17th century

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	16th century 17th century 18th century
Decades:	1600s 1610s 1620s 1630s 1640s 1650s 1660s 1670s 1680s 1690s
Categories:	Births – Deaths Establishments – Disestablishments

The 17th century was the century that lasted from January 1, 1601, to December 31, 1700, in the Gregorian calendar. The 17th century falls into the Early Modern period of Europe and in that continent was characterized by the Dutch Golden Age, the Baroque cultural movement, the French Grand Siècle dominated by Louis XIV, the Scientific Revolution, and The General Crisis. This last is characterised in Europe most notably by the Thirty Years' War, the Great Turkish War, the end of the Dutch Revolt, the disintegration of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the English Civil War.

Some historians extend the scope of the General Crisis to encompass the globe, as with the demographic collapse of the Ming Dynasty, China lost approximately 30% of its population. It was during this period also that European colonization of the Americas began in earnest, including the exploitation of the silver deposits of Potosí in Upper Peru and Mexico, which resulted in great bouts of inflation as wealth was drawn into Europe from the rest of the world.

File:Europe map 1600.jpg

Europe and the Ottoman Empire (in purple) in the year 1600

The Italian biologist Francesco Redi, recognized as the founder of experimental biology and the Father of modern parasitology.

Louis XIV visiting the Académie des sciences in 1671. "It is widely accepted that 'modern science' arose in the Europe of the 17th century, introducing a new understanding of the natural world." —Peter Barrett

New Amsterdam as it appeared in 1664. Under British rule it became known as New York.

Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu is the founder of Japan's last shogunate, which lasted well into the 19th century

Miyamoto Musashi, Self-portrait, Samurai, writer and artist, c. 1640

A scene on the ice, Dutch Republic, first half of 17th century

Persian Ambassador during his entry into Kraków for the wedding ceremonies of King Sigismund III of Poland in 1605.

Catholic general Albrecht von Wallenstein

René Descartes with Queen Christina of Sweden.

James I of England and VI of Scotland

Tsar Michael I of Russia

Battle of Nördlingen (1634). The Catholic Imperial army, bolstered by professional Spanish troops won a great victory in the battle over the combined Protestant armies of Sweden and their German allies

The Night Watch or The Militia Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq, 1642. Oil on canvas; on display at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

The massacre of settlers in 1622. The massacre was instrumental in causing English colonists to view all natives as enemies.

Map of Europe in 1648 at the end of the Thirty Years' War

Claiming Louisiana for France

Sultan Mehmed IV

Cardinal Mazarin

Bohdan Khmelnytsky (left) with Tugay Bey (right) at Lviv, oil on canvas by Jan Matejko, 1885

Crimean Tatar soldier fighting with the soldier of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Europe's steppe frontier was in a state of semi-permanent warfare until the 18th century.

In the midst of this global General Crisis, there were victory and triumph: In the Near East, the Ottoman, Safavid Persian and Mughal empires grew in strength and the Sikhs began to rise to power in the Punjab. And marathas established in western India. Farther east in Japan, Tokugawa Ieyasu established the Edo period at the beginning of the century, starting the isolationist Sakoku policy that was to last until the 19th century. In China, the collapsing Ming Dynasty was challenged by a series of conquests led by the Manchu warlord Nurhaci, which were consolidated by his son Hong Taiji and finally consummated by his grandson, the Shunzi Emperor, founder of the Qing Dynasty.

European politics during the Crisis were dominated by the France of Louis XIV, where royal power was solidified domestically in the civil war of the Fronde, in which the semi-feudal territorial French nobility was weakened and subjugated to the power of an absolute monarchy through the reinvention of the Palace of Versailles from a hunting lodge to a gilded prison in which a greatly expanded royal court could be more easily kept under surveillance. With domestic peace assured, Louis XIV caused the borders of France to be expanded to include, among other regions, Roussillon, Artois, Dunkirk, Franche-Comté, Strasbourg, Alsace and Lorraine. It was during this century that England's political system became unique in Europe – by the end of the century, the monarch was a symbolic figurehead and Parliament was the dominant force in government – a stark contrast to the rest of Europe, in particular Louis XIV's France.

By the end of the century, Europeans were also aware of logarithms, electricity, the telescope and microscope, calculus, universal gravitation, Newton's Laws of Motion, air pressure and calculating machines due to the work of the first scientists of the Scientific Revolution, including Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler, René Descartes, Pierre Fermat, Blaise Pascal, Robert Boyle, Christiaan Huygens, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, Robert Hooke, Francesco Redi, Isaac Newton, and Gottfried Leibniz, among other luminaries.

