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The 1640s

1,006 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.

1640 CE83 entries

  • March 8–13 – Siege of Galle: Dutch troops take the strategic fortress at Galle, Sri Lanka from the Portuguese.
  • 17 March (Saint Patrick's Day) – Henry Burnell's play Landgartha premieres at the Werburgh Street Theatre in Dublin. It is one of the earliest dramatic works from a native Irish playwright.
  • 11 December – a crowd of 1,500 Londoners presents the Root and Branch petition to the Long Parliament, calling for the abolition of episcopacy in the Church of England.

1641 CE119 entries

  • 1 June – Representatives of France and Portugal sign a treaty of alliance in Paris.
  • June 2 – Bavarian and Spanish troops capture the town of Bad Kreuznach during the Thirty Years' War, 17 months after it had been taken in a French and Saxon attack.
  • 5 July - The town of Christianssand is formally founded by King Christian IV of Denmark-Norway.

1642 CE114 entries

  • May 1 – Honours and titles granted by Charles I of England from this date onward will in 1646 be retrospectively annulled by Parliament.
  • October 24 – The first Confederate Assembly of Ireland is held in Kilkenny where it sets up a provisional government, largely Catholic Royalist; start of the Irish Confederate Wars.
  • 24 October – the first Confederate Assembly is held in Kilkenny where it sets up a provisional government, largely Catholic Royalist; start of the Irish Confederate Wars.

1643 CE96 entries

  • 18 March – Irish Confederate Wars: Battle of New Ross in Ireland – English troops defeat those of Confederate Ireland.
  • 13 May – First English Civil War: Parliamentary forces led by Oliver Cromwell defeat Royalist forces at Grantham.
  • July 1 – The Westminster Assembly of theologians ("divines") and parliamentarians is convened at Westminster Abbey with the aim of restructuring the Church of England.

1644 CE93 entries

  • January – Oliver Cromwell and his soldiers impose a Puritanical regime of worship at Ely Cathedral.
  • May 25 – Ming general Wu Sangui forms an alliance with the invading Manchus and opens the gates of the Great Wall of China at Shanhaiguan Pass, letting the Manchus through towards the capital Beijing.
  • June 6 – The invading Qing army, with the help of Ming general Wu Sangui, captures Beijing in China, marking the beginning of Manchu rule over China proper, which will last until 1912.

1645 CE101 entries

  • April 23 (Saint George's Day) – English Civil War: one hundred and fifty Irish soldiers bound for service with King Charles I of England are captured at sea by Parliamentarians and killed at Pembroke in Wales.
  • July 21 – Qing dynasty regent Dorgon issues a queue order ordering all Han Chinese men to shave their forehead, and braid the rest of their hair into a queue, identical to those of the Manchus.
  • November 20 – The Colegio de Santo Tomas is elevated by Pope Innocent X into the University of Santo Tomas, in his brief In Supreminenti. It has the oldest extant University Charter in the Philippines, as well as the whole of Asia.

1646 CE111 entries

  • 28 March – the first "Ormonde Peace": the Supreme Council of the Irish Catholic Confederation signs an agreement with James Butler, Marquess of Ormonde, as lieutenant of Charles I of England which would procure some rights for Catholics in return for their military support of the royalists in England, but this is renounced by the Confederation's General Assembly.
  • April 24 – The Union of Uzhorod brings the Ruthenian Greek Orthodox Church into the fold of the Catholic Church while allowing it to retain its Eastern and Rusyn character.
  • 5 June – the Battle of Benburb, part of the Irish Confederate Wars, takes place in County Tyrone. The forces of Catholic Confederate Ireland under Owen Roe O'Neill secure a decisive victory over a Scottish Covenanter and Anglo-Irish army led by Robert Monro.

1647 CE90 entries

  • January 16 – Citizens of Dublin declare their support for Rinuccini, and refuse to support the army of the Marquis of Ormond.
  • 14 March – Thirty Years' War: France, Bavaria, Cologne, and Sweden sign the Truce of Ulm.
  • 26 December – the King signs a secret treaty with Scotland in which he promises to impose Presbyterianism in England in return for military assistance.

1648 CE94 entries

  • January 30 – The Dutch and the Spanish sign the Peace of Münster, ending the Eighty Years' War. The Spanish Empire recognizes the Dutch Republic of United Netherlands as a sovereign state (governed by the House of Orange-Nassau and the States General), which was previously a province of the Spanish Empire. The treaty is ratified by the Netherlands on May 15.
  • May 16 – England's Commonwealth Army massacres 70 Cornish royalists at Penzance, leading to a rebellion against England's Parliamentarians.
  • 16 May – Parliamentarians massacre 70 Cornish royalists at Penzance, leading to a local rising which is put down in The Gear Rout.

1649 CE105 entries

  • February 22 – The Mughal–Safavid War begins when Shah Abbas II of the Safavid Empire in Persia captures the Afghan city of Kandahar from the Mughal Empire of India after a six-week siege. The Mughals, led by Shah Jahan, fail to recapture Kandahar after three sieges in four years.
  • May 1 – The Wendat people Indian tribe complete the burning of 15 of their own villages, to prevent their stores from being taken by the Haudenasaunee Iroquois. Almost all the remaining people (approximately 10,000) become refugees, on a path that eventually brings them to Wendake.
  • 15 August – Oliver Cromwell lands in Dublin with the New Model Army to begin the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland.