1639 CE

King Charles I raises (with difficulty) an army and begins to march north to fight the Scottish Covenanters in the First Bishops' War, opening the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Italian-born Cardinal Mazarin, apostolic nuncio to Paris and adviser to Cardinal Richelieu, is naturalized French by letters patent; in December, he leaves the service of Rome to enter that of King Louis XIII of France. Appearance of maize ("Spanish millet") in the market at Toulouse. It is available between 1644 and 1655.

In the 1630s, the 17th century.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • January 19 – Hämeenlinna (Tavastehus) is granted privileges, after it separates from the Vanaja parish, as its own city in Tavastia.source
  • March 24 – The Dutch Republic renews its alliance with France.Francesource
  • 25 April – Charles issues a proclamation promising to pardon rebels.Englandsource
  • June 18 – The Treaty of Berwick is signed between Charles I and the Scots.source
  • September 3 – The alliance of cantons in Switzerland known as the Three Leagues or Raetia agrees with Spain to bring Italy's Valtellina area back into the alliance, on the condition that the Catholic faith of the natives be respected.source
  • Sakoku, the isolationist foreign policy of Japan, comes fully into effect.source
  • The Treaty of Zuhab is signed between the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire and Safavid Persia, delineating the modern Turkey-Iran and Iraq-Iran border lines.source

Conflict & Security

  • January 7 – Croquant rebellions in Gascony: Having freed prisoners in Mirande on January 4, rebels of Pardiac ransack the area when the townspeople refuse them the passage of their bridge to march on Auch.Francesource
  • February 18 – In the course of the Eighty Years' War, a sea battle is fought in the English Channel off of the coast of Dunkirk between the navies of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, with 12 warships, and Spain, with 12 galleons and eight other ships. The Spanish are forced to flee after three of their ships are lost and 1,600 Spaniards killed or injured, while the Dutch sustain 1,700 casualties without the loss of a ship.source
  • April 14 – In the Battle of Chemnitz, Swedish forces under Johan Banér inflict a crushing defeat on the army of the Holy Roman Empire, prolonging the Thirty Years' War and allowing the Swedes to occupy Pirna and advance into Bohemia.source
  • 14 April – Battle of Chemnitz took place near the town of Chemnitz, in what is now eastern Germany, during the Thirty Years' War. Swedish forces under Johan Banér inflicted a crushing defeat on Rodolfo Giovanni Marazzino who commanded the Saxons and an Imperial detachment.Swedensource
  • 21 April – William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele and Robert Greville, 2nd Baron Brooke imprisoned for refusing to fight against the Covenanters.Englandsource
  • April – Following the Battle of Chemnitz Swedish forces under command of Johan Banér invades Bohemia with great successsource
  • May 2 – After a 40-day siege, the Dutch East India Company Army captures the Trincomalee Fort on the island of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) from the Portuguese Empire.source
  • 14 May – Charles issues a further proclamation promising to settle the Covenanters' grievances and not to invade Scotland.Englandsource
  • June 18 – On the same day, the first battle of the Bishops' Wars is fought by Earl Marischal and the Marquess of Montrose when they lead a Covenanter army of 9,000 men past Muchalls Castle over the Causey Mounth to fight at the Bridge of Dee in Scotland.source
  • July 16 – A revolt in France begins in Normandy with the assassination of tax collector Charles Le Poupinel while he is working in the town of Avranches. The rebellion is brutally crushed on November 30.source
  • July 16 – Revolt of the va-nu-pieds begins in Normandy against the gabelle, suppressed by Michel Le Tellier, Pierre Séguier and Omer Talon (continues into 1640).Francesource
  • 15 September – Battle of the Downs between the Dutch and Spanish in English waters.Englandsource
  • September 15 – Imprisoned Polish prince John Casimir Vasa is transferred from Sisteron to the dungeon of the Château de Vincennes.Francesource
  • September 18 – Dutch Navy Admiral Maarten Tromp introduces the line of battle tactic in a battle in the English Channel against a much larger force of Spanish Navy ships, driving off 67 ships with his fleet of 29.source
  • 3 October – Liège militiamen storm Jehay Castle to preserve the neutrality of the Prince-BishopricBelgiumsource
  • October 31 – Naval Battle of the Downs: A Republic of the United Provinces fleet decisively defeats a Spanish fleet in English waters.source
  • November 30 – In Normandy, the revolt of the va-nu-pieds is crushed by the troops of French Army Colonel Jean de Gassion under orders of Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal Richelieu, with 300 of the rebels killed.source

