1605 CE
The first part of Miguel de Cervantes' satire on the theme of chivalry, Don Quixote (El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha, "The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha"), is published in Madrid. One of the first significant novels in the western literary tradition, it becomes a global bestseller almost at once. A proclamation commands all Roman Catholic seminary priests and Jesuits to leave the country by 10 December and directs the laity to attend Church of Ireland services. The 1605 Guangdong earthquake, of 7.5 magnitude, strikes China's Hainan Province causing widespread damage and thousands of deaths.
In the 1600s, the 17th century.
Geopolitics & Diplomacy
- 3 February – Sir Arthur Chichester is appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland, an office he will hold for a decade.Irelandsource
- March 11 – A proclamation declares all people of Ireland to be the direct subjects of the British Crown and not of any local lord or chief.source
- 11 March – a proclamation declares all people of Ireland to be the direct subjects of the British Crown and not of any local lord or chief.Irelandsource
- April 16 – Tokugawa Ieyasu abdicates as shogun of Japan, becoming Ogosho (retired shogun). His son Tokugawa Hidetada succeeds him to the office.source
- 14 October – Thomas Jones is appointed to succeed Adam Loftus as Lord Chancellor of Ireland.Irelandsource
- 16 October – The reign of Jehangir begins (reigned till 28 October 1627).Indiasource
- November – Scottish adventurer James Hamilton is granted the lordship of Upper (South) Clandeboye and the Great Ardes in the north of County Down by King James VI and I.Irelandsource
Conflict & Security
- February 25 – Admiral Steven van der Hagen leads a fleet of ships for the Dutch East India Company and makes the first capture of land for the Netherlands in what will become the Dutch East Indies, and later Indonesia. Hagen's men capture the Portuguese citadel of Forte Amboino and the rest of Ambon Island, and make it the capital of the Dutch possessions in Asia.source
- June 1 – Russian troops in Moscow imprison Feodor II and his mother, later executing them.source
- August 14 – A Spanish attack on the Moorish fortress of Hammamet, in Ottoman Tunisia, ends in a disaster for the Spaniards. Although Spanish troops had managed to scale the walls and open the gates, they are suddenly ordered to retreat and are massacred while waiting on the coast for the return of the ships that brought them.source
- August 19 – Eighty Years' War: The siege of the Dutch city of Lingen, by 13,000 Spanish troops and 3,000 cavalry, ends with the surrender of Captain Maerten Cobben after nine days of defense. Although the Dutch Republic's stadtholder, Maurice, Prince of Orange, had proclaimed that Lingen must be held at all costs, Dutch troops failed to come to Cobben's aid and Don Ambrogio Spinola of Spain peacefully takes control of the city.source
- September 27 – Swedish armies are decisively defeated by Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth cavalry in the Battle of Kircholm.source
- September - Polish victory in the Battle of Kircholm.Swedensource
- 15 October – End of the reign of the Mughal Emperor Akbar (reigned since 1556).Indiasource
- October 28 – Eighty Years' War: Spanish troops under Ambrogio Spinola, 1st Marquess of Los Balbases, Captain-General of the Army of Flanders (newly appointed a Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece), occupy Wachtendonk after a 20-day siege.source
- November 3 – Jahangir, the fourth Mughal Emperor, begins his 22-year reign over the Mughal Empire in northern India.source
- November 5 (O.S.) – The Gunpowder Plot, a scheme to bomb England's Palace of Westminster during the opening of Parliament, is foiled after Sir Thomas Knyvet is tipped off, and finds Catholic plotter Guy Fawkes in a cellar below the Parliament building. Knyvet orders a search of the area and 36 barrels of gunpowder are found. Fawkes is arrested for trying to assassinate King James I and the members who had been scheduled to sit together in Parliament the next day.source
- November 6 – The Iranian Safavid ruler Abbas the Great leads the Persian troops to a victory over a larger force of Ottoman Empire troops in the Battle of Sufiyan, and captures Tabriz.source
Exploration & Expansion
- December 21 – On behalf of Spain, Portuguese navigator Pedro Fernandes de Queirós begins his expedition to the South Pacific Ocean with 160 men on three ships. Queiros departs from Callao in the Viceroyalty of Peru with his flagship, San Pedro y San Pablo, and San Pedro and Los Tres Reyes.source
