Willem Barentsz’s crew encounters a polar bear…

Naresuan captures the Cambodian capital of Lovek, located halfway between Phnom Penh and the lower end of the Tonle Sap (Great Lake), making Cambodia a vassal of Siam in 1594.

He takes many Cambodian captives to repopulate areas of Siam ravaged in the wars with Myanmar (Burma).

Naresuan also establishes suzerainty over the northern kingdom of Chiang Mai.

An envoy from Hideyoshi reaches Beijing in 1594.

Japan, has withdrawn most of the army from Korea but had left a small garrison in Busan.

The imperial court in Beijing, satisfied with the Japanese overtures dispatches an embassy to allow Hideyoshi the title of "King of Japan" on condition of complete withdrawal of Japanese forces from Korea.

Toyomoti continues Nobunaga’s work and unifies Japan as Kanpaku, or emperor’s regent, though he will never become shogun due to his lower-class pedigree.

The legendary ataman Yermak Timofeyevich had gone on an expedition to conquer Siberia during the reign of Tsar Ivan IV of Russia.

After defeating Khan Kuchum in the fall of 1582 and occupying Isker, the capital of the Siberian Khanate, Yermak sent a Cossack detachment down the Irtysh in the winter of 1583.

The detachment led by Bogdan Bryazga (according to other sources, the Cossack chieftain Nikita Pan) had passed through the lands of the Konda-Pelym Voguls and reached the walls of the town of Samarovo.

The Ostyaks, taken by surprise by the Cossack attack, had surrendered.

Shortly after Yermak's death, Cossacks led by voevoda (army commander) Ivan Mansurov had in autumn 1585 founded the first Russian fortified town in Siberia, Obskoy, at the mouth of the Irtysh river on the right bank of the Ob river.

The Mansi and Khanty lands thus became part of the Russian state, finally secured by ...

...Surgut in 1594.

Russia is able to annex Siberia as a result of Yermak's expedition.

...the founding of the cities of Pelym and ...

...Beryozovo in 1592 and ...

Sigismund, after promising to uphold Swedish Lutheranism, is crowned king of Sweden in 1594, creating, for what will prove to be a short time, a personal union between the Commonwealth and Sweden (Polish-Swedish union).

He tries to rule Sweden from Poland, leaving Sweden under control of his paternal uncle Duke Charles as regent.

The Qizilbash, a coalition of many different peoples of predominantly (but not exclusively) Turkic-speaking Azerbaijani background, united in their adherence to the Safavid doctrine of Shiism, have provided the backbone of the Iranian army from the very beginning of Safavid rule; they also occupy many posts in the government.

To counterbalance their power, Abbas has turned to another element in Iranian society, the ghulams (a word literally meaning "slaves").

These are Georgians, Armenians and Circassians who have converted to Islam and taken up service in the army or the administration.

Abbas promotes such ghulams to the highest offices of the state.

They include the Georgian Allahverdi Khan, who becomes leader of the ghulam regiments in the army as well as governor of the rich province of Fars.

Abbas has removed provincial governorships from some Qizilbash leaders and transferred Qizilbash groups to the lands of other Qizilbash tribes, thus weakening Qizilbash tribal unity.

Budgetary problems have been resolved by restoring the shah's control of the provinces formerly governed by the Qizilbash chiefs, the revenues of which supplement the royal treasury.