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The year 1556 CE in science and technology included a number of events, some of which are listed here.

Astronomy and earth sciences

January 23 – Shaanxi earthquake in China.^[1]
February – Great Comet of 1556 becomes visible in Europe.^[2]
Publication of Georgius Agricola's textbook on metal mining and processing, De re metallica (posthumously, at Basel).^[3]
Minas de Ríotinto in Huelva, Andalusia, rediscovered.

Publication in Rome of Juan Valverde de Amusco's Historia de la composicion del cuerpo humano, including Realdo Colombo's discovery of pulmonary circulation.
Publication of the standard reference work on marine animals, Libri de piscibus marinis in quibus verae piscium effigies expressae sunt by Guillaume Rondelet, Chancellor of the University of Montpellier; his anatomical drawing of a sea urchin is the earliest extant depiction of an invertebrate.^[4] Rondelet's Methodus de materia medicinali et compositione medicamentorum Palavii is also published.
Cholera outbreak in Oran.

November 10 – Richard Chancellor, English Arctic explorer (drowned at sea) (born c. 1521)
'Denis Zachaire', French alchemist (born 1520)

^ International Association of Engineering Geology International Congress (1990). Proceedings. ISBN 90-6191-664-X.^{[author missing]}^{[title missing]}^{[page needed]} ^{[verification needed]}
^ Seargent, David (2009). The Greatest Comets in History: Broom Stars and Celestial Scimitars. New York: Springer Science+Business Media. ISBN 978-0-387-09512-7.
^ Grun, Bernard (1991). The Timetables of History (3rd ed.). New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 245. ISBN 0-671-74919-6.
^ Charton, Barbara (2003). A to Z of marine scientists. Infobase Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8160-4767-3.