date: October 3

text: October 3 – In India, Chhatrapati Shivaji maharaj, the ruler of the Maratha Empire, leads an attack on the British settlement at Surat near Bombay. British Governor Gerald Aungier secures the British fortress at Surat and saves the lives and property of British citizens.


date: December 27

section: Conflict & Security

text: December 27 – Henry Morgan captures Fort San Lorenzo, on Panama's Caribbean coast.

source_section: Events › October–December


text: Stenka Razin begins the rebellion of Cossacks in Russia.

source_section: Events › Date unknown


text: mid-August – Three Spanish frigates from Spanish Florida, sailing from St. Augustine and under the command of Juan Menendez Marques, arrive at Charleston harbor, preparing to attack the English settlement in South Carolina. The English settlers have been warned in advance by Indians who had found out about the invasion. Because of a storm, and the English preparations for a siege, Captain Menendez abandons the colony without attempting an attack.

source_section: Events › July–September


text: Niani, capital of the Mali Empire, is sacked by the Bambara people of the emerging Segou Empire.


date: March 15

section: Exploration & Expansion

text: March 15 – The first English settlers arrive at the modern-day U.S. state of South Carolina, at this time the Province of Clarendon carved out of the Province of Carolina, and construct a settlement at Albemarle Point on the Ashley River.

source_section: Events › January–March


date: May 2

text: May 2 – The Hudson's Bay Company is granted a royal charter in England with the jurisdiction to control administration and commerce in "Rupert's Land", governed for the crown by Rupert, Duke of Cumberland, the cousin of King Charles II. The land is a 1.5 million square mile area of what is now Canada around Hudson Bay. The area controlled covers all of the modern province of Manitoba, most of Saskatchewan, and significant portions of Alberta and Nunavut, as well as parts of what are now Ontario and Quebec, and parts of the U.S. states of Minnesota, North Dakota and Montana.

source_section: Events › April–June


date: December 15

text: December 15 – Henry Morgan, a Welsh privateer in English service, recaptures Santa Catalina Island, Colombia.


date: December 31

text: December 31 – The expedition of John Narborough leaves Corral Bay having surveyed the coast and lost four hostages to the Spanish.


text: The first French settlers arrive on the Petite Côte of modern-day Senegal.


date: March 7

section: Religion & Belief

text: March 7 – Oliver Plunkett, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh since 1669, is allowed to return to Ireland for the first time in more than 22 years, after a new policy of tolerance of Catholicism is enacted in England. Plunkett had departed for Rome in 1647 during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. Executed in 1681 on false charges of plotting an invasion of Ireland, Plunkett is canonized as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church in 1975.


date: April 18

text: April 18 – King Christian V of Denmark fires Christoffer Gabel, who had been the corrupt chief adviser to King Frederick III, and replaces him with Peder Griffenfeld.


date: April 29

text: April 29 – After more than four months, the papal conclave to elect a successor to the late Pope Clement IX selects Cardinal Emilio Altieri with 56 of the 59 votes. Altieri, 79 years old at the time, remains the oldest person ever to be elected pope. He announces that he will take the name of Pope Clement X in honor of Clement IX, who had made him a cardinal. He serves for six years until his death in 1676 shortly after his 86th birthday.


date: June 15

section: Technology & Infrastructure

text: June 15 – The first stone of Fort Ricasoli is laid down in Malta.


date: November 24

section: Health & Medicine

text: November 24 – Louis XIV inaugurates the construction of Les Invalides, a veterans' hospital in Paris.


date: January 17

section: Crime & Justice

text: January 17 – Raphael Levy, a Jewish resident of the city of Metz in France, is burned at the stake after being accused of the September 25 abduction and ritual murder of a child who had disappeared from the village of Glatigny. The prosecutor applies to King Louis XIV for an order expelling all 95 Jewish families from Metz, but the king refuses.


date: September 5

text: September 5 – William Penn and William Mead are found not guilty of violating the Conventicles Act 1670, after a five day jury trial in London. The two had been arrested on August 14 in front of a meeting house Gracechurch Street after preaching a Quaker sermon outside following a ban on preaching indoors. The defiance by the jury leads to the landmark English decision in Bushel's Case.


date: January 27

section: Disasters & Accidents

text: January 27 – The Muslim emperor Aurangzeb of the Mughal Empire in India issues an order for the destruction of all Hindu temples and schools in the empire, including the Keshvadeva Temple in Mathura.


date: March 31

text: March 31 – The British warship HMS Sapphire is wrecked beyond repair when her captain, John Pearce, orders the ship to be run aground at Sicily while fleeing what he believes to be four Algerian pirate ships, rather than attempting to fight. The ships turn out to have been friendly, and Pearce and his lieutenant, Andrew Logan, are court-martialed for their cowardice and executed on September 17.


date: August 17

text: August 17 – A joint fleet of warships from England (commanded by Commodore Richard Beach on HMS Hampshire) and from the Dutch Republic (led by Admiral Willem Joseph van Ghent on Spiegel) rescue 250 Christian slaves and then sink six Algerian pirate ships in a battle in the Mediterranean Sea off of the coast of Morocco at Cape Spartel.


date: February 27

section: Culture & Society

text: February 27 – The royal wedding in Poland, between King Michal Wisniowiecki (who is also the Grand Duke of Lithuania) and Eleonore of Austria (daughter of the late Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor), with ceremonies taking place at the Denhoff Palace in Kruszyna.


