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1630s

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Events

1630

January–March

  • January 2 – A shoemaker in Turin is found to have the first case of bubonic plague there as the plague of 1630 begins spreading through Italy.
  • January 5 – A team of Portuguese military advisers to China's Ming dynasty government arrive at Zhuozhou. Led by Gonçalo Teixeira Corrêa, and accompanied by interpreter João Rodrigues, the group begins training the troops of Governor Sun Yuanhua in using modern cannons.
  • January 11 – Otto III and his brother William Augustus, both, Dukes of Brunswick-Harburg, sell their rights to inherit rule of Brunswick-Lüneburg to Prince Christian for in return of his payment of their debts of more than 150,000 thaler.
  • January 13 – In China, General Yuan Chonghuan is invited to an audience with the Chongzhen Emperor and is arrested on charges of collusion with the enemy. Yuan is executed by the slow death on September 22.
  • January 18 – Nicolò Contarini is elected as the new Doge of the Republic of Venice and spends most of his time fighting a bubonic plague epidemic, but dies in office on April 2, 1631.
  • February 22 – Native American Quadequine introduces popcorn to English colonists.
  • March 3 – A fleet sent by the Dutch West India Company captures Recife from the Portuguese, establishing Dutch Brazil.
  • March 9 – The 1630 Crete earthquake occurs.
  • March – Fedorovych Uprising: Zaporozhian Cossacks rebel against the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and occupy a large part of modern-day Ukraine. After a number of indecisive skirmishes with a Polish army sent to pacify the region, the Treaty of Pereyaslav is signed, ending the uprising.

April–June

  • April 8 – Puritan migration to New England (1620-1640): Winthrop Fleet – The ship Arbella and three others set sail from the Solent in England, with 400 passengers under the leadership of John Winthrop, headed for the Massachusetts Bay Colony in America; seven more, with another 300 aboard, follow in the next few weeks.
  • May 4 – In an invasion of Persia, Ottoman Empire Grand Vizier Gazi Hüsrev Pasha routs the Persians in a battle at Mahidasht near Kermanshah.
  • May 17
    • The first case of plague is reported in Milan. By the end of 1631, the city of 250,000 suffers 186,000 deaths, losing almost three-quarters of its population to plague.
    • Italian astronomers Niccolò Zucchi and Daniello Bartoli become the first scientists to observe the belts on the planet Jupiter.
  • May 20 – The Swedish National Heritage Board (Riksantikvarieämbetet) is created, with Johannes Bureus as its first director. The Board is still in existence almost 400 years later.
  • May 25 – Fedorovych uprising: The Zaporozhian Cossacks, led by Taras Triasylo, defeat Polish and Lithuanian troops led by General Stanisław Koniecpolski near Pereiaslav. The battle is later the subject of the Ukrainian language poem Tarasova nich.
  • May 29 – The Battle of Villabuona is fought in Italy at Lombardy, with more than 4,000 French and Venetian troops killed in an attack by Matthias Gallas of the Holy Roman Empire's army.
  • June 4 – Scottish-born Presbyterian (and former physician) Alexander Leighton is brought before Archbishop William Laud's Star Chamber court in London for publishing the seditious pamphlet An Appeale to the Parliament, or, Sions Plea Against the Prelacy, an attack on Anglican bishops (printed in the Netherlands, 1628). He is sentenced to be pilloried and whipped, have his ears cropped, one side of his nose slit, and his face branded with "SS" (for "sower of sedition"), to be imprisoned, and be degraded from holy orders.
  • June 6 – Swedish warships depart from Stockholm, Sweden for Central Europe.
  • June 12 – Massachusetts Bay Colony is founded, with John Winthrop as governor.
  • June 14 – Passengers of the Arbella, including Anne Bradstreet, America's first poet of significance, finally set foot in the New World at Salem, Massachusetts.

July–September

October–December

  • October 13 – War of the Mantuan Succession: the Peace of Regensburg is signed. Charles Gonzaga is confirmed as Duke of Mantua.
  • October 17 – Empress Meishō's Coronation takes place.
  • October 18 – Frendraught Castle in Scotland, the home of James Crichton of Frendraught, burns down.
  • November 10 – Day of the Dupes: Marie de' Medici attempts to oust Cardinal Richelieu from the French Court, but fails after two days.
  • December 3 – (28 Rabi II 1040 AH) Abd Allah ibn Hasan is selected as the new Emir of Mecca after the death from tuberculosis of Mas'ud ibn Idris.

