1607 CE
The year 1607 was a significant year in world history, with the beginning of the British colonization of the Americas with the Jamestown settlement, as well as the Battle of Gibraltar culminating in the Twelve Years’ Truce.
In the 1600s, the 17th century.
Geopolitics & Diplomacy
- June 10 – In Jamestown, Captain John Smith is released from arrest and sworn in as a member of the colony Council.source
- June 15 – At Jamestown, the triangular fort is completed and armed: "The fifteenth of June we had built and finished our Fort, which was triangle wise, having three Bulwarkes, at every corner, like a halfe Moone, and foure or five pieces of Artillerie mounted in them. We had made our selves sufficiently strong for these Savages. We had also sowne most of our Corne on two Mountaines." The colony reportedly bears extreme toil in strengthening the fort.source
- July 2 – Luis de Velasco returns to office as the Spanish Viceroy of New Spain, which at this time includes Mexico, parts of the future United States and much of Central America. Velasco had previously been Viceroy from 1590 to 1595, then served as Viceroy of Peru (encompassing much of South America) from 1596 to 1604. He serves as New Spain's viceroy until 1611.source
- August 3 – After Catholics and Protestants clash in Donauwörth, emperor Rudolph II declares an imperial ban over the city and orders Bavarian duke Maximilian I to execute the ban leading to the occupation of the city by a force of 15,000 in December. This in turn leads to the creation of the Protestant Union in 1608.source
- September 10 – Jamestown President Edward Maria Wingfield is deposed and John Ratcliffe elected.source
- Plantation of Ulster, following the Flight of the Earls.Irelandsource
Conflict & Security
- March 10 – Battle of Gol in Gojjam: Susenyos defeats the combined armies of Yaqob and Abuna Petros II, which makes him Emperor of Ethiopia.source
- April 25 – Battle of Gibraltar: A Dutch fleet of 26 warships, led by Admiral Jacob van Heemskerck, stages a surprise attack on a Spanish fleet anchored in the Bay of Gibraltar. In the battle that ensues, Spain loses as many as 10 galleons and 12 smaller ships, and at least 300 men are killed. The disaster causes Spain to go into bankruptcy by October.source
- May 26 – At Jamestown, the president of the governing council, Edward Wingfield, directs the fort to be strengthened and armed against the many attacks of the natives: "Hereupon the President was contented the Fort should be pallisadoed, the ordinance mounted, his men armed and exercised, for many were the assaults and Ambuscadoes of the Savages ..." 200 armed Indians attack the Jamestown settlement, killing two people and wounding 10.source
- May 28 – A wooden defensive wall (palisade) is built by settlers around the Fort at Jamestown. Gabriel Archer writes in his journal, "we laboured, pallozadoing our fort".source
- June 8 – Newton rebellion: The Tresham landowning family kills more than 40 peasants during protests against the enclosure of common land in Newton, Northamptonshire, England, at the culmination of the Midland Revolt.source
- July 5 – Zebrzydowski Rebellion: The Battle of Guzów is fought in Poland near Guzów against rebels by the combined armies of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, led by Poland's Hetman, General Stanisław Żółkiewski, and the Hetman of Lithuania, Jan Karol Chodkiewicz. The rebels, led by Mikołaj Zebrzydowski and Janusz Radziwiłł, are forced to retreat.source
- July 17 – In the (modern-day) South Kalimantan province of Indonesia, Sultan Mustain Billah of Banjar orders the massacre of the crew of a Netherlands East India Company ship visiting the capital at Banjarmasin.source
- September 14 – Flight of the Earls: Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone and Rory O'Donnell, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell flee to Spain to avoid capture by the English crown.Irelandsource
- November 9 – King Philip III of Spain announces that his government had run out of money and that it is suspending payments on its foreign debts. effectively declaring the state bankrupt. The decision in the wake of the destruction of most of the ships of Spain's Navy at the April 25 Battle of Gibraltar.source
- In the Midland Revolt against Enclosures in England, the term Levellers is first used.source
- Enniskillen Castle is taken by the English.Irelandsource
Exploration & Expansion
- April 26 – English colonists make landfall at Cape Henry, Virginia, later moving up the James River.source