date: October 14

text: October 14 – Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, a five-act comedy and ballet authored by Molière, is given its first performance, presented before King Louis XIV at the Château de Chambord. Public performances begin on November 23 at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal in Paris.


date: January 24

section: Births

text: January 24 – William Congreve, English playwright (d. 1729)

source_section: Births


date: February 25

text: February 25 – Maria Margarethe Kirch, German astronomer (d. 1720)


date: February 28

text: February 28 – Benjamin Wadsworth, American president of Harvard University (d. 1737)


date: May 8

text: May 8 – Charles Beauclerk, 1st Duke of St Albans, English soldier (d. 1726)


date: May 12

text: May 12 – King Frederick Augustus I of Poland (d. 1733)


date: June 22

text: June 22 – Eva von Buttlar, German mystic sectarian (d. 1721)


date: July 18

text: July 18 – Giovanni Bononcini, Italian composer (d. 1747)


date: July 19

text: July 19 – Richard Leveridge, English bass player and composer (d. 1758)


date: August 21

text: August 21 – James FitzJames, 1st Duke of Berwick, French military commander (d. 1734)


date: November 15

text: November 15 – Bernard Mandeville, Dutch-born economic philosopher (d. 1733)


date: December 4

text: December 4 – John Aislabie, English politician, director of the South Sea Company (d. 1742)


text: date unknown – Sultan Abdullah Khan Abdali, Persian Governor of Herat, Shah of Herat (d. 1721)


date: January 3

section: Deaths

text: January 3 – George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle, English soldier (b. 1608)

source_section: Deaths


date: January 6

text: January 6 – Sir Gilbert Gerard, 1st Baronet of Harrow on the Hill, English politician (b. 1587)


text: January 6 – Charles of Sezze, Italian Franciscan friar and saint (b. 1613)


date: January 21

text: January 21 – Claude Duval, French-born highwayman (b. 1643)


date: February 17

text: February 17 – Elizabeth Barnard, granddaughter of William Shakespeare (b. 1608)


date: March 1

text: March 1 – Giovanna Maria Bonomo, beatified Italian Catholic nun (b. 1606)


date: April

text: April – Ahom King Swargadeo Chakradhwaj Singha or Supangmung of Assam, India


date: May 19

text: May 19 – Ferdinando Ughelli, Italian Cistercian monk, church historian (b. 1595)


date: May 23

text: May 23 – Cosimo III de' Medici becomes the Grand Duke of Tuscany, at the time an independent nation in Italy, upon the death of his father Ferdinando de' Medici.


date: May 31

text: May 31 – Josceline Percy, 11th Earl of Northumberland, English noble (b. 1644)


date: June 12

text: June 12 – Hasanuddin of Gowa, 16th Ruler of the Sultanate of Gowa (b. 1631)


date: June 30

text: June 30 – Henrietta, Duchess of Orléans, English and French princess (b. 1644)


date: August 10

text: August 10 – Richard Ottley, English politician (b. 1626)


text: November 15 – Comenius, Czech writer (b. 1592)


date: July 24

section: Geopolitics & Diplomacy

text: July 24 – Awashonks, the female sachem who leads the Sakonnet Indians in what is now the U.S. state of Rhode Island, signs a peace agreement with the English leaders of the neighboring Plymouth Colony (now part of Massachusetts), along with chiefs Totatomet, Tattacommett and Somagaonet.


date: October 30

text: October 30 – The Republic of Venice and the Ottoman Empire sign a treaty delineating the borders between their territories in modern-day Greece, with Venice acknowledging the loss of the island of Crete in the Cretan War.


date: November 19

text: November 19 – Lê Gia Tông, age 10, is installed as the figurehead Emperor of Vietnam (a kingdom known as Đại Việt or Annam) by the warlord Trịnh Tạc, after the death, three days earlier, of Lê Huyền Tông. He reigns until his death on April 3, 1675.


date: January 5

text: January 5 – The Battle of Salher is fought in India as the first major confrontation between the Maratha Empire and the Mughal Empire, with the Maratha Army of 40,000 infantry and cavalry under the command of General Prataprao Gujar defeating a larger Mughal force led by General Diler Khan.


date: March 31

text: March 31 – England's Royal Navy launches its first warship to have a frame reinforced by iron bars rather than an all wooden ship, an innovation by naval architect Anthony Deane. The state of the art, 102-gun ship is commissioned on January 18, 1672, as the flagship for Admiral Edward Montagu but is sunk less than five months later in the Battle of Solebay. Iron-framed ships are not attempted again for almost 50 years.


date: March

text: March – In the Battle of Saraighat in India, fought in mid-March, General Lachit Borphukan of the Ahom kingdom, located in what is now the Indian state of Assam defeats a larger force of Mughal Empire troops on the outskirts of what is now Guwahati.


date: June 22

text: June 22 – The Ottoman Empire declares war on Poland.


date: November 18

text: November 18 – In southwest Africa, troops of the Army of Portugal, under the command of Luís Lopes de Sequeira, win the Battle of Pungo Andongo, capturing the fortress capital of the Kingdom of Ndongo after nine months and deposing King Ngola Hari. The kingdom is annexed into the Portuguese colony of Angola.