Date unknown

  • Paramaribo (in modern-day Suriname) is first settled by the English.
  • The Deccan Famine of 1630–32 in India begins; it will kill some two million.
  • In the Mughal Empire, Shah Jahan's Pearl Mosque at Lahore Fort is consecrated (completed 1635).
  • The central square of Covent Garden in London is laid out, and a market begins to develop there.
  • Johann Heinrich Alsted's Encyclopaedia septem tomis distincta is published.
  • Settlers leave Pannaway Plantation and begin to settle in Strawbery Banke which in 1653 is renamed Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

1631

January–March

  • January 23 – Thirty Years' War: Sweden and France sign the Treaty of Bärwalde, a military alliance in which France provides funds for the Swedish army invading northern Germany.
  • February 5 – Puritan leader Roger Williams arrives in Boston.
  • February 16 – The Reval Gymnasium is founded in Tallinn, Estonia, by Swedish king Gustavus II Adolphus.
  • February 20 – A fire breaks out in Westminster Hall, but is put out before it can cause serious destruction.
  • March 7 – Ambrósio I Nimi a Nkanga, the ruler of the Kingdom of Kongo (in what is now Angola) dies after a reign of five years.
  • March 10 – Al Walid ben Zidan becomes the new Sultan of Morocco upon the death of Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik II.
  • March 20 – The siege of the Protestant German city of Magdeburg by the Catholic League begins and lasts for more than two months before the city falls and the inhabitants are massacred.

April–June

July–September

October–December

  • October 10 – Thirty Years' War: A Saxon army takes over Prague.
  • November 15 – King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden takes possession of Prague, capital of Bohemia.
  • November 21 – In Venice, a special mass celebrates the end of the two years of bubonic plague that had killed thousands of people.
  • November 29 – The Treaty of Höchst is signed between King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden and George II of Hesse-Darmstadt, with Darmstadt giving up the fortress of Rüsselsheim in return for Sweden's recognition of Darmstadt's neutrality.
  • December 16 – A volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius at Pompeii occurs, for the first time in several centuries.
  • December 23 – Thirty Years' War: Gustavus II Adolphus of Sweden takes the city of Mainz, without any resistance.

Date unknown

  • Publication of
    • Moses Amyraut's Traite des Religions.
    • Antonio Colmenero de Ledesma's Chocolate: or, An Indian Drinke.

1632

January–March

April–June

July–September

  • July 23 – Three hundred colonists for New France depart Dieppe.
  • August 22 – Eighty Years' War: A Dutch army, led by Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange, captures the city of Maastricht after a two-month siege.
  • September 1 – Battle of Castelnaudary: A rebellion against French king Louis XIII is crushed. The leader of the rebellion, Gaston, Duke of Orléans, the brother of Louis XIII, surrenders.
  • September 3 – The last executions of Christians in Japan take place as four Spanish missionaries (including Augustinin friar Bartholomew Gutierrez) and two Japanese converts are burned alive in Nagasaki. They are beatified in 1867 as the last of the 205 Martyrs of Japan.
  • September 9 – Thirty Years' War: Battle of the Alte Veste – Besieged by Wallenstein at Nuremberg, Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus attempts to break the siege, but is defeated.
  • September 25 – Yakutsk, Russia is founded by Pyotr Beketov.

October–December

Date unknown

  • Antigua and Barbuda is first colonized by England.
  • The Portuguese are driven out of Bengal.
  • King Władysław IV Vasa of Poland forbids anti-Semitic books and printings.
  • The rural parish of Loppi was founded.
  • Construction of the Taj Mahal begins.
  • Catharina Stopia succeeds her spouse as Sweden's ambassador to Russia, becoming perhaps the first female diplomat in Europe.
  • Approximate date – Last inhabitants leave the original city of Reimerswaal in Zeeland.