Events

1600s

• 1600: On February 17 Giordano Bruno is burned at the stake by the Inquisition.
• 1600: Michael the Brave unifies the three Romanian countries: Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania after the Battle of Șelimbăr from 1599.
• 1601: Battle of Kinsale, England defeats Irish and Spanish forces at the town of Kinsale, driving the Gaelic aristocracy out of Ireland and destroying the Gaelic clan system.
• 1601: Michael the Brave (first unifier of Romania), voivode of Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania, is assassinated by the order of the Habsburg general Giorgio Basta at Câmpia Turzii.
• 1601–1603: The Russian famine of 1601–1603 kills perhaps one-third of Russia.
• 1601: Panembahan Senopati, first king of Mataram, dies and passes rule to his son Panembahan Seda ing Krapyak
• 1601: Matteo Ricci is given permission to live in Beijing.
• 1602: Matteo Ricci produces the Map of the Myriad Countries of the World (坤輿萬國全圖, Kūnyú Wànguó Quántú), a world map that will be used throughout East Asia for centuries.
• 1602: The Portuguese send a major (and last) expeditionary force from Malacca which succeeded in reimposing a degree of Portuguese control.
• 1602: The Dutch East India Company (VOC) is established by merging competing Dutch trading companies. Its success contributes to the Dutch Golden Age.
• 1602: June, British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrives in Aceh and sails on to Bantam where he is allowed to build trading post which becomes the centre of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
• 1602: Two emissaries from the Aceh Sultanate visit the Dutch Republic.
• 1603: Elizabeth I of England dies and is succeeded by her cousin King James VI of Scotland, uniting the crowns of Scotland and England.
• 1603: Tokugawa Ieyasu takes the title of Shogun, establishing the Tokugawa Shogunate. This begins the Edo period, which will last until 1869.
• 1603–1623: After modernizing his army, Abbas I expands the Persian Empire by capturing territory from the Ottomans and the Portuguese.
• 1603: First permanent Dutch trading post is established in Banten, West Java. First successful VOC privateering raid on a Portuguese ship.
• 1604: A second English East India Company voyage commanded by Sir Henry Middleton reaches Ternate, Tidore, Ambon and Banda. Fierce VOC hostility is encountered in Banda thus beginning Anglo-Dutch competition for access to spices
• 1605: Tokugawa Ieyasu passes the title of Shogun to his son, Tokugawa Hidetada, and "retires" to Sunpu.
• 1605: Gunpowder Plot failed in England.
• 1605: The fortresses of Veszprém and Visegrad are retaken by the Ottomans.
• 1605: February, The VOC in alliance with Hitu prepare to attack a Portuguese fort in Ambon but the Portuguese surrender.
• 1605: Panembahan Seda ing Krapyak of Mataram establishes control over Demak, former center of the Demak Sultanate.
• 1605: The King of Gowa, a Makassarese kingdom in South Sulawesi, converts to Islam
• 1606: The Long War between the Ottoman Empire and Austria is ended with the Peace of Zsitvatorok—Austria abandons Transylvania.
• 1606: Treaty of Vienna ends anti-Habsburg uprising in Royal Hungary.
• 1606: Assassination of Stephen Bocskay of Transylvania.
• 1606: Time of Troubles: Vasili IV becomes Tzar of Russia.
• 1606: The Dutch East India Company enters into an alliance with the Johor Sultanate to attack Portuguese Malacca, but they are repelled.
• 1606: Captain Willem Janszoon and his crew aboard the Dutch East India Company ship Duyfken becomes the first recorded Europeans to sight and make landfall in Australia.
• 1606: A Spanish fleet occupies Ternate and Tidore.
• 1607: Jamestown, Virginia, is settled as what would become the first permanent English colony in North America.
• 1607: Flight of the Earls (the fleeing of most of the native Gaelic aristocracy) occurs from County Donegal in the west of Ulster in Ireland.
• 1607: Iskandar Muda becomes the Sultan of Aceh (r. 1607–1637). He will launch a series of naval conquests that will transform Aceh into a great power in the western Malay Archipelago.
• 1608: Quebec City founded by Samuel de Champlain in New France (present-day Canada).
• 1608: The Dutch East India Company establishes a settlement in Siamese Ayutthaya.
• 1609: The Netherlands and Spain agree to a Twelve Years' Truce in the Eighty Years' War.
• 1609: Maximilian of Bavaria establishes the Catholic League.
• 1609: The Dutch East India Company establishes a factory in Hirado, Japan. VOC traders also make forays into South Sulawesi and Banjarmasin, Borneo.