Exploration & Expansion

  • 18 February – Action of 18 February 1639 off DunkirkBelgiumsource
  • October 18 – Appearance of maize ("Spanish millet") in the market at Toulouse. It is available between 1644 and 1655.Francesource
  • November – Jesuit settlement of Sainte-Marie among the Hurons in New France established by Fathers Jérôme Lalemant and Jean de Brébeuf.Francesource
  • Russian Cossacks advance over the Urals to the Pacific, to Okhotsk.source
  • Japanese wives and children of Dutch and British people from Hirado are sent to Batavia (Asian headquarters of the VOC, renamed Jakarta by the Japanese around three centuries later) on Dutch ships.source
  • Dejima, an island trading post off Nagasaki, becomes the only official port of trade allowed for Europeans, with the multi-national United East Indies Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie) as the only European party officially allowed. Trading parties from China, India and other places are still officially allowed, though the VOC will become the usual broker for them.source
  • Having set sail on May 4 from Dieppe, establishment of the Ursulines of Quebec and the École des Ursulines, Quebec in New France is begun by the French Ursuline nun Marie of the Incarnation and laywoman Marie-Madeleine de Chauvigny de la Peltrie.Francesource
  • Establishment of the Hugel & Fils and Maison Trimbach wineries in Riquewihr, Alsace.Francesource

Religion & Belief

  • 26 January – King Charles I raises (with difficulty) an army and begins to march north to fight the Scottish Covenanters in the First Bishops' War, opening the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.Englandsource
  • April 22 – Pope Urban VIII issues a papal bull prohibiting slavery in the New World colonies of Spain and Portugal, encompassing most of Latin America.source
  • May 28 – King Charles I of England arrives with his army at Berwick-upon-Tweed as the first of the Bishops' Wars breaks out between the English Army and the Scottish Covenanters.source
  • 19 June – Treaty of Berwick signed between the King and the Covenanters, ending the First Bishops' War.Englandsource
  • July 1 – Parthenius I becomes the new leader of the Eastern Orthodox Christian church as he is selected as Patriarch of Constantinople, succeeding Cyril II.source
  • 15 July – Great Council of Mechelen declares Louis of Egmont guilty of treasonBelgiumsource
  • September 12 – Jean du Vergier de Hauranne, Jansenist Abbé of Saint-Cyran, publishes Théologie familière, ou Instruction de ce que le Chrétien doit croire et faire en cette vie pour être sauvé in Paris.Francesource
  • French nobleman Jérôme le Royer de la Dauversière obtains the seigneurial title to the island of Montreal in New France (modern-day Quebec) in the name of the Société Notre-Dame de Montréal to establish a Roman Catholic mission to evangelize indigenous peoples.source
  • Antoine Le Maistre, leader of the ascetic Solitaires of Port-Royal, returns to the abbey of Port-Royal-des-Champs.Francesource
  • Cardinal Richelieu suspends the États provinciaux of Provence after they refuse to register fiscal edicts. They are replaced by an Assemblée des communautés which brings together only representatives of the Third Estate.Francesource
  • Theobald Stapleton publishes (in Brussels) a catechism in the Early Modern Irish language, Catechismus seu doctrina christiana latino-hibernica or, in Irish, Cathcismus sen Adhon, an Teagasc Críostaí iar na foilsiú a Laidin & a Ngaoilaig. It is the first Roman Catholic book in which the Irish language is printed in the antiqua typeface and the first notable attempt to simplify Irish orthography.Irelandsource
  • The Cathedral Hellig Trefoldigheds Kirke in Christiania completed (burned down in 1686).Norwaysource

Economy & Finance

  • 20 May – Regulations for the management of the goods and income of the city of Brussels publishedBelgiumsource

Technology & Infrastructure

  • March 3 – The early settlement of Taunton, Massachusetts, is incorporated as a town.source
  • April – Italian-born Cardinal Mazarin, apostolic nuncio to Paris and adviser to Cardinal Richelieu, is naturalized French by letters patent; in December, he leaves the service of Rome to enter that of King Louis XIII of France.source
  • The Casiquiare canal, a river forming a natural channel between the Amazon River and Orinoco River basins, is first encountered by Europeans, an expedition led by Pedro Teixeira and Cristóbal Diatristán de Acuña.source
  • Richard Nugent, 1st Earl of Westmeath, builds Clonyn Castle overlooking Delvin, County Westmeath.Irelandsource
  • Autumn – James Shirley's play Saint Patrick for Ireland opens at the Werburgh Street Theatre in Dublin.Irelandsource
  • Hjälmare Canal (Swedish: Hjälmare kanal) officially taken into use. The Hjälmare Canal, Sweden's oldest canal, became operational. The canal connected Lake Hjälmaren to Lake Mälaren and was a major infrastructure project intended to transport iron abroad and bypass dangerous stretches of water.Swedensource

Science & Discovery

  • 24 November (4 December in Gregorian calendar) – Lancashire astronomers Jeremiah Horrocks and William Crabtree are the first and only scientific observers of a transit of Venus, predicted by Horrocks.Englandsource
  • December 4 – English astronomer Jeremiah Horrocks makes the first successful prediction and observation of a transit of Venus.source
  • The first of the two Golden Horns of Gallehus is found. The second one will be found close by in 1734.Denmarksource