1633

January–March

  • January 20 – Galileo Galilei, having been summoned to Rome on orders of Pope Urban VIII, leaves for Florence for his journey. His carriage is halted at Ponte a Centino at the border of Tuscany, where he is quarantined for 22 days because of an outbreak of the plague.
  • February 6 – the formal coronation of Władysław IV Vasa as King of Poland takes place at the cathedral in Kraków. He had been elected as king on November 8.
  • February 9 – the Duchy of Hesse-Cassel captures Dorsten from the Electorate of Cologne without resistance.
  • February 13
    • Galileo Galilei arrives in Rome for his trial before the Inquisition.
    • Fire engines are used for the first time in England in order to control and extinguish a fire that breaks out at London Bridge, but not before 43 houses are destroyed.
  • March 1 – Samuel de Champlain reclaims his role as commander of New France, on behalf of Cardinal Richelieu.

April–June

  • April 12 – Galileo Galilei is convicted of heresy by the Roman Catholic Church.
  • May 22 – Samuel de Champlain, founder of the French colony of New France, returns to Quebec after being gone for four years, commissioned as Lieutenant General of the troops of New France, but not as governor.
  • May 28 – Aurangzeb, Crown Prince of the Mughal Empire in India, narrowly escapes death when an elephant stampedes through his encampment, but is able to defend himself with a lance.
  • June 18 – Charles I is crowned King of Scots at St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh, according to Anglican rite in his first visit to Scotland since early childhood, although he has been Scottish monarch since 1625.
  • June 22 – the Roman Catholic Church forces Galileo Galilei to recant his heliocentric view of the Solar System. According to legend, he claims Eppur si muove.

July–September

October–December

  • October 17 – thirty Years' War: Siege of Rheinfelden – Spain recaptures Rheinfelden from Sweden.
  • October 22 – Battle of Liaoluo Bay: A large Ming dynasty fleet under Zheng Zhilong defeats a Dutch East India Company fleet at the island of Quemoy.
  • November 11 – the Dutch expedition of Jan Janszoon van Hoorn, against Spanish pirates in Central America, ends after six months with van Hoorn's success.
  • November 22 – commissioned by Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore to transport 140 English colonists to the province of Maryland in America, The Ark and another ship, the Dove (with 128 settlers), depart Gravesend in England for the New World. Three days later, the two ships become separated by a storm in the English Channel, and the crew of The Ark assumes that the Dove sank.
  • November 29 – The Ark runs into a more violent storm, but manages to stay afloat and to continue on its journey to America. The Dove turns out to have survived the storms, and both ships will arrive in Maryland on February 24.
  • December 9 – Francisco de Murga, Spain's Governor of the South American province of Cartagena (now in Colombia), crushes a revolt by escaped African slaves in an attack against the palenque of Limón. De Murga captures 80 residents, and, after a trial, has 13 executed, with the drawing and quartering of their bodies.

Date unknown

1634

January–March

  • January 12 – After suspecting that he will be dismissed, Albrecht von Wallenstein, supreme commander of the Holy Roman Empire's Army, demands that his colonels sign a declaration of personal loyalty.
  • January 14 – France's Compagnie normande obtains a one-year monopoly on trade with the African kingdoms in Guinea.
  • January 19 – Charles IV, Duke of Lorraine abdicates in favor of his brother Nicholas II, who is only able to hold the duchy for 75 days.
  • January 24 – Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor, signs a classified order dismissing Albrecht von Wallenstein, the supreme commander of the Imperial Army.
  • February 18 – Emperor Ferdinand II's dismissal of Commander Wallenstein for high treason, and the order for his capture, dead or alive, is made public.
  • February 25 – Rebel Scots and Irish soldiers assassinate Bohemian military leader Albrecht von Wallenstein at Cheb.
  • March 1 – The Russians vacate their camp, ending the Siege of Smolensk.
  • March 4 – Belgian scientist Jan Baptist van Helmont is interrogated by the Spanish Inquisition and put under house arrest for his experiments into plant growth.
  • March 25 – Leonard Calvert arrives in Maryland, with Jesuit missionaries Andrew White, John Altham Gravenor, and Thomas Gervase, establishing St. Mary's as the fourth permanent settlement in British North America. In this year they also establish an institution of higher learning there, which later becomes Georgetown University, the United States's oldest university.

April–June

  • April 1 – Nicholas II, Duke of Lorraine, who assumed rule of the duchy on January 19 upon the abdication of his older brother Charles IV abdicates in favor of Charles.
  • April 14 – The Battle of Amritsar begins in India when Mughal Empire troops attempt to eliminate the Sikh religious leader, Guru Hargobind, by attacking Amritsar. The Sikh defenders hand the Mughal invaders an unprecedented defeat.
  • May 2 – With Albrecht Wallenstein having been eliminated, the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II personally takes command of the Imperial Army.
  • May 5 – King Charles I of England and Scotland first refers to the banner of the British Isles as the "Union Flag" in a proclamation that the flag shall not be used on any ships other than those "in our immediate Service and Pay, and none other." The term evolves into the description of the British flag as the "Union Jack".
  • June 14 – The Treaty of Polyanovka is signed between the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Tsardom of Russia, concluding the Smolensk War.

July–September

  • July 4 – The city of Trois-Rivières is founded in New France, in what is the modern-day Canadian province of Quebec.
  • August 18 – In France, Urbain Grandier, accused of wizardry, is burned alive in Loudun.
  • August (prob.) – Jean Nicolet becomes the first European to set foot in what is now the U.S. state of Wisconsin. He is in search of a water-route to the Pacific, when he lands at Green Bay of Lake Michigan.
  • September 6 – The Battle of Nördlingen ends after two days with a decisive victory for the Army of the Holy Roman Empire and Habsburg Spain over the Army of Sweden and Protestant German troops.
  • September 12 – A gunpowder factory explodes in Valletta, Malta, killing 22 people and damaging several buildings.

October–December

  • October 11 – The Burchardi flood (also known as the second Grote Mandrenke) strikes the North Sea coast of Germany and Denmark, causing at least 8,000 deaths and perhaps as many as 12,000.
  • November 11 – The Irish House of Commons passes an Act for the Punishment of the Vice of Buggery.
  • December 8 – Francesco Niccolini obtains an audience with Pope Urban VIII and pleads him to reconsider the Church's punishment of astronomer Galileo Galilei. The Pope replies that although he esteems Galileo highly, nothing will change.
  • December 16 – Gregorio Panzani, an emissary of Pope Urban VIII, is welcomed in England by King Charles I, marking the first time since England's break with the Roman Catholic Church that a monarch has received an agent of the Vatican.

Date unknown

1635

January–March

  • January 23 – 1635 Capture of Tortuga: The Spanish Navy captures the Caribbean island of Tortuga off of the coast of Haiti after a three-day battle against the English and French Navy.
  • January 25 – King Thalun moves the capital of Burma from Pegu to Ava.
  • February 22 – The Académie française in Paris is formally constituted, as the national academy for the preservation of the French language.
  • March 22 – The Peacock Throne of India's Mughal Empire is inaugurated in a ceremony in Delhi to support the seventh anniversary of Shah Jahan's accession to the throne as Emperor.
  • March 26 – Philipp Christoph von Sötern, the Archbishop-Elector of Trier, is taken prisoner in a surprise attack by Spanish Habsburg troops, leading to a declaration of war against Spain by France and the beginning of the Franco-Spanish War.

April–June

  • April 13 – Druze warlord Fakhr-al-Din II is executed in Constantinople.
  • April 23 – Boston Latin School, the oldest school in what will become the United States of America, is founded in Boston, Massachusetts.
  • May 19 – France declares war on Spain.
  • May 30 – Thirty Years' War – The Peace of Prague is signed, which ends the German civil war aspect of the conflict.
  • June 28 – France's Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique begins its occupation of the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, with Charles Liénard de L'Olive as its first Governor.

July–September

  • July 31 – The Royal Mail service is made available to the public by Charles I of England.
  • August 3 – Cossack rebel leader Ivan Sulyma stages a surprise attack on Poland's newly constructed Kodak fortress, and his raiders kill most of the 200 mercenaries stationed there. Sulyma and his allies are captured by the army of Stanisław Koniecpolski, and Sulyma is executed on December 12.
  • August 25 – The Great Colonial Hurricane strikes Narragansett Bay as a possible Category 3 hurricane, killing over 46 people.
  • September 12 – The Treaty of Sztumska Wieś is signed between Sweden and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

October–December

  • October 9 – Rhode Island founder Roger Williams is banished from Massachusetts Bay Colony as a religious dissident, after speaking out against punishments for religious offenses, and giving away Native American land.
  • November 15 – Thomas Parr, dead at the alleged age of 152, is buried in Westminster Abbey.
  • November 22 – The Dutch pacification campaign on Formosa, against Taiwanese aborigines, begins.
  • December 23 – Shah Jahan, Emperor of India's Mughal Empire, issues a decree against Portuguese Jesuits, ordering that the Agra Church be demolished and barring them from attempting to convert Hindus and Muslims to the Christian faith, but allows them to conduct their religious ceremonies in private.

Date unknown

  • Guadeloupe and Martinique are colonized by France.
  • Dominica is claimed by France.
  • The Ottomans are expelled from Yemen.
  • In Edo period Japan, the Sakoku Edict of 1635 enforces isolationism. Japanese are forbidden to travel abroad and unauthorised Europeans forbidden to enter under penalty of death. Christianity (Catholicism) is absolutely prohibited. Foreign merchants – Chinese and those of the Dutch East India Company – are restricted to enclaves in Nagasaki and access by the Portuguese is completely forbidden: an imperial memorandum decrees, "Hereafter entry by the Portuguese galeota is forbidden. If they insist on coming, the ships must be destroyed and anyone aboard those ships must be beheaded."
  • In the Mughal Empire, Shah Jahan's Pearl Mosque at Lahore Fort is completed.
  • Nagyszombat University (predecessor of Budapest University) is established.
  • Willem and Joan Blaeu publish the first edition of their Atlas Novus, in Amsterdam.

1636

January–March

  • January 1 – Anthony van Diemen takes office as Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), and will serve until his death in 1645.
  • January 18 – The Duke's Mistress, the last play by James Shirley, is given its first performance.
  • February 21 – Al Walid ben Zidan, Sultan of Morocco, is assassinated by French renegades.
  • February 26 – Nimi a Lukeni a Nzenze a Ntumba is installed as King Alvaro VI of Kongo, in the area now occupied by the African nation of Angola, and rules until his death on February 22, 1641.
  • March 5 (February 24 Old Style) – King Christian IV of Denmark and Norway gives an order, that all beggars that are able to work must be sent to Brinholmen, to build ships or to work as galley rowers.
  • March 13 (March 3 Old Style) – A "great charter" to the University of Oxford establishes the Oxford University Press, as the second of the privileged presses in England.
  • March 26 – Utrecht University is founded in the Dutch Republic.

April–June

July–September

  • July 10 – The Senate of the Venetian Republic votes, 82 to 4, in favor of renewing the charter of Jewish merchants to sell within the city, after a delay of almost six months.
  • July 20 – The Pequot War begins in New England when John Oldham and several of his crew are killed when his ship is attacked and robbed, apparently by allies of the Narragansett Indians at Block Island.
  • July 30 – In France, Cardinal Richelieu persuades King Louis XIII to issue an ordonnance excusing the French nobility from military service if they pay a tax which allows the hiring of paid cavalry.
  • August 15 – The Spanish besiege Corbie, France.
  • August 25 (August 15 Old Style) – The covenant of the Town of Dedham, Massachusetts Bay Colony is first signed.
  • September 18 (September 8 Old Style) – A vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony establishes New College (Harvard University), as the first college founded in the United States.

October–December

  • October 4 (September 24 Old Style) – Thirty Years' War – Battle of Wittstock: A Swedish-allied army defeats a combined Imperial-Saxon army.
  • November 5 – English theologian Henry Burton preaches two sermons on Guy Fawkes Day, heavily critical of the Anglican bishops, and is soon summoned before the Star Chamber.
  • December 23 (December 13 Old Style) – The Massachusetts Bay Colony organizes three militia regiments to defend the colony against the Pequot Indians. This organization is recognized today as the founding of the United States National Guard.

