Roman Catholicism
 April 4 – After going around the world Sir Francis Drake is knighted by Elizabeth I.
 July 26 – The Northern Netherlands becomes free from Spain in the Oath of Abjuration.

 Births 
 January 4 – James Ussher, Anglo-Irish priest and scholar
 February 17 – Fausto Poli, Italian Catholic priest
 March 16 – Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft, Dutch historian
 October 9 – Claude Gaspard Bachet de Méziriac, French mathematician
 October 21 – Domenico Zampieri, Italian painter

 Deaths 
 April 25 – Okabe Motonobu, Japanese warrior
 May 31 – Jan Kostka, Polish noble
 June 2 – James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton, regent of Scotland
 July 11 – Peder Skram, Danish senator and naval officer
 July 22 – Richard Cox, English bishop
 August 21 – Sakuma Nobumori, Japanese retainer and samurai
 September 1 – Guru Ram Das, fourth Sikh Guru
 September 30 – Hubert Languet, French diplomat and reformer
 October 9 – Saint Louis Bertrand, Spanish missionary to Latin-America, patron saint of Colombia
 October 23 – Michael Neander, German mathematician and astronomer
 November 7 – Richard Davies, Welsh bishop and scholar