May 13 – A formal coronation is held for
Marie de' Medici, wife of King Henry IV, as Queen Consort of France. King Henry is preparing to depart to Germany to participate in the
War of the Jülich Succession.
May 14 –
King Henry IV of
France is assassinated in
Paris by
François Ravaillac, a French Catholic activist who resents the Protestant monarch's decision to launch a war against the Catholic Spanish Netherlands. Ravaillac rushes up to a horse-drawn carriage and stabs King Henry in the chest. Henry's 8-year-old son becomes
King Louis XIII, with Henry's widow,
Marie de' Medici, governing France as queen regent.
May 23 –
Jamestown, Virginia: Acting as temporary Governor,
Thomas Gates, along with
John Rolfe, Captain
Ralph Hamor, Sir George Somers, and other survivors from the Sea Venture (wrecked at
Bermuda) arrive at Jamestown; they find that 60 have survived the "starving time" (winter), the fort palisades and gates have been torn down, and empty houses have been used for firewood, in fear of attacks by natives outside the fort area.
June 10 –
Jamestown: The convoy of temporary Governor Gates, and the ships of Governor Lord De La Warr, land at Jamestown.
June 24 –
Henri Membertou, Grand Chief of Mi'kmaq nation, becomes the first North American aboriginal person to accept baptism into the Christian faith and signs the Concordat of 1610, an agreement with the Roman Catholic Church recognizing the Mi'kmaq as an independent nation.[6]
July 27 (July 17 O.S.) –
Vasili Ivanovich Shuisky, who proclaimed himself Tsar of Russia on May 19, 1606, is deposed as the
Seven Boyars remove him from office to select a new ruler.
August 9 –
Anglo-Powhatan Wars: The English launch a major attack on the
Paspahegh village, capturing and executing the native queen and her children, burning houses and chopping down the corn fields; the subsequent use of the term "Paspahegh" in documents refers to their former territory.
September 6 – (August 27 O.S.); The
Seven Boyars, the group of seven Russian nobles seeking stability in the troubled nation, vote to have
King Wladyslaw IV of Poland as Tsar Vladislav of Russia, and invite the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to take over the city.
November 6 – After the
Parliament of England gives King James only £ 100,000 of an agreed to £ 600,000 of debt relief promised in February under the
Great Contract, the King demands the rest of the funds. Parliament is outraged and declares the Contract abandoned on November 9.
December 20 – (December 10 O.S.),
John Roberts, a Benedictine monk in
Wales, is executed five days after being convicted of
high treason for violating a law against Catholic ministry. He is
hanged, drawn and quartered. Roberts will be canonized as a Roman Catholic saint almost 360 years later, on October 25, 1970.
The
Manchu tribal leader
Nurhaci breaks his relations with the
Ming dynasty of China, at this time under the aloof and growingly negligent
Wanli Emperor; Nurhaci's line later becomes the emperors of the
Qing dynasty, which overthrows the short-lived
Shun dynasty in
1644, and the remnants of the Ming throne in
1662.
Jakob Böhme experiences another inner vision, in which he believes that he further understands the unity of the cosmos, and that he has received a special vocation from God.
June 13 – The
Siege of Smolensk in Russia by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth succeeds after nearly two years of fighting that started on 29 September 1609. The conquest of the city is made possible by the discovery of a weakness in the walls of the fortress and the detonating of an explosive in a drainage canal.
June 22 – English explorer and sea captain
Henry Hudson, his teenage son John, and seven crewmen are set adrift in or near
Hudson Bay, after a mutiny on his ship Discovery. They are never seen again.
August 2 –
Jamestown's Deputy Governor Sir
Thomas Gates returns to
Virginia with 280 people, provisions and cattle on six ships and assumes control, ruling that the fort must be strengthened.
September 11 – Greek Orthodox bishop
Dionysios Skylosophos leads an army of 700 men in a surprise attack on the city of
Yanya (formerly the ancient Greek city of Ioannina) in an attempt to liberate the inhabitants from Ottoman Imperial rule. The Ottoman provincial governor, Osman Pasha, is forced to flee and his home is burned down, but Ottoman troops commanded by Aslan Pasha rout the rebels. Skylosophos is captured on September 14, then tortured to death in public.
December 5 (30 Ramadan 1020 A.H.) – To celebrate the end of the daily fasting of the month of
Ramadan, the
Mughal Empire Army commander,
Mubariz Khan, hosts the celebration banquet and learns that Pashtun rebel leader
Khwaja Usman and 250 of his men have evacuated
Bokainagar (modern-day Gouripur in
Bangladesh) during the Mughal Army's holiday observance.
January 10 –
Gustavus Adolphus replies to Metropolitan Isidor, Odoevskij and the estates of
Novgorod, stating that he himself wishes to assume responsibility for the government of Novgorod and also of all Russians. A number of land grants signed the same day show that the Swedish king has assumed the title of
Tsar.[23]
February 11 –
Battle of Vittsjö: King
Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden and 3,000 of his troops are forced to retreat from
Denmark. The 17-year old king almost drowns while attempting to ride his horse across a frozen lake, but is rescued by two other members of his cavalry. The horse is lost.
March 12 – At Daulambapur, near
Kamalganj in what is now the Indian state of
Uttar Pradesh, a battle takes place between 4,500 troops led by General
Islam Khan I of India's
Mughal Empire, and 12,000 defenders led by the Afghan warlord
Khwaja Usman. The Mughals are almost defeated until Usman is struck in the eye by an arrow fired from a crossbow.
April–June
April 10 – In England, 12 persons who become known as the
Pendle witches allegedly hold a
coven at the
Malkin Tower in
Lancashire on Good Friday, after which 10 people die mysteriously.[25] All but two of the accused witches are tried for causing harm by witchcraft on August 18.
September 1 –
Battle of Moscow (1612): Led by General
Jan Karol Chodkiewicz, a relief force from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, whose troops had been occupying
Moscow for two years, make an unsuccessful attempt to break the Russian siege of the
Kremlin, where General
Mikolaj Strus and his troops are trapped. Both the Russians (led by
Dmitry Pozharsky) and the Commonwealth troops suffer at least 1,000 deaths, but the Russians prevail. General Chodkiewicz tries a second attack the next day and fails.
September 5 – England's
East India Company gets its first warships and establishes the "'Honourable East India Company's Marine'" to protect its freighters. The force develops over the centuries into the
Royal Indian Navy and, after India's independence in 1947, the
Indian Navy.
September 22 – Retreating Polish and Lithuanian troops burn the Russian city of
Vologda in reprisal for their defeat at Moscow.
Thomas Shelton's English translation of the first half of Don Quixote is published. It is the first translation of the Spanish novel into any language.
January 11 – Workers in a sandpit in the
Dauphiné region of
France discover the skeleton of what is alleged to be a 30-foot tall man (the remains, it is supposed, of the giant
Teutobochus, a legendary Gallic king who fought the Romans).[30]
February 24 – King Anaukpetlun of Burma blockades the
Portuguese port at Syriam with 80 warships and 3,000 men, then sets about to tunnel into the city.
Burmese soldiers, tunneling under the walls of the Portuguese colonial fortress at
Syriam (now Thanlyin), bring down a section of the walls and sack the city. Portuguese Governor
Filipe de Brito e Nicote and rebel Burmese General
Natshinnaung are captured, and executed by impalement on April 9.
June 28 (July 8 N.S.) – From
Jamestown,
John Rolfe makes the first shipment to England of
tobacco grown in Virginia, dispatching it on the ship The Elizabeth. [34] The tobacco arrives in England after a voyage of three weeks.
July 20 (July 30 N.S.) – The first American-grown tobacco, produced in the British colony of Virginia, arrives in England after being dispatched 22 days earlier by John Rolfe. [34]
July 26 –
Diego Marín de Negron, the Spanish Governor of Rio de la Plata y Paraguay, is assassinated by poisoning at his palace in
Buenos Aires.C. Antonio Zinny, History of the governors of the Argentine provinces from 1810 to the present (Editoriales Huemul, 1941) p.105
July 28 – Gregor Richter, the chief pastor of
Görlitz, denounces
Jacob Boehme as a heretic, in his Sunday sermon.
October 21 –
Gabriel Bathory, ruler of the
Principality of Transylvania, is removed from office by vote of the nobles meeting at
Gyulafehérvár (now Alba Iulia in Romania).[36]: 279 Bathory refuses to vacate the palace at the Transylvanian capital at
Várad, (now Oradea in Romania), and is murdered on October 27.[36]
The Date Maru, carrying the Japanese diplomatic mission commanded
Hasekura Tsunenaga, reaches North America, sighting
Cape Mendocino on the California coast.[38]
December 26 – The Burmese Army defeats the Siamese Army at
Tavoy. The city is now part of Myanmar as Dawei.