Date unknown

1637

January–March

April–June

  • April 10 – Plymouth Colony grants the "tenn menn of Saugust" a new settlement on Cape Cod, later named Sandwich, Massachusetts.
  • April 30 – King Charles I of England issues a proclamation, attempting to stem emigration to the North American colonies.
  • May 26 – Pequot War – Mystic massacre: A band of English settlers under Captain John Mason, and their Narragansett and Mohegan allies, set fire to a fortified village of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe near the Mystic River. Between 400 and 700 people, mostly women, children and old men, are killed.
  • May – Chinese encyclopedist Song Yingxing publishes his Tiangong Kaiwu ("Exploitation of the Works of Nature"), considered one of the most valuable encyclopedias of classical China.
  • June 27 – The first English venture to China is attempted by Captain John Weddell, who sails into port in Macau and Canton during the late Ming Dynasty, with six ships. The voyages are for trade, which is dominated here by the Portuguese (at this time combined with the power of Spain). He brings 38,421 pairs of eyeglasses, perhaps the first recorded European-made eyeglasses to enter China.

July–September

  • July 23 – After a court battle, King Charles I of England hands over title to the North American colony of Massachusetts to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, one of the founders of Plymouth Council for New England.
  • August 16 – Adam Olearius, sent along with Philipp Crusius and Otto Bruggemann by the German Duke of Holstein-Gottorp to establish a trade deal with Persia, is welcomed by the Safavid ruler, the Shah Safi at the Persian capital, Isfahan.
  • August 25 – Eighty Years' War: A force of 17,000 Spanish troops, led by the Spanish Netherlands Governor-General, Don Fernando de Austria, recaptures the city of Venlo from the Dutch Republic after a five-day siege
  • August 29 – Fighting in what is now the West African nation of Ghana, troops of the Dutch West India Company capture the Portuguese territory of the Gold Coast after the five-day Battle of Elmina.
  • September 29 – The last five of the "16 Martyrs of Japan" are executed for illegally attempting to spread Christianity in Japan. Lorenzo Ruiz, Guillaume Courtet, Michael de Aozaraza, Vincent Shiwozuka and Lazarus of Kyoto are all put to death by the slow hanging torture of ana-tsurushi. They will be canonized 350 years later as saints of the Roman Catholic Church, on October 18, 1987.

October–December

Date unknown

  • Pierre de Fermat makes a notation, in a document margin, claiming to have proof of what will become known as Fermat's Last Theorem.
  • René Descartes promotes intellectual rigour in his Discourse on the Method, and introduces the Cartesian coordinate system in its appendix La Géométrie (published in Leiden).
  • France places a few missionaries in the Ivory Coast, a country it will rule more than 200 years later.
  • Scottish army officer Robert Monro publishes Monro, His Expedition With the Worthy Scots Regiment Called Mac-Keys in London, the first military history in English.
  • Elizabeth Poole becomes the first female founder of a town (Taunton, Massachusetts) in the Americas.
  • Richard Norwood's book The Seaman's Practice is published for the first time.

1638

January–March

  • January 4
    • A naval battle takes place in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Goa in South India as a Netherlands fleet commanded by Admiral Adam Westerwolt decimates the Portuguese fleet.
    • A fleet of 80 Spanish ships led by Governor-General Sebastián Hurtado de Corcuera attacks the Sultanate of Sulu in the Philippines by beginning an invasion of Jolo island, but Sultan Muwallil Wasit I puts up a stiff resistance.
  • January 8 – Shimabara Rebellion: The siege of Shimabara Castle ends after 27 days in Japan's Tokugawa shogunate (part of modern-day Nagasaki prefecture) as the rebel peasants flee reinforcements sent by the shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu.
  • January 22 – The Shimabara and Amakusa rebels, having joined up after fleeing the shogun's troops, begin the defense of Hara Castle in modern-day Minamishimabara in the Nagasaki prefecture. The siege lasts more than 11 weeks before the peasants are massacred.
  • February 28 – The Scottish National Covenant is signed in Edinburgh, Scotland, in opposition to changes to the Church of Scotland proposed by King Charles I.
  • March 3 – Thirty Years' War: Battle of Rheinfelden – A mercenary army under Bernard of Saxe-Weimar, fighting for France, defeats forces of the Holy Roman Empire.
  • March 5 – Thirty Years' War: The Treaty of Hamburg is signed by France and Sweden, providing the latter with funds.
  • March 22
  • March 28 – Dutch merchant Willem Kieft is appointed Director of New Netherland by the Dutch East India Company to succeed Wouter van Twiller.
  • March 29 – Settlers from Sweden arrive on the ships Kalmar Nyckel and Fogel Grip to establish the settlement of New Sweden in Delaware, beginning the Swedish colonization of the Americas.