1610s

• 1610: Pedro de Peralta, governor of New Mexico, establishes the settlement of Santa Fe.
• 1610: The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth army defeats combined Russian- Swedish forces at the Battle of Klushino and conquers Moscow.
• 1610: The VOC appoints Pieter Both as its first Governor-General to enable firmer control of their affairs in Asia. Previously all business had (in theory) required the approval of the Heeren XVII, a group of seventeen shareholders in Amsterdam.
• 1610: Ottoman Grand Vizier Kuyucu Murad Pasha is able to crush the major remnants of the Jelali Revolts, bringing an end to general anarchy in Anatolia.
• 1610: Matteo Ricci dies in Beijing.
• 1610: Panembahan Seda ing Krapyak of Mataram in Central Java attacks Surabaya, a major power on the north coast.
• 1610: King Henry IV of France is assassinated by François Ravaillac.
• 1611: The Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomas, the oldest existing university in Asia, established by the Dominican Order in Manila
• 1611: The English establish trading posts at Sukadana (southwest Kalimantan), Makassar, Jayakarta and Jepara in Java, and Aceh, Pariaman and Jambi in (Sumatra) threatening Dutch ambitions for a monopoly on East Indies trade.
• 1611: The Kingdom of Gowa ends its major push to convert the Makassarese and Bugis in South Sulawesi to Islam.
• 1611: The Dutch establish a post at Jayakarta (later 'Batavia' and then 'Jakarta').
• 1611: A Dutch trader is killed in Banjarmasin and the Dutch East India Trading Company sacks the city.
• 1612: Sultan Iskandar Muda of Aceh captures the North Sumatran port of Deli.
• 1613: The Time of Troubles in Russia ends with the establishment of the House of Romanov, which rules until 1917.
• 1613–1617: Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth is invaded by the Tatars dozens of times.
• 1613: The Dutch expel the Portuguese from their Solor fort, but won't stay for long.
• 1613: The Dutch East India Company makes its first forays into Timor.
• 1613: Sultan Iskandar Muda of Aceh captures the North Sumatran port of Aru, subjugating the Sultanate of Deli. This allows Aceh to focus its expansionary efforts on the Straits of Malacca. Iskandar Muda continues on to sack Johor and kidnap its Sultan's family, but is later forced to retreat back to Aceh.
• 1613: The Dutch East India Company is forced to evacuate Gresik because of the Mataram siege of neighboring Surabaya. The VOC enters into negotiations with Mataram and is allowed to set up a trading post in Jepara.
• 1613: Panembahan Seda ing Krapyak of Mataram dies and is succeeded by his son.
• 1614: Sultan Iskandar Muda of Aceh sinks a Portuguese fleet off of Bintan Island.
• 1615: The Battle of Osaka (last major threat to Tokugawa Shogunate) ends.
• 1615: A Dutch East India Company attack on Portuguese Malacca is repelled.
• 1615: The Portuguese stop hiring Japanese mercenaries after a brawl in Malacca.
• 1615: Panembahan ing Alaga of Mataram conquers the Eastern Salient of Java (the heartland of the old Majapahit Empire).
• 1615: The Dutch East India Company is in open hostilities with the Kingdom of Gowa, South Sulawesi.
• 1616: The last remaining Moriscos (Moors who had nominally converted to Christianity) in Spain are expelled.
• 1616: Death of retired Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu.
• 1616: English poet and playwright William Shakespeare dies.
• 1617: Sultan Iskandar Muda of Aceh conquers Pahang on the South China Sea.
• 1617: Panembahan ing Alaga of Mataram puts down a major revolt in Pajang.
• 1618: The Defenestration of Prague.
• 1618: The Bohemian Revolt precipitates the Thirty Years' War, which devastates Europe in the years 1618–48.
• 1618: Bethlen Gabor, Prince of Transylvania joins Protestant Rebels.
• 1618: The Manchus start invading China. Their conquest eventually topples the Ming Dynasty.
• 1618: Dispute leads to the execution of Dutchmen in Mataram-controlled Jepara.
• 1619: Bethlen Gabor is defeated outside Vienna.
• 1619: Jan Pieterszoon Coen appointed Governor-General of the VOC who would show he had no scruples about using brute force to establish the VOC on a firm footing. While Ambon and Pattani had been the major VOC trading centers to this point, Coen is convinced that Dutch need a more central location near the Sunda Strait.
• 1619: Dutch East India Company, English East India Company, and Sultanate of Banten all fighting over port city of Jayakarta. VOC forces storm the city and withstand a months-long siege by the combined English, Bantenese, and Jayakartan forces. They are relieved by Jan Pieterszoon Coen and a fleet of nineteen ships out of Ambon. Coen had burned Jepara and its EIC post along the way. The VOC levels the old city of Jayakarta and builds its new headquarters, Batavia, on top of it.

Jan Pieterszoon Coen (8 January 1587 – 21 September 1629), the founder of Batavia, was an officer of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in the early seventeenth century, holding two terms as its Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies.

1620s

• 1620: Emperor Ferdinand II defeats the Bohemian rebels in the Battle of White Mountain.
• 1620: The Brownist Pilgrims arrive in the Mayflower at Cape Cod.
• 1620–1621: Polish-Ottoman War over Moldavia.
• 1620: Bethlen Gabor allies with the Ottomans and an invasion of Moldavia takes place. The Polish suffer a disaster at Cecora on the River Prut.
• 1620: Almost the entire native population of Banda Islands was deported, driven away, starved to death or killed in an attempt to replace them with Dutch colonial slave labour.
• 1620: Diplomatic agreements in Europe commence a three-year period of cooperation between the Dutch and the English over the spice trade.
• 1621: The Battle of Chocim: Poles and Cossacks under Jan Karol Chodkiewicz defeat the Ottomans.
• 1622: Capture of Ormuz; The island of Hormuz was captured by an Anglo-Persian force from Portuguese.
• 1622: Jamestown massacre: Algonquian natives kill 347 English settlers outside Jamestown, Virginia (one-third of the colony's population) and burn the Henricus settlement.
• 1623: Maffeo Barberini is elected Pope Urban VIII at the Papal conclave of 1623.
• 1623: In a notorious but disputed incident, known as the 'Amboyna massacre', ten English and ten Japanese traders are arrested, tried and beheaded for conspiracy against the Dutch Government. The English quietly withdraw from most of their Indonesian activities (except trading in Bantam) and focus on other Asian interests.
• 1624–1642: As chief minister, Cardinal Richelieu centralises power in France.
• 1624: The Dutch West India Company invades the Portuguese colony of Bahia in Brazil.
• 1625: New Amsterdam founded by the Dutch West India Company in North America.
• 1626: St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican completed.
• 1627: Cardinal Richelieu lays siege to Protestant La Rochelle, which eventually capitulates.
• 1627: Aurochs go extinct.
• 1628—1629: Sultan Agung of Mataram launched a failed campaign to conquer Dutch Batavia.
• 1629: Abbas I, the Safavids king, died.
• 1629: Cardinal Richelieu allies with Swedish Protestant forces in the Thirty Years' War to counter Ferdinand II's expansion.
• 1629: Iskandar Muda of Aceh Sultanate launched a failed attempt to take Portuguese Malacca.