December 27 –
Mateo Leal de Ayala becomes the new Governor of Rio de la Plata y Paraguay, covering what will become the nations of Argentina, Chile and Paraguay. He succeeds
Diego Marín de Negron, who was poisoned on July 26.
January 22 – Led by
Hasekura Tsunenaga, Japan's trade expedition to
New Spain (now Mexico) arrives on the Mexican coast with 22 samurai, 120 Japanese merchants, sailors and servants, and 40 Spaniards and Portuguese who serve as interpreters. [40] Having reached the Americas after a voyage that began on October 28, the expedition travels to
Acapulco and arrives on January 25.
February 1 – In Japan, the practice of
Christianity is banned and an edict issues for the expulsion of all foreign missionairies.[41][42]
February 2 – Iran's Safavid dynasty Emperor,
Abbas the Great, carries out the execution of his oldest son, Crown Prince
Mohammad Baqer Mirza, on suspicion that his son is planning to kill him. [43]
February 14 (February 4 O.S.) – King
James I of England issues his proclamation Against Private Challenges and Combats in an effort to end duels.
February 20 –
Matthias I, Archduke of Austria, King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, and Holy Roman Emperor, directs the restoration of Roman Catholic rule to
Aachen, allowing the Army of Flanders (from the Spanish Netherlands) to
lay siege to the German town.
March 17 – The
States General of the
Republic of the Seven United Netherlands authorizes an exclusive monopoly for trade in the
New World, providing for the winning company to be able to make four voyages to the eastern coast of North America between 40° N and 45° N, encompassing what are now the U.S. states of New Jersey. The
New Netherland Company receives the exclusive patent, effective January 1, 1615.
Pocahontas, the 17-year-old daughter of Chief
Wahunsenacawh of the
Powhatan Algonquian native tribe in what is now the U.S. state of Virginia, is forced into child marriage with English colonist
John Rolfe at
Jamestown, a year after her capture in war. She is given the name of Rebecca Rolfe and departs with John Rolfe to England in 1616, dying before she can return.
The Republic of the Netherlands and the Kingdom of Sweden enter into a treaty at
the Hague.
A new parliament will not be seated until more than six years later.
April 30 – The
Kingdom of Lan Na (in what is now northern Thailand) is invaded by 17,000 troops commanded by
King Anaukpetlun of
Burma (now
Myanmar). Lan Na's King Thado Kyaw is unsuccessful in getting assistance from the Kingdom of Siam, and turns to the
Kingdom of Lan Xang (now
Laos), which provides assistance.
May 14 – An earthquake strikes the Azores islands and levels the village of Vila Franca do Campo.
July 16 – In reprisal for the attempt of "
the False Dmitry", a man who claimed to be the son of Ivan the Terrible, to claim the throne,
Tsar Michael I has Dmitry's 3-year-old son,
Ivan Dmitriyevich, publicly hanged in Moscow.
August 24 – The
Siege of Aachen begins as the Spanish Army of Flanders, commanded by Amrogio Spinola, attacks with 15,000 troops. The 600-man defense force from Brandenburg surrenders a few days later.
November 19 – Hostilities resulting from an attempt by
Toyotomi Hideyori to restore
Osaka Castle begin.
Tokugawa Ieyasu, father of the shōgun, is outraged at this act, and leads three thousand men across the Kizu River, destroying the fort there.
Tisquantum,[48] a Native American of the
Wampanoag Nation, is kidnapped and enslaved by Thomas Hunt, an English sea captain working with Captain John Smith. Freed in Spain, Tisquantum (a.k.a.
Squanto) will travel for five years in Europe and North America, before returning to his home in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Twenty months later, he will be able to teach the Pilgrims[49] the basics of farming and trade in the New World.
February 17 – Japan's envoy to Europe, Hasekura Tsunenaga, receives a Christian baptism by the royal chaplain, Diego de Guzmán, and receives the European name Felipe Francisco Hasekura. [53]
July 7 – In Japan, the Buke shohatto, a 19-section law setting a standard of conduct for individual warlords (daimyo) and their responsibilities to the
Tokugawa shogunate, is proclaimed by the shogun Tokugawa Hidetada before the assembled daimyo at Fushimi Castle in Kyoto. [56]
September 20 – Japanese diplomat
Hasekura Tsunenaga and his entourage become the first officials from Japan to visit Italy, and are received in
Rome by Cardinal Burgecio
October–December
October 5 – The
Spánverjavígin, the last massacre to be carried out in Iceland, begins as 14
Basque Whalers from
Spain are murdered at
Thingeyri while sleeping. Another 18 are killed on October 13, including Captain Martín de Villafranca. The 31 had been survivors of a shipwreck on Iceland in September.
October 27 – In Russia, the
siege of Pskov ends with the withdrawal of Swedish Army troops. The siege is the last battle of the
Ingrian War.
November 3 – Japanese diplomat
Hasekura Tsunenaga and his delegation are received by
Pope Paul V in
Rome, and present a request for trade between the Roman Catholic Church and the Japanese shogunate[57]
November 7 – The Portuguese freighter Nossa Senhora da Luz, carrying 150 crew and a cargo of Chinese and Burmese goods, sinks in a storm near the Azores.
December 20 – The
Uskok War begins after the ports of the Holy Roman Empire on the Adriatic Sea are blockaded by the Republic of Venice, which has hired English and Dutch mercenaries.
The second volume of
Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote ("El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha") is published, and is as successful as the first. Don Quixote eventually becomes the only truly famous work its author ever writes.
February 17 – Manchurian leader
Qing Tai Zu, referred to in the west as "Nurhaci", declares himself
khan and crowns himself as Emperor of China, founding the
Later Jin dynasty.
February 24 – A commission of
Roman Catholic theologians, the "Qualifiers," reports that the idea that the Sun is stationary is "foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts in many places the sense of Holy Scripture...".
February 26 – Astronomer
Galileo Galilei appears before Cardinal
Roberto Bellarmino and "warned of the error of the
Copernican opinion taught by him", and
enjoined by the Catholic Church against any attempt to hold, teach or defend the position of Copernicus that the Sun is stationary rather than revolving around the Earth "in any way whatsoever, verbally or in writing."[64]
February 28 – In the aftermath of the
1613–
1614 anti-Jewish
pogrom called the
Fettmilch uprising in
Frankfurt, Germany, mob leader
Vincenz Fettmilch is beheaded, but the Jews, who had been expelled from the city on August 23, 1614, following the plundering of the
Judengasse, can return only as a result of direct intervention by
Holy Roman EmperorMatthias. After long negotiations, the Jews are left without any compensation for their plundered belongings.
February – English merchants of the
East India Company complain that the great troubles and wars in Japan since their arrival have put them to much pains and charges. Two great cities,
Osaka and Sakaii, have been burned to the ground, each one almost as big as London, and not one house left standing, and it is reported above 300,000 men have lost their lives, “yet the old Emperor Ogusho Same hath prevailed and Fidaia Same either been slain or fled secretly away, that no news is to be heard of him.”
Jesuits, priests, and friars are banished by the emperor and their churches and
monasteries pulled down; they put the fault on the arrival of the English; it is said if Fidaia Same had prevailed against the emperor, he promised them entrance again, when without doubt all the English would have been driven out of Japan.[65]
Galileo Galilei meets
Pope Paul V in person, to discuss his position as a defender of Copernicus'
heliocentrism. The Pope promises Galileo safety from any enemies, and Galileo complies for the next seven years with the injunction against teaching Copernican doctrines.[64]
Sir
Walter Ralegh, English explorer of the
New World, is released from prison in the
Tower of London, where he has been imprisoned for treason, in order to conduct a second (ill-fated) expedition, in search of
El Dorado in South America.[67]
May 25 – King
James I of England's former favourite, the
Earl of Somerset, and his wife
Frances, are convicted of the murder of
Thomas Overbury in
1613. They are spared death, and are sentenced to imprisonment in the Tower of London (until
1622).[73] Although the King has ordered the investigation of the poet's murder and allowed his former court favorite to be arrested and tried, his court, now under the influence of
George Villiers, gains the reputation of being corrupt and vile. The sale of peerages (beginning in July)[74] and the royal visit of James's brother-in-law,
Christian IV of Denmark, a notorious drunkard, add further scandal.