April–June

  • April 3 – Preacher John Wheelwright is banished from Boston and founds Exeter, New Hampshire.
  • April 14 – The Netherlands colonizes Mauritius, with colonists from the ship Dragon going ashore after sighting it the day before, an event chronicled by British traveler Peter Mundy.
  • April 15 – Shogunate forces defeat the last remnants of the Shimabara Rebellion, in the fortress of Hara. In the aftermath, suppression of Christianity is strictly enforced, Portuguese traders are expelled and Japan enters more than two centuries of isolationism.
  • April 25 – Settlement of what will become New Haven, Connecticut begins.
  • May 13 – Construction begins on the Red Fort in Delhi (India) for Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan who is transferring his capital there from Agra.
  • May 23 – The Kandyan Treaty is signed between Singhala King Rajasimha II and the Dutch, to rid Ceylon of the Portuguese.
  • June 20 – Eighty Years' War: Battle of Kallo – Spanish troops under Ferdinand of Austria defeat a much larger Dutch force, near Antwerp.
  • June 27 – Patriarch Cyril of Constantinople is deposed for high treason, strangled and thrown into the sea by Janissaries, on Ottoman Sultan Murad IV's command.

July–September

  • July 16 – Thirty Years' War: The siege of Saint-Omer ends after almost two months as the French-held Flemish city falls after being besieged by Spanish and German troops.
  • July 20 – Scottish Covenanters meet at Muchalls Castle to compose a response to the 14 demands of the Bishops of Aberdeen.
  • July 28 – Thirty Years' War: Swedish Army Field Marshal Johan Banér begins a destructive campaign against the Duchy of Pomerania, held by the Holy Roman Empire.
  • August 15 – The Portuguese expedition led by Pedro Teixeira completes the first ascent of the Amazon River, crossing the Quijos River and arriving at Quito in Ecuador soon after (the same trip had been made in the opposite direction, in 1541).
  • August 22 – Franco-Spanish War (1635–59): The Battle of Getaria is fought between the navies of France and Spain, with the French sinking all 17 Spanish Navy ships and killing 2,000 Spanish sailors and officers.
  • August 27 – Tayyar Mehmed Pasha becomes the new Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire after Bayram Pasha dies while fighting in Baghdad.
  • September 6 – The Finnish mail service, predecessor of Posti Group, is established.
  • September 21 – The Treaty of Hartford is signed, ending the Pequot War between British American colonists and the Pequot.
  • September – John Spofford arrives in Boston Harbor, on the ship John of London, and is one of the first people to establish Rowely, Essex County, Massachusetts.

October–December

  • October 21 – The Great Thunderstorm in Widecombe-in-the-Moor, England: probable ball lightning strikes the parish church, killing 4 and injuring about 60.
  • November 21 – The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland is summoned to Glasgow, by King Charles I.
  • November 24 – New Haven, the first planned city in America, is founded when local Indians make a deed of Quinnipiac to Theophilus Eaton and other English settlers.
  • December 18 – Cardinal Mazarin becomes the first adviser to French potentate Richelieu, on the death of Leclerc du Tremblay.
  • December 21 – The full moon is in total eclipse from 1:12 to 2:47 UT, and the solstice occurs later in the day, at 16:05 UT.
  • December 25 – Capture of Baghdad by the Ottomans under Sultan Murad IV.

Date unknown

  • Shipwrecked English buccaneer Peter Wallace, called Balis by the Spanish, settles near and perhaps gives his name to the Belize River, the first known European settlement in Belize.
  • The Peking Gazette makes an official switch in its production process of newspapers, from woodblock printing to movable type printing (private newspapers in Ming dynasty China were first mentioned in 1582).

1639

January–March

  • January 19 – Hämeenlinna (Swedish: Tavastehus) is granted privileges, after it separates from the Vanaja parish, as its own city in Tavastia.
  • c. January – The first printing press in British North America is started in Cambridge, Massachusetts, by Stephen Daye.
  • February 18 – In the course of the Eighty Years' War, a sea battle is fought in the English Channel off of the coast of Dunkirk between the navies of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, with 12 warships, and Spain, with 12 galleons and eight other ships. The Spanish are forced to flee after three of their ships are lost and 1,600 Spaniards killed or injured, while the Dutch sustain 1,700 casualties without the loss of a ship.
  • March 3 – The early settlement of Taunton, Massachusetts, is incorporated as a town.
  • March 13 – Harvard University is named for clergyman John Harvard.