date: January 28

text: January 28 – Henry Morgan's Panama expedition – the city of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción de Panamá, founded more than 150 years earlier at the Isthmus of Panama by Spanish settlers and the first permanent European settlement on the Pacific Ocean, is destroyed by the Welsh pirate Henry Morgan. The last surviving original structures are now part of Panama City, capital of the Central American nation of Panama.


date: August 15

text: August 15 – Jamaica's Governor Thomas Lynch offers a general pardon to pirates who are willing to come under Jamaican jurisdiction.


date: September 6

text: September 6 – The Court of King Charles II of England dispatches a letter to the "King of Formosa" (Zheng Jing, ruler of the Kingdom of Tungning) confirming that English ships will be welcome to trade at the "City of Tywan", referring to Taipei on the island of Taiwan.


text: The first Jewish families settle in Berlin, moving from Vienna at the invitation of Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg.

source_section: Events › Undated


date: March 22

text: March 22 – Sabine baronets title is created in England for John Sabine.


date: April 2

text: April 2 – In Rome, Pope Clement X canonizes Rose of Lima, making her the first Catholic saint of the Americas.


date: November 8

text: November 8 – Dionysius IV, bishop of Larissa, is elected as the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, leader of the Eastern Orthodox Christians, after Parthenius IV is sent into exile.


date: December 7

text: December 7 – The first Seventh Day Baptist church in America is founded with a service on a Saturday at Newport, Rhode Island, by Stephen Mumford and four Sabbatarians who believed that Christian church services should be held on Saturday, the seventh and last day of the week, in keeping with the commandment of remembering the Sabbath.


date: March 11

section: Economy & Finance

text: March 11 – The Danish West India Company, a charter ship company whose operations include human trafficking of African slaves to the Western Hemisphere by its Danish Africa Company subsidiary, is founded.


date: February 27

section: Science & Discovery

text: February 27 – The Ortenau meteorite lands in Germany.


date: October 25

text: October 25 – Italian-born French astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini discovers Iapetus, the second known moon of the planet Saturn. Christiaan Huygens had discovered the Saturnian moon Titan on March 25, 1655.


date: January 1

text: January 1 – The Criminal Ordinance of 1670, the first attempt at a uniform code of criminal procedure in France, goes into effect after having been passed on August 26, 1670.


date: May 9

text: May 9 – Thomas Blood, disguised as a clergyman, attempts to steal the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom from the Tower of London. He is immediately caught, because he is too drunk to run with the loot. He is later condemned to death, and then mysteriously pardoned and exiled by King Charles II.


date: November 9

text: November 9 – The Duke of York's Theatre is opened in London by the players of the Duke's Company, rivals to the "King's Company" at the Theatre Royal, which burns down two months later. The site is now the Dorset Garden Theatre.


date: March 15

section: Climate & Environment

text: March 15 – A tornado kills more than 600 people in the city of Cádiz in Spain.


date: January 17

text: January 17 – The ballet Psyché, with music composed by Jean-Baptiste Lully, premieres before the royal court of King Louis XIV at the Théâtre des Tuileries in Paris.


date: February 1

text: February 1 – The Tsar Alexis of Russia marries Nataliya Kyrillovna Naryshkina, who gives birth 16 months later to the future Peter the Great.


date: March 3

text: March 3 – Pomone, written by Robert Cambert and considered by modern scholars to be the first French opera, is given its first performance. Using innovative costumes, and machinery for special stage effects, the premiere performed by the Académie d'Opéra at the Salle de la Bouteille theater in Paris is a success.


date: December 30

text: December 30 – The Académie royale d'architecture is founded by Louis XIV of France in Paris as the world's first school of architecture.


date: January 11

text: January 11 – François-Marie, 1st duc de Broglie, French military leader (d. 1745)


date: February 26

text: February 26 – Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, English politician and philosopher (d. 1713)


date: March 7

text: March 7 – Rob Roy MacGregor, Scottish folk hero (d. 1734)


date: April 6

text: April 6 – Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, French poet (d. 1741)


date: April 21

text: April 21 – John Law, Scottish economist (d. 1729)


date: May 24

text: May 24 – Gian Gastone de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (d. 1737)


date: June 8

text: June 8 – Tomaso Albinoni, Italian composer (d. 1751)


date: June 21

text: June 21 – Christian Detlev Reventlow, Danish diplomat and military leader, brother-in-law of king Frederick IV of Denmark (d. 1738)


date: July 9

text: July 9 – Margareta von Ascheberg, Swedish land owner, countess and acting regimental colonel (d. 1753)


date: July 14

text: July 14 – Jacques d'Allonville, French astronomer and mathematician (d. 1732)


date: October 1

text: October 1 – Guido Grandi, Italian mathematician (d. 1742)


date: October 11

text: October 11 – King Frederick IV of Denmark (d. 1730)


date: November 6

text: November 6 – Colley Cibber, English actor-manager and poet laureate (d. 1757)


date: November 15

text: November 15 (bapt.) – Anne Bracegirdle, English actress (d. 1748)


date: January 6

text: January 6 – Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh (b. 1643)


date: February 22

text: February 22 – Adam Olearius, German scholar (b. 1599)


date: March 31

text: March 31 – Anne Hyde, wife of the future James II of England (b. 1637)


date: April 23

text: April 23 – Theodorick Bland of Westover, American politician (b. 1629)


date: April 30

text: April 30 – Fran Krsto Frankopan, Croatian poet and nobleman (b. 1643)


date: May 5

text: May 5 – Edward Montagu, 2nd Earl of Manchester, English politician (b. 1602)


date: May 12

text: May 12 – Pedro de Villagómez Vivanco, Roman Catholic prelate, Archbishop of Lima, then Bishop of Arequipa (b. 1589)


date: May 19

text: May 19 – John Scudamore, 1st Viscount Scudamore, English politician and Viscount (b. 1601)


date: June 7

text: June 7 – The coronation ceremony of Christian V of Denmark-Norway takes place at the Frederiksborg Castle in Hillerød, north of Copenhagen. Christian had assumed the throne on February 9, 1670, upon the death of his father, Frederick III.