1630s

• 1630: The Dutch West India Company invades the Portuguese colony of Pernambuco and founds Dutch Brazil.
• 1631: Mount Vesuvius erupts.
• 1632: Battle of Lützen, death of king of Sweden Gustav II Adolf.
• 1632: Taj Mahal building work started in Agra, India.
• 1633: Galileo Galilei arrives in Rome for his trial before the Inquisition.
• 1633–1639: Japan transforms into "locked country".
• 1634: Battle of Nördlingen results in Catholic victory.
• 1634: Emperor Fasilides expels the Catholic Patriarch Afonso Mendes and several Jesuit missionaries from Ethiopia.
• 1636: Emperor Fasilides founds the city of Gondar, which becomes the capital of Ethiopia for the next two centuries.
• 1636: Harvard University is founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
• 1636: The Portuguese are expelled again from their Solor fort by the Dutch following a reoccupation.
• 1637: Shimabara Rebellion of Japanese Christians, rōnin and peasants against Edo.
• 1637: René Descartes publishes "Discours de la Méthode" ("The Discourse on the Method") in French.
• 1637: The first opera house, Teatro San Cassiano, opens in Venice.
• 1637: Qing dynasty attacked Joseon dynasty.
• 1639: Naval Battle of the Downs – Republic of the United Provinces fleet decisively defeats a Spanish fleet in English waters.
• 1639: Disagreements between the Farnese and Barberini Pope Urban VIII escalate into the Wars of Castro and last until 1649.
• 1639–1651: Wars of the Three Kingdoms, civil wars throughout Scotland, Ireland, and England.

1640s

• 1640: King Charles was compelled to summon Parliament due to the revolt of the Scots.
• 1640–1668: The Portuguese Restoration War led to the end of the Iberian Union.
• 1640: Torture is outlawed in England.
• 1641: The Tokugawa Shogunate institutes Sakoku- foreigners are expelled and no one is allowed to enter or leave Japan.
• 1641: The Irish Rebellion.
• 1641: René Descartes publishes Meditationes de prima philosophia Meditations on First Philosophy.
• 1642: 5th Dalai Lama swept power in Tibet, he established the theocratic state in Tibet after series battles against regional Kingdoms.
• 1642: Dutch explorer Abel Janszoon Tasman achieves the first recorded European sighting of New Zealand.
• 1642: Beginning of English Civil War, conflict will end in 1651 with the execution of King Charles I, abolishment of the monarchy and the establishment of the supremacy of Parliament over the king.
• 1644: Giovanni Battista Pamphili is elected Pope Innocent X at the Papal conclave of 1644.
• 1644: The Manchu conquer China ending the Ming Dynasty. The subsequent Qing Dynasty rules until 1912.
• 1644–1674: The Mauritanian Thirty-Year War.
• 1645: The death of Miyamoto Musashi, legendary Japanese Samurai warrior, of natural causes.
• 1645–1669: Ottoman war with Venice. The Ottomans invade Crete and capture Canea.
• 1646: Sultan Agung of Mataram dies – and is buried at his graveyard at Imogiri
• 1647: Seven-year-old Mehmed IV becomes sultan.
• 1647–1652: The Great Plague of Seville.
• 1648: The Peace of Westphalia ends the Thirty Years' War and the Eighty Years' War and marks the ends of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire as major European powers.
• 1648–1653: Fronde civil war in France.
• 1648–1657: The Khmelnytsky Uprising – a Cossack rebellion in Ukraine which turned into a Ukrainian war of liberation from Poland.
• 1648–1667: The Deluge wars leave Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in ruins.
• 1648–1669: The Ottomans capture Crete from the Venetians after the Siege of Candia.
• 1649–1653: The Cromwellian conquest of Ireland.

1650s

• 1650: Francesco Redi challenges the theory of spontaneous generation by demonstrating that maggots come from eggs of flies.
• 1651: English Civil War ends with the Parliamentarian victory at the Battle of Worcester.
• 1652: Cape Town founded by the Dutch East India Company in South Africa.
• 1654–1661: Mehmed Köprülü is Grand Vizier.
• 1655–1661: The Northern Wars cement Sweden's rise as a Great Power.
• 1658: After his father Shah Jahan completes the Taj Mahal, his son Aurangzeb deposes him as ruler of the Mughal Empire.