- Habitation at Port-Royal established by France under Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Mons, the first European colonization of Nova Scotia in North America (at this time part of Acadia); the Gregorian calendar is adopted.source
- Crew of the Olive become the first English visitors to Barbados.source
- Refugee French Huguenot merchants begin to settle in Dublin and Waterford.source
- Christian IV's 1st Greenland Expedition, consisting of the ships Trist Den Røde Løve and Katten, commanded by John Cunningham, is sent to Greenland to reestablish contact with the lost Norse settlements and then to exploit the silver and gold ore supposedly returned by the first expedition.Denmarksource
Religion & Belief
- March 14 – The March–April 1605 papal conclave of Roman Catholic cardinals to elect a successor to Pope Clement VIII opens at the Vatican in Rome, 11 days after Clement's death. Sixty-one of the 69 cardinals meet behind closed doors for the rest of the month. Discussion becomes heated, with shouting and jostling.source
- April 1 – Cardinal Alessandro Ottaviano de' Medici, the Bishop of Pistoia, is elected by the assembled 61 cardinals at the papal conclave after 17 days of balloting. He takes the regnal name of Pope Leo XI to become the 232nd pope, but serves for less than four weeks.source
- May 8 – A group of 59 Roman Catholic cardinals assemble at Rome for another papal conclave to elect a successor to Pope Leo XI. During the meeting, a fistfight breaks out among the cardinals over the two rival candidates, Antonio Sauli and Domenico Toschi, neither of whom receive the necessary 40 votes for a two-thirds election. In the fight, Cardinal Alfonso Visconti sustains several fractures.source
- May 16 – Camillo Borghese, Cardinal Vicar of Rome and cardinal-priest of Sant'Eusebio is elected the 233rd pope, and takes the name of Pope Paul V. Another "Year of Three Popes" will not occur until 373 years later, in 1978. Borghese is elected as a compromise candidate after the physical disagreements during the conclave.source
- July 4 – A proclamation commands all Roman Catholic seminary priests and Jesuits to leave Ireland by December 10 and directs the laity to attend Church of Ireland services.source
- 4 July – a proclamation commands all Roman Catholic seminary priests and Jesuits to leave the country by 10 December and directs the laity to attend Church of Ireland services.Irelandsource
- July 21 – Claiming to be Dmitriy, son of Ivan the Terrible, a pretender is officially crowned Tsar Dimitriy Ioannovich of Russia in Moscow by Patriarch Ignatius.source
- 8 November – Thomas Jones is appointed to succeed Adam Loftus as Archbishop of Dublin (Church of Ireland).Irelandsource
- The Priory of St. Gregory's is founded at Douai, Flanders, at this time in the Spanish Netherlands, by its first prior, John Roberts, and other exiles, thus becoming the first English Benedictine house to renew conventual life after the English Reformation. More than two centuries later the community will establish Downside Abbey back in England.source
Technology & Infrastructure
Health & Medicine
- December 6 – In England, Thomas Bonham petitions to become a member of the College of Physicians in order for his practice to be legal, and is rejected. Dr. Bonham continues to practice, and is eventually imprisoned on November 13, 1606, leading to the landmark decision in Dr. Bonham's Case in 1610.source
- Central Mexico's Amerindian population reaches one million.source
Crime & Justice
Climate & Environment
- February 3 – The 1605 Keichō earthquake, of estimated 7.9 magnitude, strikes Japan south of the island of Honshu, and triggers a tsunami that washes away hundreds of houses and kills thousands of people.source
- July 13 – The 1605 Guangdong earthquake, of 7.5 magnitude, strikes China's Hainan Province causing widespread damage and thousands of deaths.source
Culture & Society
- January 1 – William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream, copyrighted 1600, is given its earliest recorded performance, and witnessed by the Viscount Dorchester.source
- January 7 – Shakespeare's play Henry V, copyrighted 1600, is given its earliest recorded performance, presented by the Lord Chamberlain's Men for King James I of England.source
- January 15 – Shakespeare's play Love's Labour's Lost, copyrighted 1598, is given its second recorded performance, probably presented at the home of the Earl of Southampton for Queen Anne, wife of King James I of England.source
- January 16 – The first part of Miguel de Cervantes' satire on the theme of chivalry, Don Quixote (El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha, "The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha"), is published in Madrid. One of the first significant novels in the western literary tradition, it becomes a global bestseller almost at once.source