date: June 25

text: June 25 – Giovanni Battista Riccioli, Italian astronomer (b. 1598)


date: July 4

text: July 4 – Jan Cossiers, Flemish painter (b. 1600)


date: August 3

text: August 3 – Antonio Barberini, Italian Catholic cardinal (b. 1607)


date: November 12

text: November 12 – Thomas Fairfax, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron, English Civil War general (b. 1612)


date: December 13

text: December 13 – Antonio Grassi, Italian Roman Catholic priest and beatus (b. 1592)


date: October 18

text: October 18 – The Treaty of Buchach, between the Ottoman Empire and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, is signed.


date: February 25

text: February 25 – Willem, Prince of Orange, the 21-year-old Stadtholder of Gelderland and Utrecht, is approved by the States General of the Dutch Republic to command the Dutch States Army for the impending war with England.


date: March 17

text: March 17 – The Third Anglo-Dutch War begins as the Kingdom of England declares war on the Dutch Republic.


date: April 8

text: April 8 – France declares war on the Dutch Republic, invading the country on April 29.


date: June 1

text: June 1 – Münster and Cologne begin their invasion of the Dutch Republic; hence 1672 becomes known as het rampjaar ("the disaster year") in the Netherlands.


text: June 7 – Third Anglo-Dutch War – Battle of Solebay: An indecisive sea battle results, between the Dutch Republic, and the joined forces of England and France.


date: June 12

text: June 12 – Battle of Tolhuis: French forces under King Louis XIV cross the Rhine into the Netherlands; the city of Utrecht is occupied by the French Army.


date: September 15

text: September 15 – In India, Admiral Mai Nayak Bhandari of the Maratha Empire captures the island of Khanderi.


date: December 18

text: December 18 – An English invasion force captures the Caribbean island of Tobago from Dutch colonists and destroys the settlement.


date: December 30

text: December 30 – Troops of the Dutch Republic, under the command of Carl von Rabenhaupt, are able to reclaim lost territory for the first time in the Third Anglo-Dutch War, liberating Coevorden, which had been forced to surrender to France on July 1. The moment, a boost for morale in what is remembered in Dutch history as the Rampjaar (the "Disaster Year"), is later memorialized in a painting by Pieter Wouwerman, The Storming of Coevorden.


date: January 13

text: January 13 – Pope Clement X issues regulations for the prerequisites of removing relics of Roman Catholic saints from sacred cemeteries, requiring advance approval from the Cardinal Vicar in Rome before the remains of the saint can be allowed for view. The Cardinal Vicar is directed to bar regular persons from viewing remains, and to limit inspection to high prelates and to princes.


date: March 15

text: March 15 – Charles II of England issues the Royal Declaration of Indulgence, suspending execution of Penal Laws against Protestant nonconformists and Roman Catholics in his realms; this will be withdrawn the following year under pressure from the Parliament of England.


date: March 16

text: March 16 – At the Synod of Jerusalem, presided over by Dositheos II of Jerusalem, the 68 bishops and representatives from the whole of Eastern Orthodox Christendom close by approving the Orthodox dogma against the challenge of Protestantism, declaring against "the falsehoods of the adversaries which they have devised against the Eastern Church" and making a goal of "reformation of their innovations and for their return to the catholic and apostolic church in which their forefathers also were."


date: September 16

text: September 16 – The Board of Trade is created in England by a merger of the Council of Trade and the Council of Foreign Plantations, both of which had been created by King Charles II in 1660, under the name The Board of Trade and Plantations. The Earl of Shaftesbury is appointed as the first Lord of Trade, administering the Board until its dissolution in 1676.


date: September 26

text: September 26 – General Raimondo Montecuccoli, commander of the army of the Holy Roman Empire, joins forces with the Brandenburg troops commanded by Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg and the two groups assemble at Halberstadt, to attack the French and the bishops of Münster and Cologne.


date: October 2

text: October 2 – Manuel de Cendoya, Spain's Governor of Florida, breaks ground for the construction of the Castillo de San Marcos, a masonry fortress designed to protect St. Augustine. Governor Cendoya follows on November 9 with the ceremonial laying for the first stone for the foundation.


date: November 28

text: November 28 – After more than five years of administration of the Treasury of England by a five-member commission, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, one of the commission members, becomes the Lord High Treasurer of England.


text: Richard Hoare becomes a partner in the London goldsmith's business which, as private banking house C. Hoare & Co., will survive through to the 21st century.


date: January 25

text: January 25 – The Theatre Royal, located at the time on Bridges Street in London, burns down. A replacement structure is built on Drury Lane in 1674.


date: January 11

text: January 11 – The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, national science academy for England, elects Isaac Newton to its membership, and then demonstrates Newton's reflecting telescope to King Charles II.


date: February 16

text: February 16 (February 6, 1671 O.S.) – Isaac Newton sends a paper for publication regarding his experiments on the refraction of light through glass prisms and makes the first identification of the "primary colors" of visible light on the electromagnetic spectrum, reporting that "The Original or primary colours are, Red, Yellow, Green, Blew, and a Violet-purple, together with Orange, Indico, and an indefinite variety of Intermediate gradations."


date: December 23

text: December 23 – French astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini discovers Rhea, a previously-unknown satellite of the planet Saturn. Rhea is the second-largest overall, and the third moon of Saturn to be discovered by Earth astronomers, Titan having been found by Christiaan Huygens on March 25, 1655 and Iapetus by Cassini on October 25, 1671.


date: September 10

text: September 10 – William III of Orange, Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic, dismisses nine of the regenten who lead cities in the Netherlands, after being granted authority by the States-General.


date: August 20

text: August 20 – Johan de Witt, Grand Pensionary of Holland and his brother Cornelis de Witt are killed by an Orangist mob in The Hague.


date: March 12

text: March 12 – Action of 12 March 1672, a 2-day naval engagement between an English coastal patrol and a Dutch Smyrna convoy off the south coast of England. The English fleet suffers severe damage while most of the Dutch convoy escapes, although one of the Dutch commanders (De Haaze) is killed and one warship taken as a prize (Klein Hollandia) sinks; the latter will be rediscovered in 2019.


date: May 2

text: May 2 – John Maitland becomes Duke of Lauderdale and Earl of March.


date: July 4

text: July 4 – William III of Orange is appointed Stadtholder of Holland and Zeeland.


text: Foundation of the Chorina Comedy, the first theater in Russia.


date: January 4

text: January 4 – Hugh Boulter, Irish Archbishop of Armagh (d. 1742)


date: January 18

text: January 18 – Antoine Houdar de la Motte, French writer (d. 1731)


date: February 13

text: February 13 – Étienne François Geoffroy, French chemist (d. 1731)


date: February 26

text: February 26 – Antoine Augustine Calmet, French theologian (d. 1757)


date: May 1

text: May 1 – Joseph Addison, English politician and writer (d. 1719)


date: June 9

text: June 9 – Emperor Peter the Great of Russia (d. 1725)


date: June 11

text: June 11 – Francesco Antonio Bonporti, Italian priest and composer (d. 1749)


date: July 13

text: July 13 – Nicolás Salzillo, Spanish artist (d. 1727)


date: August 2

text: August 2 – Johann Jakob Scheuchzer, Swiss scholar (d. 1733)


date: September 8

text: September 8 – Nicolas de Grigny, French organist and composer (d. 1703)


date: October 11

text: October 11 – Pylyp Orlyk, Ukrainian Zaporozhian Cossack starshina, diplomat (d. 1742)


date: October 21

text: October 21 – Ludovico Antonio Muratori, Italian historian, scholar (d. 1750)


date: October 27

text: October 27 – Maria Gustava Gyllenstierna, Swedish writer (d. 1737)


text: Ann Baynard, English natural philosopher (d. 1697)


date: March

text: March – Archibald Armstrong, court jester to James VI and I and Charles I of England


date: April 2

text: April 2 – Diego Luis de San Vitores, Spanish Jesuit missionary to Guam (b. 1627)


text: April 2 – Pedro Calungsod, Filipino saint (b. 1654)


date: April 13

text: April 13 – Marguerite of Lorraine, princess of Lorraine, duchess of Orléans (b. 1615)


date: April 30

text: April 30 – Marie of the Incarnation, French foundress of the Ursuline Monastery in Quebec (b. 1599)


date: May 28

text: May 28 – Edward Montagu, 1st Earl of Sandwich (b. 1625)


date: July 3

text: July 3 – Francis Willughby, English biologist (b. 1635)


date: July 21

text: July 21 – Captain John Underhill, English settler and soldier (b. 1597)


date: October 8

text: October 8 – Johan Nieuhof, Dutch traveler who wrote about his journeys to Brazil (b. 1618)


date: November 19

text: November 19 – John Wilkins, English Bishop of Chester (b. 1614)


text: November 19 – Franciscus Sylvius, Dutch physician and scientist (b. 1614)


date: December 6

text: December 6 – King John II Casimir of Poland (b. 1609)


date: December 7

text: December 7 – Richard Bellingham, Massachusetts colonial magistrate (b. 1592)


date: December 18

text: December 18 – Hedwig Eleonora of Holstein-Gottorp ends her regency of the Swedish Empire after more than 12 years, having exercised power in the name of her minor son, Charles XI, since the death of her husband Karl X Gustav in 1660. Hedwig Eleonora had served as the chair of the six-member Regency Council.


date: July 11

text: July 11 – The Netherlands and Denmark-Norway sign a defense treaty.


date: August 30

text: August 30 – Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor, Spain, Netherlands and the Lutherans form an anti-French covenant.


date: December 19

text: December 19 – King Louis XIV of France issues a decree recognizing the legitimacy of (and giving royal titles to) the three children whom he had sired through his mistress, Madame de Montespan: Louis Auguste, Duke of Maine; Louis César, Count of Vexin; and Louise Françoise, Princess of Condé.