1660s

• 1660: The Commonwealth of England ends and the monarchy is brought back during the English Restoration.
• 1660: Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge founded.
• 1661: Mehmed Köprülü dies and is succeeded by his son Ahmed.
• 1661: The reign of the Kangxi Emperor of China begins.
• 1661: Cardinal Mazarin, de-facto ruler of France, dies.
• 1662: Koxinga captures Taiwan from the Dutch and founds the Kingdom of Tungning, which rules until 1683.
• 1662: Jacques Aymar-Vernay, who later reintroduced Dowsing into popular use in Europe, is born.
• 1663: Ottoman war against Habsburg Hungary.
• 1663: France takes full political and military control over its colonial possessions in New France.
• 1663: Robert Hooke discovers cells using a microscope.
• 1664: The Battle of St. Gotthard: count Raimondo Montecuccoli defeats the Ottomans. The Peace of Vasvar – intended to keep the peace for 20 years.
• 1664: British troops capture New Amsterdam and rename it New York.
• 1664: John Evelyn's forestry book, Sylva, is published in England.
• 1665: The Great Plague of London.
• 1665: Portugal defeats the Kongo Empire at the Battle of Mbwila.
• 1665–1667: The Second Anglo-Dutch War fought between England and the United Provinces.
• 1666- The Great Shivaji-Agra Visit
• 1666: The Great Fire of London.
• 1667: The Raid on the Medway during the Second Anglo-Dutch War.
• 1667–1668: The War of Devolution; France invades the Netherlands. The Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle (1668) brings this to a halt.
• 1667–1699: The Great Turkish War halts the Ottoman Empire's expansion into Europe.
• 1667: As a result of the Treaty of Breda between Dutch and England, the Dutch secured a worldwide monopoly on nutmeg by forcing England to give up their claim on Run, the most remote of the Banda Islands. While the Dutch did not press their claims on New Netherland.
• 1668: Peace Treaty of Lisbon between Spain and Portugal recognizes Portugal as independent country.
• 1669: The Ottomans capture Crete.

1670s

• 1670: The Hudson's Bay Company is founded in Canada.
• 1670: The city of Charleston is founded in present-day South Carolina.
• 1672–1673: Ottoman campaign to help the Ukrainian Cossacks. John Sobieski defeats the Ottomans at the second battle of Khotyn (1673).
• 1672–1676: Polish-Ottoman War.
• 1672: Rampjaar in the Netherlands – Combined attack by France, England and two German states on the Republic of the United Provinces.
• 1672: Lynching of Johan de Witt and his brother Cornelis de Witt in the Hague – William III of Orange takes power.
• 1672–1678: Franco-Dutch War.
• 1673: Antoni van Leeuwenhoek is the first to observe microbes with a homemade microscope, using samples he collected from his teeth scrapings, raindrops, and his own feces. He calls them "animalcules."
• 1674: The Treaty of Westminster ends the war between England and the Republic of the United Provinces.
• 1674: Maratha Empire founded in India by Shivaji.
• 1676: The Treaty of Zurawno brings Polish-Ottoman hostilities to a halt.
• 1676: Kara Mustafa becomes Grand Vizier.
• 1676–1681: Russia and the Ottoman Empire commence the Russo-Turkish Wars.
• 1678: The Treaty of Nijmegen ends various interconnected wars among France, the Dutch Republic, Spain, Brandenburg, Sweden, Denmark, the Prince-Bishopric of Münster, and the Holy Roman Empire.

1680s

• 1680: The Pueblo Revolt drives the Spanish out of New Mexico until 1692.
• 1681: The Pasha of Buda supports Imre Thököly's rebellion in Hungary.
• 1682: Sultan Mehmed IV, advised by Kara Mustafa, decides to disregard the existing peace treaty with Leopold I, due to expire in 1684.
• 1682–1683: The Ottomans make camp at Adrianople.
• 1682: Peter the Great becomes joint ruler of Russia (sole tsar in 1696).
• 1682: La Salle explores the length of the Mississippi River and claims Louisiana for France.
• 1683: China conquers the Kingdom of Tungning and annexes Taiwan.
• 1683: A Habsburg council of war is held in Vienna.
• 1683: The Battle of Vienna finishes the Ottoman Empire's hegemony in south-eastern Europe.
• 1685: Edict of Fontainebleau outlaws Protestantism in France. King Charles II dies.
• 1687: Isaac Newton publishes Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica.
• 1688: The Siege of Derry.
• 1688: Siamese revolution of 1688 ousted French influence and virtually severed all ties with the West until the 19th century.
• 1688–1689: The Glorious Revolution starts with the Dutch Republic invading England, England becomes a constitutional monarchy.
• 1688–1691: The War of the Two Kings in Ireland.
• 1688–1697: The Grand Alliance sought to stop French expansion during the Nine Years War.
• 1689: William ascends to the throne over England, Scotland, and Ireland.
• 1689: John Locke publishes his first 'Letter Concerning Toleration'.
• 1689: The Treaty of Nerchinsk established a border between Russia and China.
• 1689: The Battle of Killiecrankie is fought between Jacobite and Williamite forces in Highland Perthshire.
• 1689: The Karposh rebellion is crushed in present-day Republic of Macedonia, Skopje is retaken by the Ottoman Turks. Karposh is killed, and the rebels are defeated.

