1611 CE

The Colegio de Nuestra Señora del Santísimo Rosario is established in Manila, the Philippines (later renamed Colegio de Santo Tomas, and later still the University of Santo Tomas). The Authorized King James Version of the Bible is published for the first time, printed by Robert Barker in London. (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.

In the 1610s, the 17th century.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

January 26 – Maximilien de Béthune, Duke of Sully is forced by Queen regent Marie's Regency Council to resign as chief minister of France. He is replaced by Nicolas de Neufville, seigneur de Villeroy.source
May 9 – At the age of 16, Emperor Go-Mizunoo succeeds his father Emperor Go-Yōzei as Emperor of Japan.source
11 July – 21 October: Lord Carew is in Ireland (as authorised in June) to inquire into its government and report on prospects for the plantation of Ulster (August).Ireland source
July 12 – The Perpetual Edict is proclaimed for the government of the Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium) by Archduke Albert VII and his wife Isabella, the joint rulers of the Austrian-controlled nation.source
July 25 – A treaty is signed between the Swedes and the Novgorod garrison.Sweden source
October 30 – At the age of 16, Gustav II Adolf succeeds his father Charles IX as King of Sweden.source
25 November – the nobility and gentry claim the right to have advance sight of bills intended for the Parliament of Ireland.Ireland source
December 25 – Novgorod grants full power to its embassy heading to Stockholm with the objective of bringing back a Swedish prince to rule Novgorod.Sweden source
In January 1611, Prince Grigory Volkonsky defeated Delaville and regained control of Staraya Ladoga.Sweden source

Conflict & Security

March 9 – Battle of Segaba in Begemder: Yemana Kristos, brother of Emperor of Ethiopia Susenyos I, ends the rebellion of Melka Sedeq.source
April 4 – Denmark-Norway declares war on Sweden, then captures Kalmar.source
April 7 (March 28 O.S.) – False Dmitry III, the third pretender to the Russian throne to claim to be Prince Dmitry of Uglich, son of Ivan the Terrible, arrives at Ivangorod and proclaims himself as the Tsar Dmitry Ivanovich I.source
April – The Kalmar War begins as Denmark-Norway declares war upon Sweden.Denmark source
April - The Kalmar War starts.Norway source
3 May – Danish forces lay siege to Kalmar. The Siege of Kalmar ends on August 3.Denmark source
7 May – surrender and regrant in Counties Carlow, Wexford and Wicklow is authorised.Ireland source
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.source
26 June – The Swedish Storming of Kristianopel.Denmark source
July 17 – The army of the Swedish Empire commanded by Jacob De la Gardie captures the Russian city of Novgorod after a nine-day battle. Novgorod will remain Swedish territory for the next eight years.source
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.source
August – Evert Horn attempts to take Pskov.Sweden source
September 12 – Ladoga falls, quickly followed by Tichvin and Staraja Russa.Sweden source
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.source
December – The week-long Conquest of Bakla leads to the fall of the Chandradwip kingdom and the Mughal annexation of Barisal into the Bengal Subahsource
Summer - Swedish forces under Baltzar Bäck invades Jemtland and Herjedalen.Norway source

Exploration & Expansion

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.source
Thomas Dale founds the city of Henricus on the James River, with the assistance of 350 men, a few miles south of present day Richmond, Virginia.source
Itoh Gofuku, a predecessor of Matsuzakaya, a famous department store, is founded for the sale of silk in Nagoya, Japan.source

Religion & Belief

March 4 – George Abbot is enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury in England.source
May–December – Entrepreneur Thomas Sutton founds Charterhouse School, on the site of the old Carthusian monastery in Charterhouse Square, Smithfield, London.source
June – Roman Catholic priest Patrick O'Loughran returns from exile.Ireland source
August 5 – Nasuh Pasha becomes the new grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire after the death of Kuyucu Murad Pasha.source
19 August – the Church of Ireland Bishop of Elphin, John Lynch, resigns, declaring himself a Roman Catholic, and is succeeded by Edward King (consecrated December).Ireland source
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.source

Technology & Infrastructure

Construction begins on Naqsh-e Jahan Square in Isfahan, Persia.source
A Statue of Leda and the Swan is mounted on a tall column an installed on an artificial islet in the Port of Copenhagen.Denmark source
Spring – A fortification is built at Nyen to blockade Nöteborg.Sweden source