- May 14 – Jamestown, Virginia, is established as the first permanent English settlement in North America, beginning the American frontier.source
- May 15 – From Jamestown, Christopher Newport, George Percy, Gabriel Archer and others travel six days exploring along the James River up to the falls and Powhatan's village.source
- June 22 – Christopher Newport sails back to England.source
- July 10 – Ottoman Grand Vizier Kuyucu Murad Pasha launches a secret expedition to confront rebel Kurdish tribal chief Ali Janbulad, who has seized control of Aleppo in what is now Syria.source
- August 13 – The ship Gift of God of the Plymouth Company arrives at the mouth of the modern-day Kennebec River in Maine. English colonists establish Fort St. George, also known as the Popham Colony. The settlement lasts little more than a year, before residents return to England in the first oceangoing ship built in the New World, a 30-ton pinnace called The Virginia.source
- September 5 – Hamlet is performed aboard the East India Company ship Red Dragon, under the command of Capt. William Keeling, anchored off the coast of Sierra Leone, the first known performance of a Shakespeare play outside England in English, and the first by amateurs.source
- November 7 – A Dutch warship commanded by Admiral Cornelis Matelief de Jonge arrives at the Malay Peninsula to attempt opening trade with the Pahang Sultanate, and get Pahang's assistance in the Dutch Navy's fight against the Portuguese Navy in Asian trade. Sultan Abdul Ghafur agrees to assistance in return for Dutch technical assistance.source
- December 10 – Captain John Smith and nine men depart the Jamestown Colony on a barge in order to get more corn for the English fort. Sailing up the Chickahominy River, the boat reaches a settlement of the Appomattoc tribe at Apocant. While Smith, Jehu Robinson and Thomas Emery are further upstream in a canoe, George Casson is captured at Apocant by Opchanacanough, brother of Chief Powhatan. Robinson and Emery are killed while Smith is away from their camp, and Smith is soon taken prisoner by Opchancanough and, on January 5, is delivered to Powhatan at Werowocomoco for execution. After an intervention by Powhatan's daughter, Pocahontas, Smith is released a month after his capture.source
- December 22 – A fleet of 13 Dutch warships under the command of Admiral Pieter Verhoeff departs the Netherlands on an expedition to the Indian Ocean to open trade with Asian nations and to fight hostile resistance. Verhoeff never returns, and he and many of his crew will be ambushed and killed on May 22 at the Banda Islands in Indonesia.source
- Missionary Juan Fonte establishes the first Jesuit mission among the Tarahumara, in the Sierra Madre Mountains of Northwest Mexico.source
- The Kingdom of East Breifne is disestablished and settled by English and Scottish colonists.Irelandsource
- Sir Randall MacDonnell settles 300 Presbyterian Scots families on his land in Antrim.Irelandsource
Religion & Belief
- January 19 – San Agustin Church, Manila, is officially completed; by the 21st century it will be the oldest church in the Philippines.source
- The rule of Andorra passes jointly to the king of France, and the Bishop of Urgell.source
- A new Lutheran Church Ordinance is introduced in Norway.Norwaysource
Economy & Finance
- January 13 – The Bank of Genoa fails.source
Technology & Infrastructure
Science & Discovery
- October 27 – Halley's Comet is seen by Johannes Kepler.source
Crime & Justice
Disasters & Accidents
- September 14 – Flight of the Earls: Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone, and Rory O'Donnell, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell, flee Ireland for Spain with 90 followers, to avoid capture by the English crown, never to return.source
Climate & Environment
- January 30 – Coastal flooding around Britain, probably a storm surge, including Bristol Channel floods in which a massive wave sweeps along the Bristol Channel, killing an estimated 2,000 people.source
- 20 December – "Great Winter", 3 months of harsh weather, beginsFrancesource
Culture & Society
- February 24 – Claudio Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, the earliest fully developed opera in the modern-day repertoire, premieres at the Ducal Palace of Mantua.source
- June 5 – Dr John Hall marries Susanna, daughter of William Shakespeare, at the Church of the Holy Trinity, Stratford-upon-Avon (England).source