1690s

• 1690: The Battle of the Boyne in Ireland.
• 1692: Salem witch trials in Massachusetts.
• 1692: Port Royal in Jamaica is destroyed by an earthquake and tsunami, estimated 2000 die, 2300 are injured.
• 1692–1694: Famine in France kills 2 million.
• 1693: The College of William and Mary is founded in Williamsburg, Virginia, by a royal charter.
• 1694: The Bank of England is established.
• 1694: Mary II of England dies.
• 1695: The Mughal Empire nearly bans the East India Company in response to pirate Henry Every's capture of the Ganj-i-Sawai.
• 1696–1697: Famine in Finland wipes out almost one-third of the population.
• 1697: The earliest known first-class cricket match takes place in Sussex.
• 1697-1699: Grand Embassy of Peter the Great
• 1699: The Treaty of Karlowitz ends the Great Turkish War.
• 1699: Thomas Savery demonstrates his first steam engine to the Royal Society.
• 1700: With the decline of the spice trade, textiles are now the most important trade item in the Dutch East Indies.

Significant people

See also: English Restoration

Cardinal Richelieu

Oliver Cromwell

Gustav II Adolf of Sweden

Anne of Austria, Queen of France

Jean-Baptiste Colbert

Claudio Monteverdi

Jean-Baptiste Lully

Peter Paul Rubens

Rembrandt van Rijn

Moliere

Johannes Kepler

René Descartes

Sir Isaac Newton

Gottfried Leibniz

• Alexis of Russia, Tsar of Russia (1629–1676)
• Anne of Austria, Queen consort and regent of France (1601–1666)
• Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden (1594–1632)
• Agung of Mataram (d. 1646), first Sultan of Mataram, conquered much of Java
• Amangkurat II of Mataram (r. 1677–1703), begrudging ally of Dutch East India Company
• Arung Palakka (1636–1696), Bugis warlord and ally of Dutch East India Company
• Bohdan Khmelnytsky (1595–1657), Hetman of the Zaporozhian Host
• Françoise-Athénaïs, marquise de Montespan, lover of Louis XIV (1641–1707)
• Françoise d'Aubigné, Marquise de Maintenon, second wife of Louis XIV (1635–1719)
• Guru Teg Bahadur, 9th Sikh Guru (1621–1675)
• Gabriel Bethlen, Hungarian prince of Transylvania (1580–1629)
• Shivaji Bhonsle, Hindu king, 1st Maratha ruler, established Hindavi Swaraj (1630–1680)
• Queen Christina of Sweden, high profile Catholic convert, matron of arts (1626–1689)
• Charles I of England (1600–1649)
• Charles II of England (1630–1685)
• Charles II of Spain (1661–1700)
• Jean-Baptiste Colbert, chief minister of Louis XIV of France
• Louis de Bourbon, prince of Condé, French general of the Thirty Years' War (1621-1686)
• Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland (1599–1658)
• Richard Cromwell, Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland (1626–1712)
• Elizabeth I of England (1533–1603)
• Henry IV of France (1553-1610)
• Hugh O'Neill (Aodh Mór Ó Néill), King of Tyrone and 2nd Earl of Tyrone (1550–1616), an Irish prince whose armies inflicted major defeats upon the English forces of Queen Elizabeth I during the Nine Years War in Ulster.
• Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543–1616), The founder and first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan
• Iskandar Muda (1583?–1636), expansionist twelfth Sultan of Aceh
• James I of England (1566–1625)
• James II of England (1633–1701)
• Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor (1640–1705)
• Louis XIII of France, King of France and Navarre (1601–1643)
• Louis XIV of France, King of France and Navarre (1638–1715)
• Marie de' Medici (1575-1642), queen consort and regent of France
• Mary II of England (1662–1694)
• Cardinal Mazarin, French cardinal and politician of Italian origin (1602–1661)
• André Le Nôtre, French landscape architect (1613–1700)
• Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia, first Russian Emperor (1672–1725)
• Philip III of Spain, Spanish king (1578–1621)
• Philip IV of Spain, Spanish king (1605–1665)
• Popé, Tewa religious leader, led the Pueblo Revolt (ca. 1630 – ca. 1688)
• Dmitry Pozharsky, Russian prince, leader of anti-Polish uprising (1577–1642)
• Samarth Ramdas, Hindu saint (1608–1681)
• Cardinal Richelieu, French cardinal, duke, and politician (1585–1642)
• Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares politician, royal favourite (prime minister) of the Spanish king.
• Michael of Russia, Tsar of Russia (1596–1645)
• Michiel de Ruyter, Dutch admiral (1607–1676)
• Jan III Sobieski, King of Poland (1629–1696)
• Tessouat, Chief of the Algonquin
• Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly, Catholic general in the Thirty Years' War (1559-1632)
• Imre Thököly, prince of Transylvania, leader of the anti-Habsburg uprising in Hungary (1657–1705)
• Sant Tukaram, Hindu saint (1600–1650)
• Henri de Turenne, French general, named Marshal General of France (1611-1675)
• Albrecht von Wallenstein, Catholic German general in the Thirty Years' War (1583–1634)
• William III of England (1650–1702), Stadtholder of the main provinces of the Republic of the United Provinces and King of England
• Johan de Witt, Grand Pensionary of the Republic of the United Provinces – 1625–1672