June 12 –
Pocahontas (now Rebecca) arrives in England, with her husband,
John Rolfe,[75] their one-year-old son,
Thomas Rolfe, her half-sister Matachanna (alias Cleopatra) and brother-in-law Tomocomo, the
shaman also known as Uttamatomakkin (having set out in May). Ten
PowhatanIndians are brought by Sir
Thomas Dale, the colonial governor, at the request of the
Virginia Company, as a fund-raising device. Dale, having been recalled under criticism, writes A True Relation of the State of Virginia, Left by Sir Thomas Dale, Knight, in May last, 1616, in a successful effort to redeem his leadership. Neither Pocahontas or Dale see Virginia again.
November 6 – Captain William Murray is granted a royal
patent, giving him the sole privilege of importing
tobacco to Scotland for a period of 21 years. Continuing from the reign of
Elizabeth I of England, the creation of grants and patents reaches a new highwater mark from
1614 to
1621, during the reign of
James I of England.
November 13 – Italian artist
Guido Reni's famous Pietà, commissioned by the Senate of
Bologna, is placed on the greater altar of the church of Santa Maria della Pietà.
The
Tepehuán Revolt begins in Nueva Vizcaya with the attack of a Spanish wagon train that is on its way to Mexico City. It tests the limits of Spanish and
Jesuitcolonialism, in western and northwestern
Durango and southern
Chihuahua, Mexico. [82]
Peter Paul Rubens begins work on classical
tapestries, when a contract is signed in
Antwerp with cloth dyers Jan Raes and Frans Sweerts in Brussels, and the
Genoese merchant Franco Cattaneo.
René Descartes, at age 20, graduates in
civil and
canon law at the
University of Poitiers, where he becomes disillusioned with books, preferring to seek truths from "le grand livre du monde." His thesis defense may be written in December.
With small profits to show, the
Virginia Company decides to distribute land in
Virginia to
shareholders according to the number of shares owned. Each stockholder can set up a "particular" plantation and pay associated expenses, receiving 100 acres (0.40 km2) of land for each share and 50 acres (200,000 m2) for each person transported (the "headrights" system).
December 22 – An Indian youth (called one of "the first fruits of India") is baptized with the name "Peter" in London at the St. Dionis Backchurch, in a ceremony attended by the
Lord Mayor, the
Privy Council, city aldermen, and officials of the
Honourable East India Company. Peter thus becomes the first convert to the
Anglican Church in India. He returns to India as a missionary, schooled in English and Latin.[86]
Oorsprong en voortgang der Nederlandtscher beroerten (Origin and progress of the disturbances in the Netherlands), by
Johannes Gysius, is published.[89]
A fatal disease of cattle, probably
rinderpest, spreads through the Italian provinces of
Padua,
Udine,
Treviso and
Vicenza, introduced most likely from
Dalmatia or Hungary. Great numbers of cattle die in Italy, as they had in previous years (
1559,
1562,
1566,
1590,
1598) in other European regions when
harvest failure also drives people to the brink of starvation (for example,
1595–
97 in Germany). The consumption of beef and veal is prohibited, and
Pope Paul V issues an edict prohibiting the slaughter of draught oxen that are suitable for plowing. Calves are also not slaughtered for some time afterwards, so that Italy's cattle herds can be replenished.[94]
At the behest of Sir
Ferdinando Gorges, Dr. Richard Vines, a physician, passes the winter of 1616–
17 at
Biddeford, Maine, at the mouth of the
Saco River, that he calls Winter Harbor. This is the site of the earliest permanent settlement in Maine, of which there is a conclusive record. Maine will become an important refuge for religious dissenters persecuted by the
Puritans.[95]
The first African
slaves are brought to
Bermuda, an English
colony, by Captain George Bargrave to dive for
pearls, because of their reputed skill in this activity. Harvesting pearls off the coast proves unsuccessful, and the slaves are put to work planting and harvesting the initial large crops of
tobacco and
sugarcane.[96] At the same time, some English refuse to purchase Brazilian sugar because it is produced by slave labour.[97]
Italian
natural philosopherGiulio Cesare Vanini publishes a radically
heterodox book in France, after his English interlude De admirandis naturae reginae deaeque mortalium arcanis, for which he is condemned and forced to flee Paris. For his opinion that the world is eternal and governed by immanent laws, as expressed in this book, he is executed in
1619.
Francesco Albani paints the ceiling frescoes of Apollo and the Seasons, at the Palazzo Verospi in
Via del Corso, for Cardinal Fabrizio Verospi.
John Cotta writes his influential book The Triall of Witch-craft.
Elizabeth Rutter is
hanged as a
witch in
Middlesex, England, Agnes Berrye in
Enfield, and nine women in
Leicester on the testimony of a raving 13-year-old named John Smith, under the
Witchcraft Act 1603.[98] In
Orkney,
Elspeth Reoch is tried. In France Leger (first name unknown) is condemned for
witchcraft on
May 6, Sylvanie de la Plaine is burned at Pays de Labourde as a witch, and in
Orléans eighteen witches are killed.
A second
witch-hunt breaks out in
Biscay, Spain. An Edict of Silence is issued by the
Inquisition, but the king overturns the Edict, and 300 accused witches are burned alive.
"Drink to me only with thine eyes" comes from
Ben Jonson's love poem, To Celia. Jonson's poetic lamentation On my first Sonne is also from this year.
Francis de Sales' literary masterpiece Treatise on the Love of God is published, while he is Bishop of
Geneva.
Orlando Gibbons' anthem See, the Word is Incarnate is written.
Italian naturalist Fabio Colonna states that "tongue stones" (glossopetrae) are
shark teeth, in his treatise De glossopetris dissertatio.
An important English dictionary is published by Dr.
John Bullokar with the title An English Expositor: teaching the interpretation of the hardest words used in our language, with sundry explications, descriptions and discourses.
Moralist writer John Deacon publishes a
quarto entitled Tobacco Tortured in the Filthy Fumes of Tobacco Refined (supporting the views of
James I of England). Deacon writes the same year that
syphilis is a "Turkished", "Spanished", or "Frenchized" disease that the English contract by "trafficking with the contagious courruptions."
Fortunio Liceti publishes De Monstruorum Natura in Italy, which marks the beginning of studies into malformations of the
embryo.
Fort San Diego, in
Acapulco Bay, Mexico, is completed by the Spanish as a defence against their erstwhile
vassals, the Dutch.[100]
Anti-Christian persecutions break out in
Nanjing, China, and
Nagasaki, Japan. The
Jesuit-lead Christian community in Japan at this time is over 3,000,000 strong.
Master seafarer
Henry Mainwaring,
Oxford graduate and lawyer turned successful Newfoundland
pirate, returns to England, is pardoned after rescuing a Newfoundland trading fleet near Gibraltar, and begins to write a revealing treatise on
piracy.
Croatian mathematician Faustus Verantius publishes his book Machinae novae, a book of mechanical and technological inventions, some of which are applicable to the solutions of hydrological problems, and others concern the construction of
clepsydras,
sundials,
mills, presses bridges and boats for widely different uses.
John Speed publishes an edition of his Atlas of Britain, with descriptive text in Latin.
The
States of Holland set up a commission to advise them on the problem of Jewish residency and worship. One of the members of the commission is
Hugo Grotius, a highly regarded jurist and one of the most important political thinkers of his day.
Marie Venier (called Laporte) is the first female actress to appear on the stage in Paris.[102]
March 4 – On
Shrove Tuesday, angry rioters burn down
London's
Cockpit Theatre because of its increase in the price of admission to its plays. Three rioters are killed when the actors at the theater defend themselves.[105]
March 7 –
Francis Bacon is appointed as
Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England and is designated by King James I to serve as regent during the time that the King of England is away from Westminster to travel to Scotland.
March 21 –
Pocahontas (Rebecka Rolfe), daughter of the Chief of the
Powhatan Algonquian tribe in the English colony of Virginia and the wife of English colonist
John Rolfe, dies of
smallpox after an illness of three days contracted as the couple and their son were preparing to return to America. She is buried at
Gravesend. [106]
May 22 – Portuguese Christian Missionary João Baptista Machado de Távora is killed, becoming the first of the
205 Martyrs of Japan.
May 24 – King James VI of Scotland authorizes the Scottish East India Company, led by
Lord Glencairn to trade to the East Indies, the Levant, Greenland, Muscovy and all other islands in the north, north-west and north-eastern seas. James VI is advised that the authorization is not in conflict with charters granted by him in his capacity as King James I of England to England's East India Company, the Levant Company, and the Muscovy Company.
May 27 – In Germany, the Prince-Bishops of Bamberg, Eichstädt and Würzburg, and the Prince-Provost of Ellwangen, withdraw their states from the
Catholic League.