Health & Medicine

Crime & Justice

  • February 12 – Polish prince John II Casimir Vasa, future king of Poland, accused of plotting with Spain against France, is imprisoned, by order of Cardinal Richelieu, in the dungeon of the citadel of Sisteron.Francesource
  • Peter Paul Rubens, Self-PortraitBelgiumsource
  • 16-17 September – Fight in the ChannelBelgiumsource
  • The Rosborg witch trials begin and continue until 1642.Denmarksource
  • Case of Anna von Hintzen, a noble who flees Sweden to escape arrest of the murder of her servant.Swedensource

Climate & Environment

Culture & Society

  • February 14 – Writers Jacques Esprit François de La Mothe Le Vayer are elected to the Académie française.Francesource
  • February 17 – Ballet de cour staged at the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye on the theme of the happy birth last year of the Dauphin.Francesource
  • March 13 – Harvard University is named for clergyman John Harvard.source
  • August 22 – The British East India Company buys a strip of land from King Peda Venkata Raya of the Vijayanagara Empire for the construction of Fort St. George, the first settlement of British India, so founding modern-day Chennai, capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu (celebrated as Madras Day).source
  • September 27 – Cardinal Richelieu has an equestrian statue of Louis XIII (sculpted by Pierre Biard le jeune with the horse by Daniele da Volterra) erected in the Place royale in Paris.Francesource
  • December 22 – Birth at La Ferté-Milon of dramatist Jean Racine.Francesource
  • c. January – The first printing press in British North America is started in Cambridge, Massachusetts, by Stephen Daye.source
  • Before December 22 – Georges de La Tour becomes painter in ordinary to the king.Francesource

Births

  • January 3 – Éléonore Desmier d'Olbreuse, French Huguenot noblewoman, grandmother of George II of Great Britain, great-grandmother of Frederick the Great (died 1722)source
  • March 20 – Ivan Mazepa, Hetman of Ukraine (died 1709)source
  • April 3 – Alessandro Stradella, Italian composer (k. 1682)source
  • April 12 – Martin Lister, English naturalist and physician (died 1712)source
  • May 8 – Giovanni Battista Gaulli, Italian artist working in the High Baroque and early Rococo periods (died 1709)source
  • May 27 – Laura Martinozzi, Duchess consort of Modena (died 1687)source
  • June 21 – Increase Mather, American minister (died 1723)source
  • 8 July – Henry Stuart, Duke of Gloucester (died 1660)Englandsource
  • July 15 – Richard Butler, 1st Earl of Arran, Irish soldier (died 1686)source
  • August 28 – Marie Mancini, Italian courtier, third of the five Mancini sisters (died 1715)source
  • September 8 – William Trumbull, English diplomat and politician (died 1716)source
  • September 29 – William Russell, Lord Russell, English politician (died 1683)source
  • 7 October – Johann Gottfried Becker, pharmacist (died 1711)Denmarksource
  • October 14 – Simon van der Stel, last Commander and first Governor of the Cape Colony (died 1712)source
  • December 18 – Gottfried Kirch, German astronomer, first 'Astronomer Royal' in Berlin (died 1710)source
  • December 22 – Jean Racine, French dramatist (died 1699)source
  • Joannes van der Brugghen, artist (died c. 1740)Belgiumsource
  • Christian Stockfleth, civil servant (died 1704).Norwaysource

Deaths

  • January 20 – Mustafa I, Ottoman Sultan (born 1592)source
  • January 24 – Georg Jenatsch, Swiss politician (born 1596)source
  • January – Shackerley Marmion, English dramatist (born 1603)source
  • February 5 – Augusta of Denmark, Duchess Consort of Holstein-Gottorp (born 1580)source
  • 5 February – Augusta of Denmark, princess (born 1580)Denmarksource
  • April 6 – John Matthew Rispoli, major Maltese philosopher of great erudition (born 1582)source
  • 1 May – Dermot O'Mallun, 1st Baron Glean-O'MallunBelgiumsource
  • May 21 – Tommaso Campanella, Italian theologian and poet (born 1568)source
  • 1 June – Niels Simonssøn Glostrup, bishop.Norwaysource
  • July 18 – Bernard of Saxe-Weimar, German general (born 1604)source
  • August 4 – Juan Ruiz de Alarcón, Mexican dramatist (born c. 1571)source
  • October 8 – Frances Howard, Duchess of Richmond, British duchess (born 1578)source
  • November 3 – Martin de Porres, Peruvian monk, Roman Catholic saint (born 1579)source
  • November 4 – Thomas Finch, 2nd Earl of Winchilsea, Member of Parliament (born 1578)source
  • November 7 – Thomas Arundell, 1st Baron Arundell of Wardour, English politician (born c. 1560)source
  • 7 November – Thomas Arundell, 1st Baron Arundell of Wardour, politician (born c. 1560)Englandsource
  • November 26 – John Spottiswoode, Scottish archbishop and historian (born 1565)source
  • December 25 – John Christian of Brieg, Duke of Brzeg (born 1591)source