Musicians and composers

See also: List of Baroque composers

• Tomaso Albinoni, Italian composer (1671–1751)
• Johann Christoph Bach, Composer and great-uncle of J.S. Bach, (1642–1703)
• John Blow, English composer (1649–1708)
• Francesco Cavalli, Venetian opera composer (1602–1676)
• Marc-Antoine Charpentier, French composer (1643–1708)
• Arcangelo Corelli, Italian composer (1653–1713
• Francois Couperin, French Composer (1668–1733)
• Nikolay Diletsky, Russian composer (1630–1680)
• George Frederic Handel, German-born English composer (1685–1759)
• Buhurizade Mustafa Itri, Ottoman-Turkish musician, composer, singer and poet (1640–1712)
• Jean-Baptiste Lully, Italian-born composer regarded as the father of French opera (1632–1687)
• Claudio Monteverdi, Italian composer of Renaissance and Baroque music (1567–1643)
• Johann Pachelbel, German composer (1653–1706)
• Hafız Post, Ottoman composer (1630–1694)
• Henry Purcell, English composer (1659–1695)
• Alessandro Scarlatti, Italian opera composer (1660–1725)
• Heinrich Schütz, German composer (1585–1672)
• Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe, French composer of chamber music (c. 1640 – 1700)
• Georg Philipp Telemann, German composer of more than 3,000 works (1681–1767)
• Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, French harpsichordist and composer (1665–1729)
• Antonio Lucio Vivaldi, Italian composer (1678–1741)

Visual artists

See also: Baroque painting and Baroque sculpture

• Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Italian sculptor, architect (1598–1680)
• Francesco Borromini, Italian sculptor, architect (1599–1667)
• Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Italian painter (1571–1610)
• Anthony van Dyck, Flemish painter (1599–1641)
• Artemisia Gentileschi, Italian painter (1593 – c. 1656)
• Frans Hals (1580–1666)
• Jacob Jordaens, Flemish painter (1593–1678)
• Georges de La Tour, French painter (1593–1652)
• Juan Martínez Montañés, Spanish sculptor (1568–1649)
• Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Spanish painter (1617–1682)
• Nicolas Poussin, French classical painter (1594–1665)
• José de Ribera, Lo Spagnoletto (1591–1652)
• Rembrandt van Rijn, Dutch painter (1606–1669)
• Peter Paul Rubens, Flemish painter, 1577–1640
• Jan Steen (1626–1679)
• Ruisdael (1628–1682)
• Jiang Tingxi, Chinese painter, calligrapher, encyclopedist, foreign delegate to Japan (1669–1732)
• Simon Ushakov, Russian icon painter (1626–1686)
• Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez, Spanish painter (1599–1660)
• Johannes Vermeer, Dutch Painter (1632–1675)
• Francisco Zurbarán, Spanish Painter (1598–1664)

Literature

See also: French literature of the 17th century

• John Bunyan, author of 'The Pilgrim's Progress' (1628–1688)
• Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Spanish dramatist (1600–1681)
• Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Spanish author (1574–1616)
• Pierre Corneille, French dramatist (1606–1684)
• Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux, French poet and critic (1636–1711)
• Daniel Defoe, English writer, novelist (1659 or 1661–1731)
• John Donne, English metaphysical poet (1572–1631)
• John Dryden, English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright (1631–1700)
• Jean de La Fontaine, French poet (1621–1695)
• Luis de Góngora, Spanish poet (1561–1627)
• Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Spanish poet (1651?-1695)
• Joost van den Vondel, Dutch writer and playwright (1587–1679)
• Andreas Gryphius, German poet and dramatist (1616–1664)
• Ben Jonson, English dramatist c. 1572 – 1637)
• John Milton, English author and poet (1608–1674)
• Molière, French dramatist, actor, director (1622–1673)
• Tirso de Molina, Spanish dramatist and poet (1579–1648)
• Miyamoto Musashi, famous Samurai warrior in Japan, author, poet, painter, (1584–1645)
• Samuel Pepys, English civil servant and diarist (1633–1703)
• Avvakum Petrov, Russian priest and writer (1621–1682)
• Francisco de Quevedo, Spanish writer (1580–1645)
• Jean Racine, French dramatist (1639–1699)
• William Shakespeare, English author and poet (1564–1616)
• Félix Lope de Vega, Spanish playwright and poet (1562–1635)
• John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, English poet (1647–1680)

Educators

• Geoffrey Keating (Seathrún Céitinn), Irish historian (ca. 1569 – ca. 1644)
• Dubhaltach MacFhirbhisigh, Irish historian and genealogist (d.1671)
• Xu Xiake, Chinese geographer (1587–1641)
• Song Yingxing, Chinese encyclopedist (1587–1666)

Exploration

See also: Exploration

• Samuel de Champlain, French explorer
• Evliya Çelebi, Ottoman explorer
• Semyon Dezhnyov (1605–1672), Russian explorer of Siberia and the first European to sail through the Bering Strait
• Henry Hudson (1570? – 1611), English sea explorer and navigator in the early 17th century
• Yerofey Khabarov (1603–1671), Russian entrepreneur, best known for his exploring the Amur river region
• Abel Janszoon Tasman (1603–1659), Dutch seafarer and explorer
• Luis Váez de Torres (c. 1565 – 1607), Spanish explorer of the Pacific