June 5 –
Ferdinand II, Archduke of Inner Austria, is elected
King of Bohemia. Ferdinand's forceful Catholic counter-reformation causes great unrest, amongst the Protestants and moderates in Bohemia.
July–September
July 1 –
Willem Schouten and the crew of the Dutch ship Eendracht return to the Netherlands after
sailing around the world in two years and 17 days, in what is only the fourth circumnavigation of the globe, and the first since 1588. The expedition had departed from
Texel on June 14, 1615 under the command of
Jacob Le Maire, who died on December 22, 1616, slightly more than six months before the return to the Netherlands. [110]
December 15 –
Sir Thomas Roe, a representative of England's
East India Company, arrives in
Ahmedabad at India's Mughal Empire, and seeks an audience with the Emperor,
Shah Jahan. The Emperor receives Roe in an audience three weeks later, on January 6.
December 24 – An unexpected storm strikes off the coast of
Finnmark in
Norway, sinking 10 ships and drowning at least 40 people. A little more than three years later, Mari Jørgensdatter tells interrogators that she and several other witches caused the storm, prompting the
Vardø witch trials.
July 20 –
Pluto reaches its second most recent
aphelion, according to sophisticated mathematical calculations. The next one occurs in
1866, and the following one will occur in
2113.
September 19 – The
Siege of Pilsen begins as the first major battle of the
Thirty Years' War, as Bohemian Protestants lay siege to the Bohemian Catholic city and lasts for more than two months.
September 28 – The
Battle of Orynin takes place. Polish and Lithuanian Army forces fail to stop an invasion by
Crimean Tatars, who then proceed in burning villages in Lithuania and enslaving residents.
February 14 –
Earthquake flattens the town of
Trujillo, Peru, killing hundreds in the town and causing landslides in the surrounding countryside killing hundreds more.[118]
November 10 – While stationed along the Danube river with Bavarian troops,
René Descartes, according to his biographer
Adrien Baillet, has a series of dreams giving him the idea of applying the mathematical method to philosophy.
October 29 – Sir
Walter Raleigh, English soldier, politician, courtier, explorer, Virginia settler, historian, poet and spy (executed) (b.
1552 of 1554)[180]
^N. G. Petrova, Skopin-Shuisky (Young Guard Press, 2010) (in Russian) p. 189
^Chester Dunning, A Short History of Russia's First Civil War: The Time of Troubles and the Founding of the Romanov Dynasty (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004) pp. 272–273
^"The Tragedy of Macbeth", in The Oxford Shakespeare, ed. by Nicholas Brooke (Oxford University Press, 2008) p. 234
^Leeds Barroll, Anna of Denmark, A Cultural Biography (Pennsylvania, 2001), pp. 122–6.
^Sam McKegney, Magic Weapons: Aboriginal Writers Remaking Community After Residential School (University of Manitoba Press, 2007) p.112
^ Manuel Lomas Cortés, El proceso de expulsión de los moriscos de España (1609-1614)("The process of expulsion of the Moors of Spain") (Universities of Valencia, Granada & Zaragoza, 2011) p. 238
^"Sunspot Positions and Areas from Observations by Thomas Harriot", by M. Vokhmyanin, et al., in Journal of Solar Physics (March 10, 2020)
^ "Demetrius, Pseudo", Robert Nisbet Bain, in Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th edition (Cambridge University Press, 1911) p. 984
^"The Lancashire Witches in Historical Context", by James Sharpe, in The Lancashire Witches: Histories and Stories, ed. by Robert Poole, (Manchester University Press, 2002) p.2
^Chester Dunning, A Short History of Russia's First Civil War: The Time of Troubles and the Founding of the Romanov Dynasty (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004) pp. 296–297
^
abAlexander Brown, The Genesis of the United States: A Narrative of the Movement in England, 1605-1616, which Resulted in the Plantation of North America by Englishmen (Houghton Mifflin, 1897) p. 639
^
abNagy, László (1988). Tündérkert fejedelme: Báthory Gábor [Prince of the Pixies' Garden: Gabriel Gáthory]. Zrínyi Kiadó. pp. 279–282.
ISBN963-326-947-4.
^"The Emergence of the Principality and its First Crises (1526–1606)", by Gábor Barta, in History of Transylvania (Akadémiai Kiadó, 1994) p.313
^"A Quarter Century of Trans-Pacific Diplomacy: New Spain and Japan, 1592–1617", by W. Michael Mathes, Journal of Asian History (1990) pp.1–29
^Roland Mousnier, The Institutions of France Under the Absolute Monarchy, 1598-1789, Volume 1: Society and the State (translated by Brian Pearce) (University of Chicago Press, 1984) p.592
^Roger Chartier, "À propos des États généraux de 1614" ("About the States General of 1614"), in Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine (January-March, 1976) pp. 68-79
^Thomas Roe, as edited by Sir William Foster, The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to the Court of the Great Mogul, 1615-1619, as Narrated in His Journal and Correspondence (Hakluyt Society, 1899) p. 28 ("All being ready, on February 2, 1615, Roe embarked with fifteen followers in the Lion at Tilbury Hope.")
^"The Perception of the Japanese in Early Modern Spain: Not Quite 'The Best People Yet Discovered'", by Christina H. Lee, in EHumanista (2008) pp. 358–359
^The Pontifical Decrees against the Motion of the Earth, Considered in their Bearing on the Theory of Advanced Ultramontanism (Longmans, Green, Reader & Dyer, 1870) pp.5-6
^Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006.
ISBN0-14-102715-0.
^
abEverett, Jason M., ed. (2006). "1616". The People's Chronology. Thomson Gale.
^The Jahangirnama: memoirs of Jahangir, Emperor of India. Translated by Thackston, W. M. Washington, D.C.; New York: Freer Gallery of Art; Arthur M. Sackler Gallery; Smithsonian Institution; Oxford University Press. 1999 [1829].
ISBN9780195127188.
^Findly, Ellison Banks (2000). Nur Jahan: Empress of Mughal India. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 94.
ISBN0-19-507488-2.
^Nath, Renuka (1990). Notable Mughal and Hindu women in the 16th and 17th centuries A.D. New Delhi: Inter-India Publ. p. 72.
ISBN9788121002417.
^Arano, Yasunori (2005). "The Formation of a Japanocentric World Order". International Journal of Asian Studies. 2 (2): 201.
doi:
10.1017/s1479591405000094.
S2CID145541884.
^From an etching in the Guerre de Beauté, a series of six etchings depicting a celebration which took place in Florence in the year 1616 in honor of the prince of Urbino.
^Bratton, Timothy (1988). "Identity of the New England Indian Epidemic of 1616–1619". Bulletin of the History of Medicine. 62 (3): 352–383.
^Sluiter, Engel (1949). "The Fortification of Acapulco, 1615–1616". The Hispanic American Historical Review. 29 (1): 69–80.
doi:
10.2307/2508294.
JSTOR2508294. Today the fort houses the Acapulco Historical Museum.
^His notebooks, not fully published until the 20th century, reveal a coherent
mechanical philosophy of nature with incipient atomism, a force of inertia, and mathematical interpretations of natural philosophy are present. van Berkel, K. (1983). Isaac Beeckman (1588–1637) en de mechanisering van het wereldbeeld. Amsterdam.{{
cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (
link)
^Searles, Colbert (1925). "Allusions to the Contemporary Theater of 1616 by Francois Rosset". Modern Language Notes. 40 (8): 481–483.
doi:
10.2307/2914581.
JSTOR2914581.
^ Smith, John. The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles. 1624. Repr. in Jamestown Narratives, ed. Edward Wright Haile. Champlain, VA: Roundhouse, 1998, p. 261.
^ Elizabeth McClure Thomson, The Chamberlain Letters (London, 1966), p. 140.
^Charles Dudley Warner, Captain John Smith (1579-1631), Sometime Governor of Virginia, and Admiral of New England: A Study of His Life and Writings (Henry Holt and Company, 1881) p. 237 ("Yet there is no doubt, according to a record in the Calendar of State Papers, dated '1617 29 March, London,' that her death occurred March 21, 2017."
^An Historical Account of the Circumnavigation of the Globe: And of the Progress of Discovery in the Pacific Ocean, from the Voyage of Magellan to the Death of Cook (Harper & Brothers, 1837) p. 100
^"Fires, Great", in The Insurance Cyclopeadia: Being an Historical Treasury of Events and Circumstances Connected with the Origin and Progress of Insurance, Cornelius Walford, ed. (C. and E. Layton, 1876) p. 29
^Robert L. Kovach; Robert Louis Kovach (2004). Early Earthquakes of the Americas. Cambridge University Press.