Science & Discovery

February 27 – Sunspots are observed by telescope, by Frisian astronomers Johannes Fabricius and David Fabricius. Johannes publishes the results of these observations, in De Maculis in Sole observatis in Wittenberg, later this year. Such early discoveries are overlooked, however, and the first sighting is claimed a few months later, by Galileo Galilei and Christoph Scheiner.source
At Jamestown, John Rolfe imports tobacco seeds from the island of Trinidad (Nicotiana tabacum); the native tobacco is Nicotiana rustica.source

Crime & Justice

18 February – Sir Humphrey Winch, retiring Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, is sent to London with draft legislation.Ireland source

Climate & Environment

December 2 (Keichō 16, 10th month, 28th day) – The 1611 Sanriku earthquake of 8.1 magnitude strikes off of the coast of Japan and causes a tsunami that kills almost 5,000 people in the northern section of Honshu island.source
Famine in Ethiopia resulting from crop failure in the north due to weather conditions and the outbreak of a plague.source

Culture & Society

April 28 – The Colegio de Nuestra Señora del Santísimo Rosario is established in Manila, the Philippines (later renamed Colegio de Santo Tomas, and later still the University of Santo Tomas).source
May 2 – The Authorized King James Version of the Bible is published for the first time, printed by Robert Barker in London.source
May 11 – The first known performance of William Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, probably new this year, is given at the Globe Theatre in London.source
August 27 – The Novgorodians send a letter to Charles IX, placing themselves under his protection and asking to be ruled by one of his sons.Sweden source
September 13 – Thanksgiving is celebrated in Sweden for the Capture of Novgorod.Sweden source
November 1 – At Whitehall Palace in London, William Shakespeare's last solo play, The Tempest, is given its earliest reported performance.source
Giolla Brighde Ó hEoghusa (Bonaventura Ó hEoghusa or O'Hussey)'s An Teagasc Criosdaidhe is published in Antwerp, the first devotional work in Irish.Ireland source

Births

January 3 – James Harrington, English political theorist of classical republicanism (died 1677)source
January 28 – Johannes Hevelius, Polish astronomer (died 1687)source
February 2 – Ulrik of Denmark, Danish prince-bishop (died 1633)source
2 February – Ulrik of Denmark, Prince of Denmark (died 1633 in Poland)Denmark source
February 6 – Chongzhen Emperor of China (died 1644)source
February 19 – Andries de Graeff, Dutch politician (died 1678)source
February 24? (bapt. March 4) – William Dobson, English portrait painter (died 1646)source
March 1 – John Pell, English mathematician (died 1685)source
March 15 – Jan Fyt, Flemish Baroque painter (died 1661)source
March 25 – Evliya Çelebi, Ottoman Turk, travels around the Ottoman Empire for 40 years (died 1682)source
May 16 – Pope Innocent XI (died 1689)source
24 June - Johan Oxenstierna, statesman (died 1657)Sweden source
July 15 – Jai Singh I, Maharaja of Jaipur (died 1667)source
August 9 – Henry of Nassau-Siegen, German count, officer in the Dutch Army, diplomat for the Dutch Republic (died 1652)source
September 11 – Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne (died 1675)source
September 11 – Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne, Marshal of France (died 1675)France source
26 October - Ove Bjelke, Chancellor of Norway (died 1674).Norway source
December – Leonora Baroni, Italian singer (died 1670)source

Deaths

February 26 – Antonio Possevino, Italian Jesuit protagonist of Counter Reformation, papal diplomat (born 1533)source
March 5 – Shimazu Yoshihisa, Japanese warlord and samurai (born 1533)source
March 19–20 – The Moscow Uprising, an armed rising of the inhabitants of Moscow in the Tsardom of Russia against the military Polish–Lithuanian occupation of Moscow (Fall 1610–Fall 1612), results in the occupying forces starting a major fire in the city and the death of 6–7,000 Muscovites.source
April 30 – The priest implicated in the Aix-en-Provence possessions in France is executed.source
June 23 – Christian II, Elector of Saxony (born 1583)source
August 2 – Katō Kiyomasa, Japanese warlord and samurai (born 1561)source
August 9 – John Blagrave, English mathematician (born 1561)source
August 27 – Tomás Luis de Victoria, Spanish composer (born c. 1548)source
August – Antoni Clarassó i Terès, Spanish priestsource
September 9 – Eleanor de' Medici, Italian noblewoman (born 1567)source
October 3 – Margaret of Austria, Queen of Spain (born 1584)source
October 3 – Charles of Lorraine, Duke of Mayenne, French military leader (born 1554)source
October 30 – King Charles IX of Sweden (born 1550)source
30 October - Charles IX of Sweden, monarch (born 1550)Sweden source
November 17 – Nicolas Henri, Duke of Orléans, French duke (born 1607)source