The 1650s

592 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.

1650 CE63 entries

June 9 – The Harvard Corporation, the more powerful of the two administrative boards of Harvard, is established (the first legal corporation in the Americas).
November 4 – William III of Orange becomes Prince of the House of Orange at the moment of his birth, succeeding his father, who had died a few days earlier. He does not become stadtholder, so the United Provinces becomes a true republic.
December 14 – Anne Greene is hanged at Oxford Castle in England for infanticide, having concealed an illegitimate stillbirth. The following day she revives in the dissection room and, being pardoned, lives until 1659.

1651 CE56 entries

January 1 – Charles II is crowned King of Scots at Scone (his first crowning).
May 12 – General Marcin Kalinowski of Poland wins the Battle of Kopychyntsi against Zaporozhian Cossacks forces under the command of Asand Demka during the Khmelnytsky Uprising in what is now Ukraine.
July 20 – At the Battle of Inverkeithing in Scotland, the English Parliamentarian New Model Army, under Major-General John Lambert, defeats a Scottish Covenanter army acting on behalf of Charles II, led by Sir John Brown of Fordell.

1652 CE47 entries

July 2 – The Battle of the Faubourg St Antoine is fought east of Paris between French Parliamentarians (led by Louis, Grand Condé) against the army of King Louis XIV, commanded by the Viscount of Turenne, with neither side prevailing.
July 10 – The First Anglo-Dutch War begins formally as the English Commonwealth declares war against the Dutch Republic.
September 11 – The Guo Huaiyi Rebellion, a peasant revolt on the island of Taiwan against colonial rule in Dutch Formosa, is suppressed after four days.

1653 CE60 entries

January – The Swiss Peasant War begins after magistrates meeting at Lucerne refuse to hear from a group of peasants who have been financially hurt by the devaluation of the currency issued from Bern.
November 16 – The Krishnanattam, a series of eight dance dramas written by Mana Veda, Zamorin of Calicut in India to tell the epic of the Hindu god Krishna, is completed.
November 30 – Jacques Dyel du Parquet completes his installment payments, totaling 41,500 French livres, to become the exclusive owner of the Caribbean islands of Martinique, Grenada, Saint Lucia and the Grenadines.

1654 CE56 entries

February 10 – The Battle of Tullich takes place in Aberdeenshire in Scotland during Glencairn's rising, a revolt by Scottish royalists against the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland led by Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell. The battle is indecisive.
June 16 (June 6 Old Style) – Charles X Gustav succeeds his cousin Christina on the Swedish throne. After her abdication on the same day, Christina, now the former reigning queen of a Protestant nation, secretly converts to Catholicism.
December 11 – Sir William Petty wins the contract from the Commonwealth of England to make a survey of Ireland.

1655 CE61 entries

March 25 – Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is discovered by Christiaan Huygens.
May 10–27 – Anglo-Spanish War: Invasion of Jamaica – Forces of the English Protectorate led by William Penn and Robert Venables capture the island of Jamaica from Spain.
December 27 – Second Northern War/the Deluge: Monks at the Jasna Góra Monastery in Częstochowa are successful in fending off a month-long siege.

1656 CE71 entries

February 18 (February 8 O.S.) – Battle of Golab: Swedish Empire troops led by King Carl X Gustav defeat troops of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth commanded by General Stefan Czarniecki in the first major engagement of the Swedish Deluge.
April 1 – John II Casimir Vasa, King of Poland, crowns the Black Madonna of Częstochowa as Queen and Protector of Poland in the cathedral of Lwów, after the miraculous saving of the Jasna Góra Monastery during the Deluge, an event which changed the course of the Second Northern War. The King swears a vow, the Lwów Oath, pledging to protect Poland's people from being conquered again.
August 27 – The Treaty of Butre is signed in West Africa by representatives of the Dutch West India Company and of the Ahanta Kingdom and allows the Netherlands to have a protectorate over the Dutch Gold Coast. The area is now part of the Republic of Ghana.

1657 CE54 entries

June 1 – King Frederick III of Denmark signs a manifesto, de facto declaring war on Sweden.
June 1 – The first eleven Quaker settlers arrive in New Amsterdam (later New York City), and are allowed to practice their faith.
November 10 – Christina, former Queen regnant of Sweden, has Gian Rinaldo Monaldeschi killed in her presence, at the Palace of Fontainebleau.

1658 CE57 entries

February 5 – Prince Muhi al-Din Muhammad, one of the sons of India's Mughal, Emperor Shah Jahan, proclaims himself Emperor after Jahan names Muhi's older brother, Dara Shikoh, as regent, and departs from Aurangabad with troops.
March 8 (February 26 OS) – The peace between Sweden and Denmark-Norway is concluded in Roskilde by the Treaty of Roskilde, under which Denmark is forced to cede significant territory. This leads to Sweden reaching its territorial height during its time as a great power.
July – Šarhūda's Manchu fleet annihilates Onufriy Stepanov's Russian flotilla, on the Amur River.

1659 CE67 entries

March 11 – Prince Dara Shikoh, who had been the heir apparent to the throne of the Mughal Empire in India until the overthrow of his father, Shah Jahan, makes a stand near Ajmer to fight the armies sent by Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, but loses and is forced to flee.
June 29 – In the Battle of Konotop, fought near the Ukrainian city of Konotop during the Russo-Polish War, Polish Cossack hetman Ivan Vyhovsky and his allies defeat the armies of the Tsardom of Russia, led by Aleksey Trubetskoy.
August 7 – As Booth's Uprising spreads to Liverpool, Thomas Myddelton, Randolph Egerton and fellow royalists take control of the town of Wrexham in Wales and proclaim Charles II to be King.