May 13 – A formal coronation is held for
Marie de' Medici, wife of King Henry IV, as Queen Consort of France. King Henry is preparing to depart to Germany to participate in the
War of the Jülich Succession.
May 14 –
King Henry IV of
France is assassinated in
Paris by
François Ravaillac, a French Catholic activist who resents the Protestant monarch's decision to launch a war against the Catholic Spanish Netherlands. Ravaillac rushes up to a horse-drawn carriage and stabs King Henry in the chest. Henry's 8-year-old son becomes
King Louis XIII, with Henry's widow,
Marie de' Medici, governing France as queen regent.
May 23 –
Jamestown, Virginia: Acting as temporary Governor,
Thomas Gates, along with
John Rolfe, Captain
Ralph Hamor, Sir George Somers, and other survivors from the Sea Venture (wrecked at
Bermuda) arrive at Jamestown; they find that 60 have survived the "starving time" (winter), the fort palisades and gates have been torn down, and empty houses have been used for firewood, in fear of attacks by natives outside the fort area.
June 10 –
Jamestown: The convoy of temporary Governor Gates, and the ships of Governor Lord De La Warr, land at Jamestown.
June 24 –
Henri Membertou, Grand Chief of Mi'kmaq nation, becomes the first North American aboriginal person to accept baptism into the Christian faith and signs the Concordat of 1610, an agreement with the Roman Catholic Church recognizing the Mi'kmaq as an independent nation.[6]
July 27 (July 17 O.S.) –
Vasili Ivanovich Shuisky, who proclaimed himself Tsar of Russia on May 19, 1606, is deposed as the
Seven Boyars remove him from office to select a new ruler.
August 9 –
Anglo-Powhatan Wars: The English launch a major attack on the
Paspahegh village, capturing and executing the native queen and her children, burning houses and chopping down the corn fields; the subsequent use of the term "Paspahegh" in documents refers to their former territory.
September 6 – (August 27 O.S.); The
Seven Boyars, the group of seven Russian nobles seeking stability in the troubled nation, vote to have
King Wladyslaw IV of Poland as Tsar Vladislav of Russia, and invite the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to take over the city.
November 6 – After the
Parliament of England gives King James only £ 100,000 of an agreed to £ 600,000 of debt relief promised in February under the
Great Contract, the King demands the rest of the funds. Parliament is outraged and declares the Contract abandoned on November 9.
December 20 – (December 10 O.S.),
John Roberts, a Benedictine monk in
Wales, is executed five days after being convicted of
high treason for violating a law against Catholic ministry. He is
hanged, drawn and quartered. Roberts will be canonized as a Roman Catholic saint almost 360 years later, on October 25, 1970.
The
Manchu tribal leader
Nurhaci breaks his relations with the
Ming dynasty of China, at this time under the aloof and growingly negligent
Wanli Emperor; Nurhaci's line later becomes the emperors of the
Qing dynasty, which overthrows the short-lived
Shun dynasty in
1644, and the remnants of the Ming throne in
1662.
Jakob Böhme experiences another inner vision, in which he believes that he further understands the unity of the cosmos, and that he has received a special vocation from God.
June 13 – The
Siege of Smolensk in Russia by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth succeeds after nearly two years of fighting that started on 29 September 1609. The conquest of the city is made possible by the discovery of a weakness in the walls of the fortress and the detonating of an explosive in a drainage canal.
June 22 – English explorer and sea captain
Henry Hudson, his teenage son John, and seven crewmen are set adrift in or near
Hudson Bay, after a mutiny on his ship Discovery. They are never seen again.
August 2 –
Jamestown's Deputy Governor Sir
Thomas Gates returns to
Virginia with 280 people, provisions and cattle on six ships and assumes control, ruling that the fort must be strengthened.
September 11 – Greek Orthodox bishop
Dionysios Skylosophos leads an army of 700 men in a surprise attack on the city of
Yanya (formerly the ancient Greek city of Ioannina) in an attempt to liberate the inhabitants from Ottoman Imperial rule. The Ottoman provincial governor, Osman Pasha, is forced to flee and his home is burned down, but Ottoman troops commanded by Aslan Pasha rout the rebels. Skylosophos is captured on September 14, then tortured to death in public.
December 5 (30 Ramadan 1020 A.H.) – To celebrate the end of the daily fasting of the month of
Ramadan, the
Mughal Empire Army commander,
Mubariz Khan, hosts the celebration banquet and learns that Pashtun rebel leader
Khwaja Usman and 250 of his men have evacuated
Bokainagar (modern-day Gouripur in
Bangladesh) during the Mughal Army's holiday observance.
January 10 –
Gustavus Adolphus replies to Metropolitan Isidor, Odoevskij and the estates of
Novgorod, stating that he himself wishes to assume responsibility for the government of Novgorod and also of all Russians. A number of land grants signed the same day show that the Swedish king has assumed the title of
Tsar.[23]
February 11 –
Battle of Vittsjö: King
Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden and 3,000 of his troops are forced to retreat from
Denmark. The 17-year old king almost drowns while attempting to ride his horse across a frozen lake, but is rescued by two other members of his cavalry. The horse is lost.
March 12 – At Daulambapur, near
Kamalganj in what is now the Indian state of
Uttar Pradesh, a battle takes place between 4,500 troops led by General
Islam Khan I of India's
Mughal Empire, and 12,000 defenders led by the Afghan warlord
Khwaja Usman. The Mughals are almost defeated until Usman is struck in the eye by an arrow fired from a crossbow.
April–June
April 10 – In England, 12 persons who become known as the
Pendle witches allegedly hold a
coven at the
Malkin Tower in
Lancashire on Good Friday, after which 10 people die mysteriously.[25] All but two of the accused witches are tried for causing harm by witchcraft on August 18.
September 1 –
Battle of Moscow (1612): Led by General
Jan Karol Chodkiewicz, a relief force from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, whose troops had been occupying
Moscow for two years, make an unsuccessful attempt to break the Russian siege of the
Kremlin, where General
Mikolaj Strus and his troops are trapped. Both the Russians (led by
Dmitry Pozharsky) and the Commonwealth troops suffer at least 1,000 deaths, but the Russians prevail. General Chodkiewicz tries a second attack the next day and fails.
September 5 – England's
East India Company gets its first warships and establishes the "'Honourable East India Company's Marine'" to protect its freighters. The force develops over the centuries into the
Royal Indian Navy and, after India's independence in 1947, the
Indian Navy.
September 22 – Retreating Polish and Lithuanian troops burn the Russian city of
Vologda in reprisal for their defeat at Moscow.
Thomas Shelton's English translation of the first half of Don Quixote is published. It is the first translation of the Spanish novel into any language.
January 11 – Workers in a sandpit in the
Dauphiné region of
France discover the skeleton of what is alleged to be a 30-foot tall man (the remains, it is supposed, of the giant
Teutobochus, a legendary Gallic king who fought the Romans).[30]
February 24 – King Anaukpetlun of Burma blockades the
Portuguese port at Syriam with 80 warships and 3,000 men, then sets about to tunnel into the city.
Burmese soldiers, tunneling under the walls of the Portuguese colonial fortress at
Syriam (now Thanlyin), bring down a section of the walls and sack the city. Portuguese Governor
Filipe de Brito e Nicote and rebel Burmese General
Natshinnaung are captured, and executed by impalement on April 9.
June 28 (July 8 N.S.) – From
Jamestown,
John Rolfe makes the first shipment to England of
tobacco grown in Virginia, dispatching it on the ship The Elizabeth. [34] The tobacco arrives in England after a voyage of three weeks.
July 20 (July 30 N.S.) – The first American-grown tobacco, produced in the British colony of Virginia, arrives in England after being dispatched 22 days earlier by John Rolfe. [34]
July 26 –
Diego Marín de Negron, the Spanish Governor of Rio de la Plata y Paraguay, is assassinated by poisoning at his palace in
Buenos Aires.C. Antonio Zinny, History of the governors of the Argentine provinces from 1810 to the present (Editoriales Huemul, 1941) p.105
July 28 – Gregor Richter, the chief pastor of
Görlitz, denounces
Jacob Boehme as a heretic, in his Sunday sermon.
October 21 –
Gabriel Bathory, ruler of the
Principality of Transylvania, is removed from office by vote of the nobles meeting at
Gyulafehérvár (now Alba Iulia in Romania).[36]: 279 Bathory refuses to vacate the palace at the Transylvanian capital at
Várad, (now Oradea in Romania), and is murdered on October 27.[36]
The Date Maru, carrying the Japanese diplomatic mission commanded
Hasekura Tsunenaga, reaches North America, sighting
Cape Mendocino on the California coast.[38]
December 26 – The Burmese Army defeats the Siamese Army at
Tavoy. The city is now part of Myanmar as Dawei.
