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The 1600s

856 sourced entries across 10 years, inside the 17th century. Each year below opens its own page; the lines under it are that year’s highest-ranked entries.

1600 CE84 entries

  • January – Nine Years' War against England is renewed by Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone, with an invasion of Munster.
  • February 19 – The Huaynaputina volcano in Peru erupts, in what is still the worst recorded volcanic eruption in South America.
  • October 21 – The Battle of Sekigahara occurs in what is now present-day Gifu Prefecture, Japan, where the Eastern Army led by Tokugawa Ieyasu emerges victorious against the Western Army led by Ishida Mitsunari. The battle ends the Sengoku period and grants the Tokugawa clan nominal control over Japan, establishing the Tokugawa shogunate with Tokugawa Ieyasu as shogun.

1601 CE96 entries

  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.

1602 CE75 entries

  • February 2 (Candlemas night) – In London, the first known production of William Shakespeare's comedy Twelfth Night takes place.
  • July 26 – William Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet, recently premiered by the Lord Chamberlain's Men, is licensed for publishing in London but not in fact printed at this time.
  • September 10 – Rory O'Donnell (Rudhraighe Ó Domhnaill) becomes the last Irish King of Tyrconnell upon the death of his brother, Hugh Roe O'Donnell (Aodh Ruadh Ó Domhnaill). After less than a year, Rory allows Tyrconnell (modern-day County Donegal in Northern Ireland) to come under Irish control in return for being created the Earl of Tyrconnell.

1603 CE74 entries

  • March 24 – James VI of Scotland becomes King James I of England and Ireland upon the death of Elizabeth I in England (but the news is withheld from the Irish leaders in treaty negotiations).
  • April 27 – The first permanent Dutch trading post in Indonesia is established in Banten by Vice Admiral Wybrand van Warwijck, who sets up a factory to store and package the trading commodity black pepper.
  • July 25 – The formal coronation of James I as King of England takes place at Westminster Abbey. Ceremonies are limited because of plague.

1604 CE85 entries

  • January 14 – The Hampton Court Conference is held between James I of England, the Anglican bishops and representatives of the Puritans. Work begins on the Authorized King James Version of the Bible and revision of the Book of Common Prayer.
  • June 15 – Ottoman–Safavid War: General Cigalazade Yusuf Sinan Pasha, commander of the eastern Ottoman Army, leads troops on a march from Constantinople to fight the Persia's Safavid Army in Armenia, but arrives too late to save the city of Yerevan.
  • June – Ottoman–Safavid War (1603–18): Shāh Abbas I of Persia's Safavid army captures the city of Yerevan from the Ottoman Empire after a siege. At this time the Shāh begins the expulsion of Armenians from Jolfa to New Julfa in his capital of Isfahan; more than 25,000 die during the exodus.

1605 CE87 entries

  • 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.
  • 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.
  • July 13 – The 1605 Guangdong earthquake, of 7.5 magnitude, strikes China's Hainan Province causing widespread damage and thousands of deaths.

1606 CE83 entries

  • April 12 – The first version of the Union Flag is created, to be worn as a national flag by English and Scottish ships.
  • July 24 – King Christian IV of Denmark, as the guest of his brother-in-law, King James of England, Scotland and Ireland, is welcomed at London, and the two monarchs are driven by coaches to a banquet at Theobalds House at Cheshunt, Hertfordshire. They are entertained by playwright Ben Jonson's play, The Entertainment of the Kings of Great Britain and Denmark.
  • December 26 – William Shakespeare's play King Lear is given its first recorded performance, staged at the Palace of Whitehall.

1607 CE84 entries

  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.

1608 CE92 entries

  • June 15 – During a voyage in the Arctic Ocean, explorer Henry Hudson and the crew of the Hopewell sight what they claim to be a mermaid, swimming in the seas near Norway.
  • October 2 – Dutch lens maker Hans Lippershey demonstrates the first telescope in the Dutch Parliament.
  • November 30 – At the colony of Portuguese Macau, a port on the Chinese mainland leased from the Chinese Empire, a group of 100 Japanese samurai, wielding katana and muskets engage in a fight with musket-armed Portuguese soldiers commanded by Governor André Pessoa. Around 50 Japanese are killed and the others are imprisoned until they sign an affidavit blaming themselves for the incident. Tokugawa Ieyasu, the principal shogun of Japan, subsequently ends the "red seal ships" program of authorizing Japanese nationals to visit Macau. The incident eventually leads to much larger naval battle in 1610, the Nossa Senhora da Graça incident.

1609 CE96 entries

  • April 5 – Invasion of Ryukyu in Japan: Soldiers of the Shimazu clan capture the castle on Ryukyu Island, beginning to make the Ryukyu Kingdom a vassal of Satsuma Han, but Ryukyu is still allowed to keep itself a tribute state of the Ming and Qing dynasties.
  • June 16 – The Battle of Tashiskari is fought as General Giorgi Saakadze of the Georgian Kingdom of Kartli repels invading troops from the Ottoman Empire before they can capture Tbilisi.
  • December 8 – One of the first public libraries, the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, is opened in the Italian city of Milan, founded by Cardinal Federico Borromeo. Unlike other reading rooms, the library houses its collection on shelves along the walls, rather than chained to reading tables.