date: June 7

text: June 7 – First Battle of Schooneveld: In a sea battle of the Third Anglo-Dutch War, fought off the Netherlands coast, the Dutch Republic fleet (commanded by Michiel de Ruyter) defeats the allied Anglo-French fleet, commanded by Prince Rupert of the Rhine.


date: June 14

text: June 14 – Second Battle of Schooneveld: The Dutch fleet again defeats the joint Anglo-French fleet.


date: July 6

text: July 6 – French troops conquer Maastricht.


date: August 8

text: August 8 – In the American colonies, a Dutch battle fleet of 23 ships demands the surrender of New York.


date: August 9

text: August 9 – Dutch forces under Admiral Cornelis Evertsen the Youngest recapture New York from the English; the city is known as New Orange until regained by the English in 1674.


date: August 21

text: August 21 – Battle of Texel (Kijkduin): The Dutch fleet under Michiel de Ruyter defeats the English and French fleet. This prevents England's Blackheath Army from landing in Zeeland.


date: September 12

text: September 12 – William, Prince of Orange occupies Naarden, Netherlands.


date: November 13

text: November 13 – Dutch troops commanded by Raimondo Montecuccoli and William, Prince of Orange conquer Bonn.


date: December 28

text: December 28 – In China, General Wu Sangui begins the Revolt of the Three Feudatories, a rebellion against the Qing dynasty by killing the Governor of the Yunnan province, Zhu Guozhi. Within 10 days, he leads troops on an expedition to take over the neighboring Guizhou province and by 1676 controls 11 of China's provinces.


date: May 17

text: May 17 – In America, trader Louis Joliet and Jesuit missionary-explorer Jacques Marquette begin exploring the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes.


date: June 17

text: June 17 – French explorers Father Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet reach the headwaters of the Mississippi River, and descend to Arkansas.


text: France begins its expedition against Ceylon.


text: The stalactic grotto of Antiparos (Aegean Sea) is discovered.


date: March 29

text: March 29 – Test Act: Roman Catholics and others who refuse to receive the sacrament of the Church of England cannot vote, hold public office, preach, teach, attend the universities or assemble for meetings in England. On June 12, the king's Catholic brother, James, Duke of York, is forced to resign the office of Lord High Admiral because of the Act.


text: Archpriest Petrovich Avvakum writes his Zhitie (Life), as the first Russian autobiography.


text: The Mitsui family's trading and banking house is founded in Japan.


date: October 3

text: October 3 – Kintai Bridge is officially completed in Iwakuni, Suō Province (modern-day Yamaguchi Prefecture), Japan.


date: November 9

text: November 9 – King Charles II of England removes Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, from his position as Lord Chancellor.


text: Chelsea Physic Garden, the second oldest botanic garden in England, is founded by the Society of Apothecaries, for the study of medicinal and other plants.


date: January 22

text: January 22 – Impersonator Mary Carleton is hanged at Newgate Prison in London, for multiple thefts and returning from penal transportation.


date: February 10

text: February 10 – Molière's comédie-ballet The Imaginary Invalid premiers in Paris. During the fourth performance, on February 17, the playwright, playing the title rôle, collapses on stage, dying soon after.


date: April 27

text: April 27 – Cadmus et Hermione, the first opera written by Jean-Baptiste Lully, premières at the Paris Opera in France.


date: July 24

text: July 24 – Edmund Halley enters The Queen's College, Oxford, as an undergraduate.


date: November 14

text: November 14 – Christopher Wren is knighted in England.


date: November 23

text: November 23 – James, Duke of York, marries Mary of Modena; they meet for the first time immediately before the ceremony in Dover.


date: January 31

text: January 31 – St. Louis Maria Grignion de Montfort, French missionary priest (d. 1716)


text: April 27 – Claude Gillot, French artist (d. 1722)


date: July 20

text: July 20 – John Dalrymple, 2nd Earl of Stair, Scottish soldier and diplomat (d. 1747)


date: August 8

text: August 8 – John Ker, Scottish informer (d. 1726)


date: August 10

text: August 10 – Johann Konrad Dippel, German alchemist (d. 1734)


date: August 11

text: August 11 – Richard Mead, English physician (d. 1754)


date: August 18

text: August 18 – Louise Élisabeth de Joybert, politically active Canadian governors' wife (d. 1740)


date: October 26

text: October 26 – Dimitrie Cantemir, Moldavian linguist and scholar (d. 1723)


date: December 30

text: December 30 – Ahmed III, Ottoman Sultan (d. 1736)


text: January 22 – Mary Carleton, Englishwoman who used false identities (b. 1642)


date: February 12

text: February 12, – Johann Philipp von Schönborn, Archbishop-Elector of Mainz (1647– (b. 1605)


date: March 12

text: March 12 – Margaret Theresa of Spain (b. 1651)


date: March 15

text: March 15 – Salvator Rosa, Italian painter and poet (b. 1615)


date: May 14

text: May 14 – Sir Gerrard Napier, 1st Baronet, English politician (b. 1606)


date: June 25

text: June 25 – Charles de Batz-Castelmore d'Artagnan, French soldier (b. 1611)


date: June 28

text: June 28 – Johan Schatter, Dutch member of the Haarlem schutterij (b. 1594)


date: July 15

text: July 15 – Helena Fourment, Dutch model, second wife of Peter Paul Rubens (b. 1614)


date: September 6

text: September 6 – Jan Thomas van Ieperen, Flemish engraver and painter (b. 1617)


date: October 17

text: October 17 – Thomas Clifford, 1st Baron Clifford of Chudleigh, English statesman (b. 1630)


date: November 11

text: November 11 – Battle of Khotyn: Polish and Lithuanian military units, under the command of soon-to-be-king Jan Sobieski, defeat the Turkish army. In this battle, which takes place one day after the death of Poland and Lithuania's monarch, Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki, the rockets invented by Kazimierz Siemienowicz are successfully used.