Science and philosophy

See also: Scientific Revolution and Age of Reason

• Francis Bacon, English philosopher and politician (1561–1626)
• Sir Thomas Browne, English author, philosopher and scientist (1605–1682)
• Ismaël Bullialdus, French astronomer, (1605–1694)
• Abraham Darby I, English Ironmaster, Introduced the first coke-consuming blast furnace (1678–1717)
• René Descartes, French philosopher and mathematician (1596–1650)
• Pierre de Fermat, French lawyer and mathematician (1601–1665)
• Galileo Galilei, Italian natural philosopher (1564–1642)
• Pierre Gassendi, (1592–1655), French philosopher, priest, scientist, astronomer/astrologer, and mathematician
• William Harvey, medical doctor (1578–1657)
• Thomas Hobbes, English philosopher and mathematician (1588–1679)
• Christiaan Huygens, Dutch mathematician, physicist and astronomer (1629–1695)
• Johannes Kepler, German astronomer (1571–1630)
• Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, Dutch scientist and the first person to use a microscope to view bacteria (1632–1723)
• Gottfried Leibniz, German philosopher and mathematician (1646–1716)
• John Locke, English philosopher (1632–1704)
• Marin Mersenne, (1588–1648), French theologian, philosopher, mathematician and music theorist, referred to as the father of acoustics
• Sir Isaac Newton, English physicist and mathematician (1643–1727)
• Blaise Pascal, French theologian, mathematician and physicist (1623–1662)
• Baruch Spinoza, Dutch philosopher (1632–1677)
• Sir Anthony Weldon, English courtier and politician (1583–1648)
• Christopher Wren, English architect and scientist (1632–1723)

Inventions, discoveries, introductions

See also: List of 17th century inventions

Major changes in philosophy and science take place, often characterized as the Scientific revolution.

• Banknotes reintroduced in Europe.
• Ice cream.
• Tea and coffee become popular in Europe.
• Central Banking in France and modern Finance by Scottish economist John Law.
• Minarets, Jamé Mosque of Isfahan, Isfahan, Persia (Iran), are built.
• 1604: Supernova SN 1604 is observed in the Milky Way.
• 1605: Johannes Kepler starts investigating elliptical orbits of planets.
• 1605: Johann Carolus of Germany publishes the 'Relation', the first newspaper.
• 1608: Hans Lippershey constructs a refracting telescope, the first for which sufficient evidence exists.
• 1610: The Orion Nebula is identified by Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc of France.
• 1610: Galileo Galilei and Simon Marius observe Jupiter's Galilean moons.
• 1611: King James Bible or 'Authorized Version' first published.
• 1612: The first flintlock musket likely created for Louis XIII of France by gunsmith Marin Bourgeois.
• 1614: John Napier introduces the logarithm to simplify calculations.
• 1616: Niccolò Zucchi describes experiments with a bronze parabolic mirror trying to make a reflecting telescope.
• 1620: Cornelius Drebbel, funded by James I of England, builds the first 'submarine' made of wood and greased leather.
• 1623: The first English dictionary, 'English Dictionarie' is published by Henry Cockeram, listing difficult words with definitions.
• 1628: William Harvey publishes and elucidates his earlier discovery of the circulatory system.
• 1637: Dutch Bible published.
• 1637: Teatro San Cassiano, the first public opera house, opened in Venice.
• 1637: Pierre de Fermat formulates his so-called Last Theorem, unsolved until 1995.
• 1637: Although Chinese naval mines were earlier described in the 14th century Huolongjing, the Tian Gong Kai Wu book of Ming Dynasty scholar Song Yingxing describes naval mines wrapped in a lacquer bag and ignited by an ambusher pulling a rip cord on the nearby shore that triggers a steel-wheel flint mechanism.
• 1642: Blaise Pascal invents the mechanical calculator called Pascal's calculator.
• 1642: Mezzotint engraving introduces grey tones to printed images.
• 1643: Evangelista Torricelli of Italy invents the mercury barometer.
• 1645: Giacomo Torelli of Venice, Italy invents the first rotating stage.
• 1651: Giovanni Riccioli renames the lunar maria.
• 1656: Christiaan Huygens describes the true shape of the rings of Saturn.
• 1657: Christiaan Huygens develops the first functional pendulum clock based on the learnings of Galileo Galilei.
• 1659: Christiaan Huygens first to observe surface details of Mars.
• 1662: Christopher Merret presents first paper on the production of sparkling wine.
• 1663: James Gregory publishes designs for a reflecting telescope.
• 1669: The first known operational reflecting telescope is built by Isaac Newton.
• 1676: Antoni van Leeuwenhoek discovers Bacteria.
• 1676: First measurement of the speed of light.
• 1679: Binary system developed by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.
• 1684: Calculus independently developed by both Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Sir Isaac Newton and used to formulate classical mechanics.

External links

• Vistorica: Timelines of 17th century events, science, culture and persons