April–June

  • April 14 – In the Battle of Chemnitz, Swedish forces under Johan Banér inflict a crushing defeat on the army of the Holy Roman Empire, prolonging the Thirty Years' War and allowing the Swedes to occupy Pirna and advance into Bohemia.
  • April 22 – Pope Urban VIII issues a papal bull prohibiting slavery in the New World colonies of Spain and Portugal, encompassing most of Latin America.
  • April – Italian-born Cardinal Mazarin, apostolic nuncio to Paris and adviser to Cardinal Richelieu, is naturalized French by letters patent; in December, he leaves the service of Rome to enter that of King Louis XIII of France.
  • May 2 – After a 40-day siege, the Dutch East India Company Army captures the Trincomalee Fort on the island of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) from the Portuguese Empire.
  • May 28 – King Charles I of England arrives with his army at Berwick-upon-Tweed as the first of the Bishops' Wars breaks out between the English Army and the Scottish Covenanters.
  • June 18
    • The Treaty of Berwick is signed between Charles I and the Scots.
    • On the same day, the first battle of the Bishops' Wars is fought by Earl Marischal and the Marquess of Montrose when they lead a Covenanter army of 9,000 men past Muchalls Castle over the Causey Mounth to fight at the Bridge of Dee in Scotland.

July–September

  • July 1 – Parthenius I becomes the new leader of the Eastern Orthodox Christian church as he is selected as Patriarch of Constantinople, succeeding Cyril II.
  • July 16 – A revolt in France begins in Normandy with the assassination of tax collector Charles Le Poupinel while he is working in the town of Avranches. The rebellion is brutally crushed on November 30.
  • August 22 – The British East India Company buys a strip of land from King Peda Venkata Raya of the Vijayanagara Empire for the construction of Fort St. George, the first settlement of British India, so founding modern-day Chennai, capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu (celebrated as Madras Day).
  • September 3 – The alliance of cantons in Switzerland known as the Three Leagues or Raetia agrees with Spain to bring Italy's Valtellina area back into the alliance, on the condition that the Catholic faith of the natives be respected.
  • September 18 – Dutch Navy Admiral Maarten Tromp introduces the line of battle tactic in a battle in the English Channel against a much larger force of Spanish Navy ships, driving off 67 ships with his fleet of 29.

October–December

  • October 31 – Naval Battle of the Downs: A Republic of the United Provinces fleet decisively defeats a Spanish fleet in English waters.
  • November 30 – In Normandy, the revolt of the va-nu-pieds is crushed by the troops of French Army Colonel Jean de Gassion under orders of Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal Richelieu, with 300 of the rebels killed.
  • December 4 – English astronomer Jeremiah Horrocks makes the first successful prediction and observation of a transit of Venus.

Date unknown

  • The Casiquiare canal, a river forming a natural channel between the Amazon River and Orinoco River basins, is first encountered by Europeans, an expedition led by Pedro Teixeira and Cristóbal Diatristán de Acuña.
  • French nobleman Jérôme le Royer de la Dauversière obtains the seigneurial title to the island of Montreal in New France (modern-day Quebec) in the name of the Société Notre-Dame de Montréal to establish a Roman Catholic mission to evangelize indigenous peoples.
  • Russian Cossacks advance over the Urals to the Pacific, to Okhotsk.
  • Sakoku, the isolationist foreign policy of Japan, comes fully into effect.
    • Dejima, an island trading post off Nagasaki, becomes the only official port of trade allowed for Europeans, with the multi-national United East Indies Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie) as the only European party officially allowed. Trading parties from China, India and other places are still officially allowed, though the VOC will become the usual broker for them.
    • Japanese wives and children of Dutch and British people from Hirado are sent to Batavia (Asian headquarters of the VOC, renamed Jakarta by the Japanese around three centuries later) on Dutch ships.
  • The Treaty of Zuhab is signed between the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire and Safavid Persia, delineating the modern Turkey-Iran and Iraq-Iran border lines.

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