- February 10 – Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice is given its earliest recorded performance, presented by the King's Men players at the Palace of Whitehall for King James I of England. A second performance is given on February 12, Shrove Tuesday, at the King's request.source
- February 21 – Stephen Bocskai is elected Prince of Transylvania at the capital, Belugrad (modern-day Alba Iulia in Romania.)source
- April 8 – The city of Oulu (Uleåborg) is founded by King Charles IX of Sweden.source
- April 16 – In England, John Winthrop, later governor of the future Massachusetts Bay Colony, marries his first wife (of 4), Mary Forth, daughter of John Forth, of Great Stambridge, Essex.source
- June 20 – Pretender Dmitriy and his supporters, including troops of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, march to Moscow.source
- December 11 – King Sigismund III of Poland marries his former sister-in-law, Constance, daughter of Charles II, Archduke of Austria, after Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor refuses to permit the King to marry Anna of Tyrol. King Sigismund, a widow, had previously been married to Constance's older sister, Anne.source
- The Irish College in Paris is co-founded by John Lee, an Irish priest, and John de l'Escalopier, President of the Parlement.source
- The first issue of Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien by Johann Carolus in Strasbourg (Holy Roman Empire), generally regarded as the world's first newspaper, is published. De Nieuwe Tijdinghen, a Dutch proto-newspaper, is also published this year.source
- Francis Bacon's Of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Human is published in London.source
Births
- February 1 – Isaac Aboab da Fonseca, Portuguese Sephardic rabbi (died 1693)source
- April 8 – King Philip IV of Spain (died 1665)source
- April 8 – Mary Stuart, English-Scottish princess (died 1607)source
- 10 April – Christian, Prince-Elect of Denmark, prince of Denmark (died 1647)Denmarksource
- April 18 – Giacomo Carissimi, Italian composer (died 1674)source
- 30 April – Peder Winstrup, clergy (died 1679)Denmarksource
- May 7 – Patriarch Nikon of Moscow, Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church (died 1681)source
- July 25 – Theodore Haak, German scholar (died 1690)source
- August 6 – Bulstrode Whitelocke, English lawyer (died 1675)source
- August 8 – Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore, first Proprietor and Proprietary Governor of the Province of Maryland (died 1675)source
- August 18 – Henry Hammond, English churchman (died 1660)source
- August 25 – Philipp Moritz, Count of Hanau-Münzenberg, German noble (died 1638)source
- September 12 – William Dugdale, English antiquary and herald (died 1686)source
- September 28 – Ismaël Bullialdus, French astronomer (died 1694)source
- 28 September – Ismaël Bullialdus, astronomer and mathematician (died 1694)Francesource
- October 19 – Sir Thomas Browne, English physician and philosopher (died 1682)source
- November 3 – John Henderson, 5th of Fordell, Scottish noble (died 1650)source
- Approximate date – James Dillon, 3rd Earl of Roscommon (died 1649)Irelandsource
Deaths
- March 5 – Pope Clement VIII (born 1536)source
- April 13 – Tsar Boris Godunov dies; Feodor II accedes to the Russian throne.source
- April 13 – Boris Godunov, Tsar of Russia (born 1551)source
- April 25 – Naresuan, Siamese King of Ayutthaya kingdom (born c. 1555)source
- April 27 – Pope Leo XI dies suddenly from a cold at the age of 69, after a reign of only 26 days, prompting the return of the cardinals for the second papal conclave in less than two months. During his brief reign, the Pope issued a bill requiring secret balloting in papal conclaves.source
- April - Görvel Fadersdotter (Sparre), landowner and county administrator (born 1509 or 1517)Swedensource
- June 3 – Jan Zamoyski, Polish nobleman (born 1542)source
- August 2 – Richard Leveson, English admiral (born c. 1570)source
- August 4 – Charles I, Duke of Elbeuf, French duke and nobleman (born 1556)source
- September 19 – Edward Lewknor, English politician (born 1542)source
- October 13 – Theodore Beza, French theologian (born 1519)source
- 13 October – Theodore Beza, Protestant reformer (born 1519)Francesource
- 15 October – Akbar, Mughal Emperor died in the age of 63 in Agra, Mughal India.Indiasource
- 18 October – Beate Clausdatter Bille, noblewoman and Chief Lady-in-Waiting (born 1526)Denmarksource
- October 27 – Akbar The Great, Mughal emperor (born 1542)source
- October 27 – The 3rd Mughal Emperor, Akbar "the Great", dies of dysentery at Fatehpur Sikri in India.source
- November 5 – Nyaungyan Min, Burmese king (born 1555)source
- November 8 – Robert Catesby, English conspirator (born 1573)source