December 27 –
Mateo Leal de Ayala becomes the new Governor of Rio de la Plata y Paraguay, covering what will become the nations of Argentina, Chile and Paraguay. He succeeds
Diego Marín de Negron, who was poisoned on July 26.
January 22 – Led by
Hasekura Tsunenaga, Japan's trade expedition to
New Spain (now Mexico) arrives on the Mexican coast with 22 samurai, 120 Japanese merchants, sailors and servants, and 40 Spaniards and Portuguese who serve as interpreters. [40] Having reached the Americas after a voyage that began on October 28, the expedition travels to
Acapulco and arrives on January 25.
February 1 – In Japan, the practice of
Christianity is banned and an edict issues for the expulsion of all foreign missionairies.[41][42]
February 2 – Iran's Safavid dynasty Emperor,
Abbas the Great, carries out the execution of his oldest son, Crown Prince
Mohammad Baqer Mirza, on suspicion that his son is planning to kill him. [43]
February 14 (February 4 O.S.) – King
James I of England issues his proclamation Against Private Challenges and Combats in an effort to end duels.
February 20 –
Matthias I, Archduke of Austria, King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, and Holy Roman Emperor, directs the restoration of Roman Catholic rule to
Aachen, allowing the Army of Flanders (from the Spanish Netherlands) to
lay siege to the German town.
March 17 – The
States General of the
Republic of the Seven United Netherlands authorizes an exclusive monopoly for trade in the
New World, providing for the winning company to be able to make four voyages to the eastern coast of North America between 40° N and 45° N, encompassing what are now the U.S. states of New Jersey. The
New Netherland Company receives the exclusive patent, effective January 1, 1615.
Pocahontas, the 17-year-old daughter of Chief
Wahunsenacawh of the
Powhatan Algonquian native tribe in what is now the U.S. state of Virginia, is forced into child marriage with English colonist
John Rolfe at
Jamestown, a year after her capture in war. She is given the name of Rebecca Rolfe and departs with John Rolfe to England in 1616, dying before she can return.
The Republic of the Netherlands and the Kingdom of Sweden enter into a treaty at
the Hague.
A new parliament will not be seated until more than six years later.
April 30 – The
Kingdom of Lan Na (in what is now northern Thailand) is invaded by 17,000 troops commanded by
King Anaukpetlun of
Burma (now
Myanmar). Lan Na's King Thado Kyaw is unsuccessful in getting assistance from the Kingdom of Siam, and turns to the
Kingdom of Lan Xang (now
Laos), which provides assistance.
May 14 – An earthquake strikes the Azores islands and levels the village of Vila Franca do Campo.
July 16 – In reprisal for the attempt of "
the False Dmitry", a man who claimed to be the son of Ivan the Terrible, to claim the throne,
Tsar Michael I has Dmitry's 3-year-old son,
Ivan Dmitriyevich, publicly hanged in Moscow.
August 24 – The
Siege of Aachen begins as the Spanish Army of Flanders, commanded by Amrogio Spinola, attacks with 15,000 troops. The 600-man defense force from Brandenburg surrenders a few days later.
November 19 – Hostilities resulting from an attempt by
Toyotomi Hideyori to restore
Osaka Castle begin.
Tokugawa Ieyasu, father of the shōgun, is outraged at this act, and leads three thousand men across the Kizu River, destroying the fort there.
Tisquantum,[48] a Native American of the
Wampanoag Nation, is kidnapped and enslaved by Thomas Hunt, an English sea captain working with Captain John Smith. Freed in Spain, Tisquantum (a.k.a.
Squanto) will travel for five years in Europe and North America, before returning to his home in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Twenty months later, he will be able to teach the Pilgrims[49] the basics of farming and trade in the New World.
February 17 – Japan's envoy to Europe, Hasekura Tsunenaga, receives a Christian baptism by the royal chaplain, Diego de Guzmán, and receives the European name Felipe Francisco Hasekura. [53]
July 7 – In Japan, the Buke shohatto, a 19-section law setting a standard of conduct for individual warlords (daimyo) and their responsibilities to the
Tokugawa shogunate, is proclaimed by the shogun Tokugawa Hidetada before the assembled daimyo at Fushimi Castle in Kyoto. [56]
September 20 – Japanese diplomat
Hasekura Tsunenaga and his entourage become the first officials from Japan to visit Italy, and are received in
Rome by Cardinal Burgecio
October–December
October 5 – The
Spánverjavígin, the last massacre to be carried out in Iceland, begins as 14
Basque Whalers from
Spain are murdered at
Thingeyri while sleeping. Another 18 are killed on October 13, including Captain Martín de Villafranca. The 31 had been survivors of a shipwreck on Iceland in September.
October 27 – In Russia, the
siege of Pskov ends with the withdrawal of Swedish Army troops. The siege is the last battle of the
Ingrian War.
November 3 – Japanese diplomat
Hasekura Tsunenaga and his delegation are received by
Pope Paul V in
Rome, and present a request for trade between the Roman Catholic Church and the Japanese shogunate[57]
November 7 – The Portuguese freighter Nossa Senhora da Luz, carrying 150 crew and a cargo of Chinese and Burmese goods, sinks in a storm near the Azores.
December 20 – The
Uskok War begins after the ports of the Holy Roman Empire on the Adriatic Sea are blockaded by the Republic of Venice, which has hired English and Dutch mercenaries.
The second volume of
Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote ("El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha") is published, and is as successful as the first. Don Quixote eventually becomes the only truly famous work its author ever writes.
February 17 – Manchurian leader
Qing Tai Zu, referred to in the west as "Nurhaci", declares himself
khan and crowns himself as Emperor of China, founding the
Later Jin dynasty.
February 24 – A commission of
Roman Catholic theologians, the "Qualifiers," reports that the idea that the Sun is stationary is "foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts in many places the sense of Holy Scripture...".
February 26 – Astronomer
Galileo Galilei appears before Cardinal
Roberto Bellarmino and "warned of the error of the
Copernican opinion taught by him", and
enjoined by the Catholic Church against any attempt to hold, teach or defend the position of Copernicus that the Sun is stationary rather than revolving around the Earth "in any way whatsoever, verbally or in writing."[64]
February 28 – In the aftermath of the
1613–
1614 anti-Jewish
pogrom called the
Fettmilch uprising in
Frankfurt, Germany, mob leader
Vincenz Fettmilch is beheaded, but the Jews, who had been expelled from the city on August 23, 1614, following the plundering of the
Judengasse, can return only as a result of direct intervention by
Holy Roman EmperorMatthias. After long negotiations, the Jews are left without any compensation for their plundered belongings.
February – English merchants of the
East India Company complain that the great troubles and wars in Japan since their arrival have put them to much pains and charges. Two great cities,
Osaka and Sakaii, have been burned to the ground, each one almost as big as London, and not one house left standing, and it is reported above 300,000 men have lost their lives, “yet the old Emperor Ogusho Same hath prevailed and Fidaia Same either been slain or fled secretly away, that no news is to be heard of him.”
Jesuits, priests, and friars are banished by the emperor and their churches and
monasteries pulled down; they put the fault on the arrival of the English; it is said if Fidaia Same had prevailed against the emperor, he promised them entrance again, when without doubt all the English would have been driven out of Japan.[65]
Galileo Galilei meets
Pope Paul V in person, to discuss his position as a defender of Copernicus'
heliocentrism. The Pope promises Galileo safety from any enemies, and Galileo complies for the next seven years with the injunction against teaching Copernican doctrines.[64]
Sir
Walter Ralegh, English explorer of the
New World, is released from prison in the
Tower of London, where he has been imprisoned for treason, in order to conduct a second (ill-fated) expedition, in search of
El Dorado in South America.[67]
May 25 – King
James I of England's former favourite, the
Earl of Somerset, and his wife
Frances, are convicted of the murder of
Thomas Overbury in
1613. They are spared death, and are sentenced to imprisonment in the Tower of London (until
1622).[73] Although the King has ordered the investigation of the poet's murder and allowed his former court favorite to be arrested and tried, his court, now under the influence of
George Villiers, gains the reputation of being corrupt and vile. The sale of peerages (beginning in July)[74] and the royal visit of James's brother-in-law,
Christian IV of Denmark, a notorious drunkard, add further scandal.