date: December 8

text: December 8 – Pedro Nuño Colón de Portugal dies only five days after arriving in Mexico City to take office as the new viceroy of New Spain. He is replaced on December 13 by Payo Enríquez de Rivera, the former Roman Catholic Archbishop of Mexico.


date: December 15

text: December 15 – Margaret Cavendish, English writer (b. 1623)


date: December 31

text: December 31 – Oliver St John, English statesman and judge (b. c. 1598)


date: January 15

text: January 15 – The Earl of Arlington, a member of the English House of Commons, is impeached on charges of popery, but the Commons rejects the motion to remove him from office, 127 votes for and 166 against.


date: February 19

text: February 19 – England and the Netherlands sign the Treaty of Westminster, ending the Third Anglo-Dutch War. Its provisions come into effect gradually (see November 10).


date: April 26

text: April 26 – In the Netherlands, the jurisdiction of Willem, Prince of Orange, Stadtholder of Holland (on the west coast, including Amsterdam and Rotterdam) and Zeeland (southwest coast, including Middelburg, Zeeland), increases in the Dutch Republic as his followers in the inland States of Utrecht (Utrecht, Gelderland and Overijssel) designate him as the hereditary stadtholder. In 1689, he becomes the King of England in addition to his role as the Stadtholder of the Netherlands.


date: November 10

text: November 10 – As provided in the Treaty of Westminster of February 19, the Dutch Republic cedes its colony of New Netherland to England. This includes the colonial capital, New Orange, which is returned to its English name of New York. The colonies of Surinam, Essequibo and Berbice remain in Dutch hands.


date: January 7

text: January 7 – In the Chinese Empire, General Wu Sangui leads troops into the Giuzhou province, and soon takes control of the entire territory without a loss.


date: March 14

text: March 14 – Third Anglo-Dutch War: Battle of Ronas Voe – The English Royal Navy captures the Dutch East India Company ship Wapen van Rotterdam in Shetland.


date: April 24

text: April 24 – In India, Shivaji Bhonsale, the Chhatrapati of the Maratha Empire, captures the Kenjalgad Fort in what is now the Maharashtra state.


date: July 7

text: July 7 – The Messina revolt against Spanish rule begins on the island of Sicily as the Italian residents besiege the palace of the Spanish Captain-General and drive out the Spanish garrison.


date: August 1

text: August 1 – The 1674 derecho causes a catastrophic impact in Western Europe. In the Netherlands, the derecho causes over 1,050 deaths and devastates cities such as Utrecht and Amsterdam.


date: August 11

text: August 11 – The French army under Prince Louis, Grand Condé fights the Dutch–Spanish–Imperial army under William III of Orange at Seneffe in a very bloody, but inconclusive battle.


date: September 27

text: September 27 – French Navy Commander Jean-Baptiste de Valbelle arrives at Sicily during the Messina revolt to help the Messinese expel the last Spanish defenders, taking the fort at Faro in the harbor entrance.


date: October 4

text: October 4 – The Battle of Entzheim takes place in France with 35,000 Holy Roman Empire troops and 22,000 French defenders during the Franco-Dutch War, with the forces fighting near Entzheim south of Strasbourg. While the battle is inconclusive, the outnumbered French win a strategic victory by keeping the Germans from entering French territory. Most of the former battlefield now lies beneath the Strasbourg International Airport.


date: October 27

text: October 27 – The town of Grave surrenders to a Dutch army after a difficult siege.


date: July 4

text: July 4 – A Dutch fleet under Cornelis Tromp Captures the island of Noirmoutier on the French coast. For nearly three weeks, the Dutch occupied the French island and the Dutch fleet captured many French ships in the meantime. The whole coastline from Brest to Bayonne was in turmoil, and French forces gathered to prevent the Dutch from landing. On 23 July the island of Noirmoutier was however abandoned after the Dutch blew up the castle and demolished the coastal batteries.


date: January 2

text: January 2 – The French West India Company is dissolved after less than 10 years.


text: The first Dutch West India Company is dissolved.


date: April 10

text: April 10 – In the Ahom kingdom in what is now the northeastern Indian state of Assam, Chamaguriya Khamjang Konwar is installed by the Chief Minister, the Borbarua Debera, as the figurehead King of Ahom. He takes the regnal name Suhung and makes plans to have Debera killed. On April 30, Debera, having learned of the King's intentions, succeeds in having the royal physician poison Suhung's medicine, and installs another ruler.


date: October 15

text: October 15 – The Torsåker witch trials begin in the Torsåker Parish in Sweden, with over 100 men and women accused of witchcraft and the abduction of children. On June 1, 1675, the mass beheading of the 71 people convicted takes place at Häxberget, 65 of whom are women. The others are two men and four boys.


