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The 1690s

656 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.

1690 CE75 entries

  • August 24 – In India, the fort and trading settlement of Sutanuti is founded on the Hooghly River by the English East India Company, following the signing of an Anglo-Mughal treaty.
  • October 6 – An earthquake with strength 5.2 occurs in Caernarfon, Wales, causing tremors that can be felt as far away as London and Dublin.
  • November 17 – Barclays, which will continue to be active into the 21st century as a multinational bank and lending institution, is founded in London by John Freame and Thomas Gould as Freame & Gould. The bank changes its name in 1736 when James Barclay becomes a partner.

1691 CE64 entries

  • August 19 – The Battle of Slankamen takes place between the Ottoman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire and allies at Syrmia (now the Serbian province of Vojvodina), and 25,000 Ottomans are killed, including Köprülüzade Fazıl Mustafa Pasha, the Grand Vizier.
  • September 18 – War of the Grand Alliance: English and Dutch forces are defeated by the French in the Battle of Leuze.
  • October 3 – The Treaty of Limerick, ending the Williamite War in Ireland and guaranteeing civil rights to Roman Catholics, is signed. The Flight of the Wild Geese follows.

1692 CE58 entries

  • July 1 – The siege of the Belgian city of Namur in the Spanish Netherlands ends as Dutch General Menno van Coehoorn capitulates to King Louis XIV of France after five weeks. The siege, a battle in the ongoing Nine Years War, had begun on May 24.
  • August 12 – The city of Ponce is founded in Puerto Rico.
  • September 19 – Giles Corey is pressed to death in an attempt to coerce a confession from him of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials.

1693 CE68 entries

  • April – Tituba, a slave who had been convicted at the Salem witch trials of practicing witchcraft after making a confession, is released from jail in Boston after 13 months when an unknown purchaser pays her jail fees.
  • July 29 – Nine Years' War – Battle of Landen: William III of England is defeated by the French (with Irish Jacobite mercenaries).
  • November 14 – General Santaji Ghorpade of the Maratha Empire in India is defeated by General Himmat Khan of the Mughal Empire near Vikramhalli, and retreats. A week later, after regrouping his troops, Santaji defeats Himmat at their next encounter.

1694 CE59 entries

  • January 21 (January 11 O.S.) – The Kiev Academy, predecessor of the national university of Ukraine, receives official recognition by Tsar Ivan V of Russia.
  • August 6 – The coronation of Sultan Husayn of the Safavid dynasty as the Shah of Persia takes place in Isfahan, eight days after the death of his father Suleiman I.
  • November 12 – The Army of Algeria captures Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, after a siege of three months, bringing an end to the Tunisian–Algerian War. Mohamed Bey El Mouradi, the Bey of Tunis, flees southward while Prince Muhammad ben Cheker of Tunisia becomes the new Dey on behalf of the Dey of Algiers, Hadj Ahmed.

1695 CE66 entries

  • April 27 – Russo-Turkish War (1686–1700): Russia begins the Azov campaigns (1695–96) against the Ottoman Empire, with 31,000 troops departing to the Ottoman fortress at Azov on the Don River.
  • August 13–15 – Nine Years' War: Brussels is bombarded by French troops.
  • September 24 – All but eight of the remaining 305 crew of the Royal Navy ship are killed when the ship founders in the Florida Keys. According to the ship's logbook, an epidemic of yellow fever began on August 1 and had killed 45 people before the hurricane struck, and left all but seven crew members too ill to walk.

1696 CE72 entries

  • January – Colley Cibber's play Love's Last Shift is first performed in London.
  • June 12 – China's Kangxi Emperor leads troops in the Battle of Jao Modo, about 37 mi from the modern Mongolian capital, Ulan Bator, and defeats 5,000 Mongolian troops of the Dzungar Khanate under the command of Galdan Boshugtu Khan.
  • December 24 – The Inquisition in Portugal carries out the sentence of burning at the stake against several Marrano Jews in Évora.

1697 CE73 entries

  • February 26 – Conquistador Martín de Ursúa y Arizmendi and 114 soldiers arrive at Lake Petén Itzá in what is now Guatemala and begin the Spanish conquest of Guatemala with an attack on the capital of the Itza people there before moving northward to the Yucatan peninsula.
  • March 13 – The Spanish conquest of Petén, and of Yucatán, is completed with the fall of Nojpetén, capital of the Itza Maya Kingdom, the last independent Maya state.
  • December 8 – Tsangyang Gyatso is installed in Tibet as the 6th Dalai Lama in a ceremony at Lhasa, filling a vacancy that had existed since 1682.

1698 CE69 entries

  • July 25 – English engineer Thomas Savery obtains a patent for a steam pump.
  • September 5 – In an effort to move his people away from Asiatic customs, Tsar Peter I of Russia imposes a beard tax.
  • November – Tani Jinzan, astronomer and calendar scholar, observes a fire destroy Tosa (now Kōchi) in Japan at the same time as a Leonid meteor shower, taking it as evidence to reinforce belief in the "Theory of Areas".

1699 CE52 entries

  • January 26 – The Republic of Venice, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and Holy Roman Empire sign the Treaty of Karlowitz with the Ottoman Empire, marking an end to the major phase of the Ottoman–Habsburg wars. The treaty marks a major geopolitical shift, as the Ottoman Empire subsequently abandons its expansionism and adopts a defensive posture while the Habsburg monarchy expands its influence.
  • June 14 – Thomas Savery demonstrates his first steam pump to the Royal Society of London.
  • November 22 – The Treaty of Preobrazhenskoye, negotiated by Johann Patkul, is signed at a palace of the Tsar of Russia Peter the Great, and representatives of Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony to provide for the partition of Swedish Empire between Saxony, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Kingdoms of Denmark-Norway and the Russian Empire. The attack on Sweden, which takes place on February 22, starts the Great Northern War.