The year 1561 in science and technology included a number of events, some of which are listed here.

• Bartolomeu Velho produces a Carta General do Orbe for Sebastian of Portugal.
• Richard Eden translates Martín Cortés de Albacar's Arte de navigar as The Arte of Navigation which becomes the first manual of navigation in English.^[1]

• Gabriele Falloppio publishes Observationes anatomicae in Venice, the only work of his printed during his lifetime.^[2]
• Ambroise Paré publishes Anatomie universelle du corps humain and La méthode curative des playes et fractures de la test humaine in Paris.
• Smallpox epidemic in Chile.

• January 6 – Thomas Fincke, Danish mathematician (died 1656)
• January 22 – Francis Bacon, English philosopher of science (died 1626)
• March 29 – Sanctorius, Istrian physiologist (died 1636)
• August 4 – John Harington, English inventor (died 1612)
• August 24 – Bartholomaeus Pitiscus, German trigonometrist (died 1613)
• August 25 – Philippe van Lansberge, Flemish astronomer (died 1632)
• September 29 – Adriaan van Roomen, Flemish mathematician (died 1615)
• October 8 (bapt.) – Edward Wright, English mathematician (died 1615)