- July 20 – The second "False Dmitry", one of three people claiming to be Dmitry Ivanovich, son of the late Tsar Ivan the Terrible, appears at the Russian town of Starodub and persuades residents that he is the rightful heir to the Russian throne.source
- October 4 – Flight of the Earls: The Earl of Tyrone and the Earl of Tyrconnell, along with their followers, reach the European continent, landing on St. Francis' Day at Quilleboeuf in France with 99 people. after having departed Rathmullan in Ireland on September 12.source
- November 15 – Flight of the Earls: After the departure from Ireland of Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone and Rory O'Donnell, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell, along with 90 of their followers, King James I of England, Scotland and Ireland issues a proclamation "that the flight of the Earles of Tyrone and Tyrconell, with some others of their fellowes out of the North parts of our Realme of Ireland; these men's corruption and falshood, whose hainous offences remaine so fresh in memorie since they declared themselves so very monsters in nature, as they did not only whithdraw themselues from their personall obedience to their Soveraigne, but were content to sell over their Native Countrey to those that stood at that time in the highest termes of hostilitie with the two Crownes of England and Ireland... we doe hereby professe in the worde of a King, that... notwithstanding all that they can claime, must be acknowledged to proceed from meere Grace upon their submission after their great and unnaturall Treasons", and must forfeit their rights and possessions as nobles.source
Births
- January 10 – Isaac Jogues, French Jesuit missionary to the Native Americans (died 1646)source
- 10 January – Isaac Jogues, Jesuit priest and missionary (died 1646)Francesource
- January 31 – James Stanley, 7th Earl of Derby (died 1651)source
- March 10 – Thomas Wriothesley, 4th Earl of Southampton, English statesman (died 1667)source
- March 12 – Paul Gerhardt, German theologian (died 1676)source
- March 20 – Lady Alice Boyle, later Alice Barry, Countess of Barrymore (died 1667)Irelandsource
- March 24 – Michiel de Ruyter, Dutch admiral (died 1676)source
- March – Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyll, Scottish clan chief (died 1661)source
- April 16 – Nicolas Henri, Duke of Orléans, French duke (died 1611)source
- July 13 – Václav Hollar, Bohemian etcher (died 1677)source
- August 5 – Antonio Barberini, Italian Catholic cardinal (died 1671)source
- September 26 – Francesco Cairo, Italian painter (died 1665)source
- November 5 – Anna Maria van Schurman, Dutch painter (died 1678)source
- November 15 – Madeleine de Scudéry, French writer (died 1701)source
- November 26 – John Harvard, English-born American clergyman (died 1638)source
- November 28 – Francesco Sforza Pallavicino (died 1667)source
- 10 December – Kjeld Stub, priest (died 1663)Denmarksource
- Albert Andriessen Bradt, Norwegian-born settler in New Netherland (died 1686).Norwaysource
Deaths
- January 19 – Anne Morgan, Baroness Hunsdon, English Baroness (born 1529)source
- February - Gustav of Sweden (born 1568)Swedensource
- March 29 – Tsugaru Tamenobu, Japanese daimyō (born 1550)source
- 18 April – Anders Bendssøn Dall, Danish Lutheran prelate who served as Bishop of Oslo (born c.1550).Norwaysource
- April 27 – Edward Cromwell, 3rd Baron Cromwell, Governor of Lecale (born 1560)source
- 14 May – Lauge Beck, landholder, judge and royal treasurer (born c. 1530)Denmarksource
- May 17 – Anna d'Este, French princess (born 1531)source
- 17 May 17 – Anna d'Este, princess (born 1531)Francesource
- May 21 – John Rainolds, English scholar and Bible translator (born 1549)source
- May 25 – Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi, Italian Carmelite nun and mystic (born 1566)source
- June 10 – John Popham, Lord Chief Justice of England (born 1531)source
- June 28 – Domenico Fontana, Italian architect (born 1543)source
- June 30 – Caesar Baronius, Italian cardinal and historian (born 1538)source
- July 7 – Penelope Blount, Countess of Devonshire, English noblewoman (born 1563)source
- August 22 – Bartholomew Gosnold, English explorer and privateer (born 1571)source
- September 16 – Mary Stuart, English-Scottish princess (born 1605)source
- September 22 – Alessandro Allori, Italian portrait painter of the late Mannerist Florentine school (born 1535)source
- October 31 – Wawrzyniec Grzymała Goślicki, Polish philosopher (born 1530)source