1601 CE
This epoch is the beginning of the 400-year Gregorian leap-year cycle within which digital files first existed; the last year of any such cycle is the only leap year whose year number is divisible by 100.
In the 1600s, the 17th century.
Geopolitics & Diplomacy
- January 17 – Treaty of Lyon: France gains Bresse, Bugey and Gex from Savoy, ceding Saluzzo in exchange.source
- 17 January – Treaty of Lyon: France gains Bresse, Bugey and Gex from Savoy, ceding Saluzzo in exchangeFrancesource
- September 11 – Queen Elizabeth I summons her 10th, and last, meeting of the English Parliament.source
- October 27 – The 10th Parliament of Elizabeth I is opened by Queen Elizabeth I of England. It serves until December 19.source
- December 19 – The 10th Parliament of Elizabeth I is adjourned. Another English Parliament will not be assembled until 1604 when summoned by James I.source
Conflict & Security
- January 11 – Valladolid is briefly the capital of Habsburg Spain under Philip III, before returning indefinitely to Madrid in 1606.source
- February 8 – Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, longtime favourite of Queen Elizabeth I of England, begins a rebellion against the Queen. The revolt is crushed the next day. The Earl of Essex and Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton are arrested and charged with treason. Essex confesses to the plot and then implicates his co-conspirators.source
- February 23 – Michael the Brave, Prince of Wallachia, arrives in Prague to enlist the assistance of Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor in driving Ottoman troops out of Transylvania. Michael leaves on March 5, having received a pledge of Austrian troops to the fight.source
- February 25 – The Earl of Essex becomes the first of the Essex's Rebellion participants to be executed. He is beheaded at Tower Hill. His co-conspirator, the Earl of Southampton, sentenced to death, but Queen Elizabeth commutes his penalty to life imprisonment; Southampton will be released two years later.source
- March 5 – The treason trial for five secondary participants in Essex's Rebellion – Gelli Meyrick, Henry Cuffe, Christopher Blount, Charles Danvers and Sir John Davies – is held in London. All five are found guilty. Meyrick and Cuffe are hanged at Tyburn on March 13, and Blount and Danvers are beheaded at Tower Hill on March 18. Davies is allowed to go free.source
- March 7 – In India, Mughal Empire Prince Daniyal Mirza, son of the Emperor Akbar, is named the ruler of Khandesh, after having completed the conquest of the sultanate of Ahmednagar.source
- March 24 – Sigismund Báthory, who had abdicated as Prince of Transylvania in 1599, returns as the leader of the invading Polish Army.source
- May 28 – Sekigahara Campaign: Japanese warlord Date Masamune leads an unsuccessful attempt to take Fukushima Castle.source
- 23 June - Battle of Kokenhausen, in which Polish forces defeated the Swedish relief force and captured the besieging force, relieving the Polish garrison. The battle is known as one of the greatest victories of the Polish hussars, who defeated their numerically superior Swedish adversaries.Swedensource
- 4 July – Archduke Albert applies to the States of Flanders, in session in Bruges, for a "half hundredth penny" (a tax of 0.5%) to finance the Siege of Ostend.Belgiumsource
- July 5 – The Siege of Ostend, which will last more than three years and claims more than 100,000 casualties for both Spain and the Netherlands, begins as Albert of Austria, Governor General of the Habsburg Netherlands, leads an attack on the Dutch Netherlands fortress at Ostend. The Spanish forces eventually triumph on September 20, 1604, albeit in a Pyrrhic victory that will see at least 60,000 soldiers killed, wounded, or dead from disease.source
- 5 July – Siege of Ostend begins.Belgiumsource
- August 3 – The Battle of Guruslău takes place in Goroszlo in (now Guruslău in Romania), as Wallachian troops led by Michael the Brave and Giorgio Basta defeat Transylvanian defenders commanded by Sigismund Báthory. Wallachia, assisted by Austrian troops from the Holy Roman Empire, retakes the Principality of Transylvania from Ottoman rule.source