June 12 –
Pocahontas (now Rebecca) arrives in England, with her husband,
John Rolfe,[75] their one-year-old son,
Thomas Rolfe, her half-sister Matachanna (alias Cleopatra) and brother-in-law Tomocomo, the
shaman also known as Uttamatomakkin (having set out in May). Ten
PowhatanIndians are brought by Sir
Thomas Dale, the colonial governor, at the request of the
Virginia Company, as a fund-raising device. Dale, having been recalled under criticism, writes A True Relation of the State of Virginia, Left by Sir Thomas Dale, Knight, in May last, 1616, in a successful effort to redeem his leadership. Neither Pocahontas or Dale see Virginia again.
November 6 – Captain William Murray is granted a royal
patent, giving him the sole privilege of importing
tobacco to Scotland for a period of 21 years. Continuing from the reign of
Elizabeth I of England, the creation of grants and patents reaches a new highwater mark from
1614 to
1621, during the reign of
James I of England.
November 13 – Italian artist
Guido Reni's famous Pietà, commissioned by the Senate of
Bologna, is placed on the greater altar of the church of Santa Maria della Pietà.
The
Tepehuán Revolt begins in Nueva Vizcaya with the attack of a Spanish wagon train that is on its way to Mexico City. It tests the limits of Spanish and
Jesuitcolonialism, in western and northwestern
Durango and southern
Chihuahua, Mexico. [82]
Peter Paul Rubens begins work on classical
tapestries, when a contract is signed in
Antwerp with cloth dyers Jan Raes and Frans Sweerts in Brussels, and the
Genoese merchant Franco Cattaneo.
René Descartes, at age 20, graduates in
civil and
canon law at the
University of Poitiers, where he becomes disillusioned with books, preferring to seek truths from "le grand livre du monde." His thesis defense may be written in December.
With small profits to show, the
Virginia Company decides to distribute land in
Virginia to
shareholders according to the number of shares owned. Each stockholder can set up a "particular" plantation and pay associated expenses, receiving 100 acres (0.40 km2) of land for each share and 50 acres (200,000 m2) for each person transported (the "headrights" system).
December 22 – An Indian youth (called one of "the first fruits of India") is baptized with the name "Peter" in London at the St. Dionis Backchurch, in a ceremony attended by the
Lord Mayor, the
Privy Council, city aldermen, and officials of the
Honourable East India Company. Peter thus becomes the first convert to the
Anglican Church in India. He returns to India as a missionary, schooled in English and Latin.[86]
Oorsprong en voortgang der Nederlandtscher beroerten (Origin and progress of the disturbances in the Netherlands), by
Johannes Gysius, is published.[89]
A fatal disease of cattle, probably
rinderpest, spreads through the Italian provinces of
Padua,
Udine,
Treviso and
Vicenza, introduced most likely from
Dalmatia or Hungary. Great numbers of cattle die in Italy, as they had in previous years (
1559,
1562,
1566,
1590,
1598) in other European regions when
harvest failure also drives people to the brink of starvation (for example,
1595–
97 in Germany). The consumption of beef and veal is prohibited, and
Pope Paul V issues an edict prohibiting the slaughter of draught oxen that are suitable for plowing. Calves are also not slaughtered for some time afterwards, so that Italy's cattle herds can be replenished.[94]
At the behest of Sir
Ferdinando Gorges, Dr. Richard Vines, a physician, passes the winter of 1616–
17 at
Biddeford, Maine, at the mouth of the
Saco River, that he calls Winter Harbor. This is the site of the earliest permanent settlement in Maine, of which there is a conclusive record. Maine will become an important refuge for religious dissenters persecuted by the
Puritans.[95]
The first African
slaves are brought to
Bermuda, an English
colony, by Captain George Bargrave to dive for
pearls, because of their reputed skill in this activity. Harvesting pearls off the coast proves unsuccessful, and the slaves are put to work planting and harvesting the initial large crops of
tobacco and
sugarcane.[96] At the same time, some English refuse to purchase Brazilian sugar because it is produced by slave labour.[97]
Italian
natural philosopherGiulio Cesare Vanini publishes a radically
heterodox book in France, after his English interlude De admirandis naturae reginae deaeque mortalium arcanis, for which he is condemned and forced to flee Paris. For his opinion that the world is eternal and governed by immanent laws, as expressed in this book, he is executed in
1619.
Francesco Albani paints the ceiling frescoes of Apollo and the Seasons, at the Palazzo Verospi in
Via del Corso, for Cardinal Fabrizio Verospi.
John Cotta writes his influential book The Triall of Witch-craft.
Elizabeth Rutter is
hanged as a
witch in
Middlesex, England, Agnes Berrye in
Enfield, and nine women in
Leicester on the testimony of a raving 13-year-old named John Smith, under the
Witchcraft Act 1603.[98] In
Orkney,
Elspeth Reoch is tried. In France Leger (first name unknown) is condemned for
witchcraft on
May 6, Sylvanie de la Plaine is burned at Pays de Labourde as a witch, and in
Orléans eighteen witches are killed.
A second
witch-hunt breaks out in
Biscay, Spain. An Edict of Silence is issued by the
Inquisition, but the king overturns the Edict, and 300 accused witches are burned alive.
"Drink to me only with thine eyes" comes from
Ben Jonson's love poem, To Celia. Jonson's poetic lamentation On my first Sonne is also from this year.
Francis de Sales' literary masterpiece Treatise on the Love of God is published, while he is Bishop of
Geneva.
Orlando Gibbons' anthem See, the Word is Incarnate is written.
Italian naturalist Fabio Colonna states that "tongue stones" (glossopetrae) are
shark teeth, in his treatise De glossopetris dissertatio.
An important English dictionary is published by Dr.
John Bullokar with the title An English Expositor: teaching the interpretation of the hardest words used in our language, with sundry explications, descriptions and discourses.
Moralist writer John Deacon publishes a
quarto entitled Tobacco Tortured in the Filthy Fumes of Tobacco Refined (supporting the views of
James I of England). Deacon writes the same year that
syphilis is a "Turkished", "Spanished", or "Frenchized" disease that the English contract by "trafficking with the contagious courruptions."
Fortunio Liceti publishes De Monstruorum Natura in Italy, which marks the beginning of studies into malformations of the
embryo.
Fort San Diego, in
Acapulco Bay, Mexico, is completed by the Spanish as a defence against their erstwhile
vassals, the Dutch.[100]
Anti-Christian persecutions break out in
Nanjing, China, and
Nagasaki, Japan. The
Jesuit-lead Christian community in Japan at this time is over 3,000,000 strong.
Master seafarer
Henry Mainwaring,
Oxford graduate and lawyer turned successful Newfoundland
pirate, returns to England, is pardoned after rescuing a Newfoundland trading fleet near Gibraltar, and begins to write a revealing treatise on
piracy.
Croatian mathematician Faustus Verantius publishes his book Machinae novae, a book of mechanical and technological inventions, some of which are applicable to the solutions of hydrological problems, and others concern the construction of
clepsydras,
sundials,
mills, presses bridges and boats for widely different uses.
John Speed publishes an edition of his Atlas of Britain, with descriptive text in Latin.
The
States of Holland set up a commission to advise them on the problem of Jewish residency and worship. One of the members of the commission is
Hugo Grotius, a highly regarded jurist and one of the most important political thinkers of his day.
Marie Venier (called Laporte) is the first female actress to appear on the stage in Paris.[102]
March 4 – On
Shrove Tuesday, angry rioters burn down
London's
Cockpit Theatre because of its increase in the price of admission to its plays. Three rioters are killed when the actors at the theater defend themselves.[105]
March 7 –
Francis Bacon is appointed as
Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England and is designated by King James I to serve as regent during the time that the King of England is away from Westminster to travel to Scotland.
March 21 –
Pocahontas (Rebecka Rolfe), daughter of the Chief of the
Powhatan Algonquian tribe in the English colony of Virginia and the wife of English colonist
John Rolfe, dies of
smallpox after an illness of three days contracted as the couple and their son were preparing to return to America. She is buried at
Gravesend. [106]
May 22 – Portuguese Christian Missionary João Baptista Machado de Távora is killed, becoming the first of the
205 Martyrs of Japan.
May 24 – King James VI of Scotland authorizes the Scottish East India Company, led by
Lord Glencairn to trade to the East Indies, the Levant, Greenland, Muscovy and all other islands in the north, north-west and north-eastern seas. James VI is advised that the authorization is not in conflict with charters granted by him in his capacity as King James I of England to England's East India Company, the Levant Company, and the Muscovy Company.
May 27 – In Germany, the Prince-Bishops of Bamberg, Eichstädt and Würzburg, and the Prince-Provost of Ellwangen, withdraw their states from the
Catholic League.