- September 2 – 4th Spanish Armada is sent; a fleet of 33 ships and 4,432 men, under the command of Admiral Juan del Águila, departs Portugal after being dispatched to Ireland by King Philip III. The Spanish fleet is intended to support an Irish rebellion led by Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone and Hugh Roe O'Donnell against the British.source
- September 9 – The siege of Nagykanizsa, an Ottoman fortress in Hungary, is started by Archduke Ferdinand of Austria and lasts for more than two months before being abandoned.source
- September 19 – Fourth Spanish Armada makes landfall at Kinsale.Irelandsource
- September 20 – The siege of Székesfehérvár, an Ottoman occupied Hungarian fortress, is completed by troops of the Holy Roman Empire after 16 days. The Ottomans will recapture Székesfehérvár a year later.source
- October 2 (September 22 O.S.) – 4th Spanish Armada; a large Spanish fleet, with 4,500 soldiers led by Juan del Águila, lands at Kinsale at County Cork in Ireland, to assist Tyrone's Rebellion.source
- October 2 – Siege of Kinsale by Spanish forces begins.Irelandsource
- November 18 – Ottoman defenders commanded by Tiryaki Hasan Pasha successfully resist the Austrian siege of Nagykanizsa.source
- 22 November – Maurice of Nassau abandons the siege of 's-Hertogenbosch.Belgiumsource
- December 6 – The Battle of Castlehaven is fought off of the coast of southern Ireland as six Spanish Navy ships led by General Pedro de Zubiaur are intercepted by an English fleet of four warships led and commanded by Sir Richard Levenson. Two of the Spanish ships are sunk, and the other four are run aground.source
- December 6 – The Battle of Castlehaven is fought off the south coast of Ireland as six Spanish navy ships led by General Pedro de Zubiaur are intercepted by an English fleet of four warships led and commanded by Sir Richard Levenson. Two of the Spanish ships are sunk and the other four are run aground.Irelandsource
- December 24 (Julian calendar, used by the English; January 3, 1602, according to the Gregorian calendar used by the Irish and Spanish forces in the battle) – The Battle of Kinsale ends the siege of Kinsale, Ireland (begun in autumn 1601).source
- December 27 – The Battle of Bantam is fought within what is now Indonesia off of the coast of the island of Java, as Walter Harmensz leads five Dutch Republic galleons in a successful attack against a Portuguese fleet led by André Furtado de Mendonça.source
- Dutch troops attack the Portuguese in Malacca.source
- Throughout the year, Sweden was involved in war against the nation of Poland.Swedensource
Exploration & Expansion
- February 13 – The first East India Company fleet leaves England on its voyage to the East Indies.source
- April 22 – The first expedition of the East India Company sets sail from England for the Spice Islands with John Davis as pilot-major.source
- May 5 – Dutch explorer Joris van Spilbergen, leading three ships of the Compagnie van De Moucheron, departs on his first expedition to Asia, departing from Veere with the ships Ram, Schaap, and Lam (Ram, Sheep and Lamb). After establishing trade in Sri Lanka, Spilbergen and his crew return to the Dutch Republic in 1604.source
- June 23 – Juan de Oñate, the Spanish colonial administrator in what is now the U.S. state of New Mexico, departs from San Gabriel de Nuevo Mexico with 130 Spanish soldiers and 12 priests on an expedition to explore the interior of the area.source
- July 2 – The Spanish expedition of Juan de Oñate reaches the Canadian River on (the feast day of Biblical Mary Magdalena), in what is now Texas.source
- August 2 – The Oñate expedition reaches the Rita Blanco River on the day of the Feast of the Porciuncula and follows it northward into Oklahoma.source
- September 19 – The Juan de Oñate expedition of Spanish explorers first encounters the indigenous Escanjaque Indians in what is now the U.S. state of Kansas. The Escanjaques ask the Spaniards to assist them in a war against a rival tribe, the Rayados. Instead, Oñate befriends the Rayados five days later.source
- September 28 – The Escanjaque Indians attack Juan de Oñate's Spanish expedition as the Spaniards are returning from their furthest venture east, the Little Arkansas River.source
- Jesuit Matteo Ricci becomes the first European to enter the Forbidden City in Beijing, China, being invited by the Ming Dynasty Emperor.source
Religion & Belief
- 21 May – As Duke and Duchess of Luxembourg, the Archdukes Albert and Isabella conclude an agreement with Ernest of Bavaria, Prince-Bishop of Liège, concerning their rights of patronage over the Princely Abbey of Stavelot-Malmedy.Belgiumsource