June 5 –
Ferdinand II, Archduke of Inner Austria, is elected
King of Bohemia. Ferdinand's forceful Catholic counter-reformation causes great unrest, amongst the Protestants and moderates in Bohemia.
July–September
July 1 –
Willem Schouten and the crew of the Dutch ship Eendracht return to the Netherlands after
sailing around the world in two years and 17 days, in what is only the fourth circumnavigation of the globe, and the first since 1588. The expedition had departed from
Texel on June 14, 1615 under the command of
Jacob Le Maire, who died on December 22, 1616, slightly more than six months before the return to the Netherlands. [110]
December 15 –
Sir Thomas Roe, a representative of England's
East India Company, arrives in
Ahmedabad at India's Mughal Empire, and seeks an audience with the Emperor,
Shah Jahan. The Emperor receives Roe in an audience three weeks later, on January 6.
December 24 – An unexpected storm strikes off the coast of
Finnmark in
Norway, sinking 10 ships and drowning at least 40 people. A little more than three years later, Mari Jørgensdatter tells interrogators that she and several other witches caused the storm, prompting the
Vardø witch trials.
July 20 –
Pluto reaches its second most recent
aphelion, according to sophisticated mathematical calculations. The next one occurs in
1866, and the following one will occur in
2113.
September 19 – The
Siege of Pilsen begins as the first major battle of the
Thirty Years' War, as Bohemian Protestants lay siege to the Bohemian Catholic city and lasts for more than two months.
September 28 – The
Battle of Orynin takes place. Polish and Lithuanian Army forces fail to stop an invasion by
Crimean Tatars, who then proceed in burning villages in Lithuania and enslaving residents.
February 14 –
Earthquake flattens the town of
Trujillo, Peru, killing hundreds in the town and causing landslides in the surrounding countryside killing hundreds more.[118]
November 10 – While stationed along the Danube river with Bavarian troops,
René Descartes, according to his biographer
Adrien Baillet, has a series of dreams giving him the idea of applying the mathematical method to philosophy.
October 29 – Sir
Walter Raleigh, English soldier, politician, courtier, explorer, Virginia settler, historian, poet and spy (executed) (b.
1552 of 1554)[180]
^N. G. Petrova, Skopin-Shuisky (Young Guard Press, 2010) (in Russian) p. 189
^Chester Dunning, A Short History of Russia's First Civil War: The Time of Troubles and the Founding of the Romanov Dynasty (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004) pp. 272–273
^"The Tragedy of Macbeth", in The Oxford Shakespeare, ed. by Nicholas Brooke (Oxford University Press, 2008) p. 234
^Leeds Barroll, Anna of Denmark, A Cultural Biography (Pennsylvania, 2001), pp. 122–6.
^Sam McKegney, Magic Weapons: Aboriginal Writers Remaking Community After Residential School (University of Manitoba Press, 2007) p.112
^ Manuel Lomas Cortés, El proceso de expulsión de los moriscos de España (1609-1614)("The process of expulsion of the Moors of Spain") (Universities of Valencia, Granada & Zaragoza, 2011) p. 238
^"Sunspot Positions and Areas from Observations by Thomas Harriot", by M. Vokhmyanin, et al., in Journal of Solar Physics (March 10, 2020)
^ "Demetrius, Pseudo", Robert Nisbet Bain, in Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th edition (Cambridge University Press, 1911) p. 984
^"The Lancashire Witches in Historical Context", by James Sharpe, in The Lancashire Witches: Histories and Stories, ed. by Robert Poole, (Manchester University Press, 2002) p.2
^Chester Dunning, A Short History of Russia's First Civil War: The Time of Troubles and the Founding of the Romanov Dynasty (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004) pp. 296–297
^
abAlexander Brown, The Genesis of the United States: A Narrative of the Movement in England, 1605-1616, which Resulted in the Plantation of North America by Englishmen (Houghton Mifflin, 1897) p. 639
^
abNagy, László (1988). Tündérkert fejedelme: Báthory Gábor [Prince of the Pixies' Garden: Gabriel Gáthory]. Zrínyi Kiadó. pp. 279–282.
ISBN963-326-947-4.
^"The Emergence of the Principality and its First Crises (1526–1606)", by Gábor Barta, in History of Transylvania (Akadémiai Kiadó, 1994) p.313
^"A Quarter Century of Trans-Pacific Diplomacy: New Spain and Japan, 1592–1617", by W. Michael Mathes, Journal of Asian History (1990) pp.1–29
^Roland Mousnier, The Institutions of France Under the Absolute Monarchy, 1598-1789, Volume 1: Society and the State (translated by Brian Pearce) (University of Chicago Press, 1984) p.592
^Roger Chartier, "À propos des États généraux de 1614" ("About the States General of 1614"), in Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine (January-March, 1976) pp. 68-79
^Thomas Roe, as edited by Sir William Foster, The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to the Court of the Great Mogul, 1615-1619, as Narrated in His Journal and Correspondence (Hakluyt Society, 1899) p. 28 ("All being ready, on February 2, 1615, Roe embarked with fifteen followers in the Lion at Tilbury Hope.")
^"The Perception of the Japanese in Early Modern Spain: Not Quite 'The Best People Yet Discovered'", by Christina H. Lee, in EHumanista (2008) pp. 358–359
^The Pontifical Decrees against the Motion of the Earth, Considered in their Bearing on the Theory of Advanced Ultramontanism (Longmans, Green, Reader & Dyer, 1870) pp.5-6
^Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006.
ISBN0-14-102715-0.
^
abEverett, Jason M., ed. (2006). "1616". The People's Chronology. Thomson Gale.
^The Jahangirnama: memoirs of Jahangir, Emperor of India. Translated by Thackston, W. M. Washington, D.C.; New York: Freer Gallery of Art; Arthur M. Sackler Gallery; Smithsonian Institution; Oxford University Press. 1999 [1829].
ISBN9780195127188.
^Findly, Ellison Banks (2000). Nur Jahan: Empress of Mughal India. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 94.
ISBN0-19-507488-2.
^Nath, Renuka (1990). Notable Mughal and Hindu women in the 16th and 17th centuries A.D. New Delhi: Inter-India Publ. p. 72.
ISBN9788121002417.
^Arano, Yasunori (2005). "The Formation of a Japanocentric World Order". International Journal of Asian Studies. 2 (2): 201.
doi:
10.1017/s1479591405000094.
S2CID145541884.
^From an etching in the Guerre de Beauté, a series of six etchings depicting a celebration which took place in Florence in the year 1616 in honor of the prince of Urbino.
^Bratton, Timothy (1988). "Identity of the New England Indian Epidemic of 1616–1619". Bulletin of the History of Medicine. 62 (3): 352–383.
^Sluiter, Engel (1949). "The Fortification of Acapulco, 1615–1616". The Hispanic American Historical Review. 29 (1): 69–80.
doi:
10.2307/2508294.
JSTOR2508294. Today the fort houses the Acapulco Historical Museum.
^His notebooks, not fully published until the 20th century, reveal a coherent
mechanical philosophy of nature with incipient atomism, a force of inertia, and mathematical interpretations of natural philosophy are present. van Berkel, K. (1983). Isaac Beeckman (1588–1637) en de mechanisering van het wereldbeeld. Amsterdam.{{
cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (
link)
^Searles, Colbert (1925). "Allusions to the Contemporary Theater of 1616 by Francois Rosset". Modern Language Notes. 40 (8): 481–483.
doi:
10.2307/2914581.
JSTOR2914581.
^ Smith, John. The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles. 1624. Repr. in Jamestown Narratives, ed. Edward Wright Haile. Champlain, VA: Roundhouse, 1998, p. 261.
^ Elizabeth McClure Thomson, The Chamberlain Letters (London, 1966), p. 140.
^Charles Dudley Warner, Captain John Smith (1579-1631), Sometime Governor of Virginia, and Admiral of New England: A Study of His Life and Writings (Henry Holt and Company, 1881) p. 237 ("Yet there is no doubt, according to a record in the Calendar of State Papers, dated '1617 29 March, London,' that her death occurred March 21, 2017."
^An Historical Account of the Circumnavigation of the Globe: And of the Progress of Discovery in the Pacific Ocean, from the Voyage of Magellan to the Death of Cook (Harper & Brothers, 1837) p. 100
^"Fires, Great", in The Insurance Cyclopeadia: Being an Historical Treasury of Events and Circumstances Connected with the Origin and Progress of Insurance, Cornelius Walford, ed. (C. and E. Layton, 1876) p. 29
^Robert L. Kovach; Robert Louis Kovach (2004). Early Earthquakes of the Americas. Cambridge University Press.