- July 22 – General Yemişçi Hasan Pasha is selected as the new Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire by Sultan Mehmed III, 12 days after the death of Grand Vizier Damat Ibrahim Pasha. He served for only 15 months before being executed on the Sultan's orders on October 4, 1603.source
- September 6 – Pope Clement VIII issues a decree forbidding the publication of any litany, except that of the saints as found in the liturgical books and the Litany of Loreto.source
- October 26 – Johannes Kepler, assistant to Tycho Brahe, is promoted to the position of Royal Mathematician of the Holy Roman Empire after Brahe's sudden death.source
- November 30 – Prince Hugh Roe O'Donnell, on his way to the Battle of Kinsale, visits and venerates a relic of the True Cross (Holy rood) on the Feast of St. Andrew, at Holy Cross Abbey.Irelandsource
Economy & Finance
Technology & Infrastructure
Health & Medicine
Crime & Justice
- January – Nine Years' War: John Óge Burke is captured, and later executed.Irelandsource
- October 4 – Claudine de Culam, a 16-year-old girl in the French village of Rognon, is hanged after being convicted of "carnal cohabitation with a dog". The dog is hanged along with her.source
- Martin Möller is accused of Crypto-Calvinism.source
Climate & Environment
Culture & Society
Births
- January 8 – Baltasar Gracián y Morales, Spanish prose writer (died 1658)source
- January 19 – Guido Cagnacci, Italian painter (died 1663)source
- February 4 – Shi Kefa, Chinese Ming Dynasty official (died 1645)source
- March 19 – Alonso Cano, Spanish painter (died 1667)source
- March 31 – Jakov Mikalja, Italian linguist and lexicographer (died 1654)source
- 22 April- Charles Philip, Duke of Södermanland, prince (died 1622)Swedensource
- May 27 – Antoine Daniel, Jesuit missionary at Sainte-Marie among the Hurons (died 1648)source
- July 20 – Robert Wallop, English politician (died 1667)source
- July 30 – Richard Onslow, English MP (died 1664)source
- August 15 – John Campanius, Swedish Lutheran minister in New Sweden (died 1683)source
- September 13 – Jan Brueghel the Younger, Flemish painter (died 1678)source
- 13 September – Jan Brueghel the Younger, painter (died 1678)Belgiumsource
- 13 September – Axel Urup, military officer and supreme court justice (died 1671)Denmarksource
- September 22 – Anne of Austria, queen of Louis XIII and regent of France (died 1666)source
- September 27 – King Louis XIII of France (died 1643)source
- November 14 – John Eudes, French missionary (died 1680)source
- December 25 – Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Gotha (1640–1675) and Saxe-Altenburg (1672–1675) (died 1675)source
- Isak Lauritssøn Falck, merchant (died 1669).Norwaysource
Deaths
- January 11 – Scipione Ammirato, Italian historian (born 1531)source
- January 19 – Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, English statesman (born 1538)source
- January 29 – Louise of Lorraine, French queen consort (born 1553)source
- 29 January – Louise of Lorraine, queen consort (b.1553)Francesource
- February 25 – Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, English politician (born 1566)source
- March 13 – Henry Cuffe, English politician (born 1563)source
- May 21 – Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg, Archbishop-Elector of Cologne (born 1547)source
- June 24 – Henriette of Cleves, Duchess of Nevers, Countess of Rethel (born 1542)source
- June 27 – Henry Norris, 1st Baron Norreys (born 1525)source
- 24 July – Joris Hoefnagel (born 1542), printmakerBelgiumsource
- August 9 – Prince Michael the Brave of Wallachia (born 1558)source
- August 19 – William Lambarde, English antiquarian and politician (born 1536)source
- September 7 – John Shakespeare, English glover, father of William Shakespeare (born 1529)source
- October 12 – Nicholas Brend, English landowner (born 1560)source
- October 24 – Tycho Brahe, Danish astronomer (born 1546)source
- 24 October – Tycho Brahe, astronomer and alchemist (born 1546)Denmarksource
- November 4 – Cyril I is selected as the new leader of the Eastern Orthodox Church as Patriarch of Constantinople and Greek Patriarch of Alexandria, succeeding Meletius I, who died on September 12.source
- Gebhard Truchsess von WaldburgGermanysource