date: January 19

text: January 19 – The tragic opera Alceste, by Jean-Baptiste Lully, is performed for the first time, presented by the Paris Opera company at the Theatre du Palais-Royal in Paris.


date: May 21

text: May 21 – John III Sobieski is elected by the nobility, as King of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (to 1696).


date: June 6

text: June 6 – Shivaji Maharaj is crowned as Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj of the Maratha Empire at Raigad Fort in India.


date: June 12

text: June 12 – The British East India Company arranges a commercial treaty with the Maratha Empire after Henry Oxenden, the company's deputy governor, meets Emperor Shivaji for his recent coronation.


text: October 4 – A second coronation is held by the Maratha Empire for the Chhatrapati Shivaji Bhonsle, after the Vedic priest Nischal Puri Goswami decides that the June 18 coronation was "held under inauspicious stars".


date: January 12

text: January 12 – Alexis Simon Belle, French portrait painter (d. 1734)


date: January 15

text: January 15 – Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon, French writer (d. 1762)


date: January 24

text: January 24 – Thomas Tanner, English bishop and antiquarian (d. 1735)


date: March

text: March – Jethro Tull, English agriculturist (d. 1741)


date: June 3

text: June 3 – Matthias Buchinger, German artist (d. 1740)


date: July 12

text: July 12 – Abigail Williams, American accuser in the Salem witch trials (d. 1765)


date: July 17

text: July 17 – Isaac Watts, English hymnist (d. 1748)


date: August 2

text: August 2 – Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, regent of France (d. 1723)


date: August 16

text: August 16 – Catharine Trotter Cockburn, English novelist, dramatist and philosopher (d. 1749)


date: August 19

text: August 19 – František Maxmilián Kaňka, Czech architect (d. 1766)


date: December 25

text: December 25 – Thomas Halyburton, Scottish theologian (d. 1712)


text: Spencer Compton, 1st Earl of Wilmington, Prime Minister of Great Britain (d. 1743)


text: Jeremiah Clarke, English baroque composer (suicide 1707)


date: January 5

text: January 5 – Ebba Brahe, Swedish countess, landowner, and courtier (b. 1596)


date: March 15

text: March 15 – Edward Digges, English barrister and colonist, Colonial Governor of Virginia (b. 1620)


date: March 23

text: March 23 – Henry Cromwell, 4th son of Oliver Cromwell and Elizabeth Bourchier (b. 1628)


date: June 25

text: June 25 – Sir Orlando Bridgeman, 1st Baronet, of Great Lever (b. 1606)


text: June 25 – Mauritia Eleonora of Portugal, Princess of Portugal and countess consort of Nassau-Siegen (b. 1609)


date: July 30

text: July 30 – Francisco Ignacio Alcina, Jesuit missionary and historian (b. 1610)


date: August 8

text: August 8 – Maeda Toshitsugu, Japanese daimyō of the early Edo period (b. 1617)


date: September 12

text: September 12 – Nicolaes Tulp, Dutch anatomist and politician (b. 1593)


date: September 17

text: September 17 – Sukjong of the Joseon Dynasty, age 13, becomes the new Emperor of Korea upon the death of his father, the Emperor Hyeonjong. Sukjong reigns for more than 45 years until his death on July 12, 1720.


text: September 17 – Hyeonjong of Joseon, 18th monarch of the Korean Joseon Dynasty (b. 1641)


date: September 27

text: September 27 – Robert Arnauld d'Andilly, French writer (b. 1589)


date: October 2

text: October 2 – George Frederick of Nassau-Siegen, officer in the Dutch Army (b. 1606)


date: October 12

text: October 12 – Jeremias van Rensselaer, Dutch colonial governor (b. 1632)


date: December 9

text: December 9 – Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, English statesman and historian (b. 1609)


date: April 13

text: April 13 – King Charles II of England suspends Parliament after just nine weeks when the members refuse to vote additional funding to him.


date: June 14

text: June 14 – Colonial authorities of Rhode Island, Plymouth, and Massachusetts attempt a negotiation with Metacomet (King Philip), leader of the Wampanoags, and seek guarantees of fidelity from the Nipmuck and Narragansett tribes. The negotiations end after 11 days, closing on June 25.


date: July 15

text: July 15 – The Narragansett tribe signs a peace treaty with Connecticut.


date: September 18

text: September 18 – The Narragansetts sign a treaty with the English in Boston; meanwhile, Massachusetts troops are ambushed near Northampton, Massachusetts.


date: November 2

text: November 2 – Commissioners of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Plymouth Colony (which are later merged into Massachusetts) begin a 10-day discussion on organizing a united force to attack the Narragansett tribe.


date: January 5

text: January 5 – Franco-Dutch War – Battle of Turckheim: The French defeat Austria and Brandenburg.


date: February 11

text: February 11 – French Army Marshal Louis Victor de Rochechouart, Count of Vivonne, reinforces the rebels in the Messina revolt with eight additional warships and three fireships to bring to 20 the number of ships that France has against the 15 warships of Spain, and breaks the Spanish blockade that had prevented food from reaching Messina.


date: April 20

text: April 20 – An uprising by the Chahars in the Chinese Empire region of Inner Mongolia, led by brothers Abunai Khan and Lubuzung Khan with 3,000 followers, is harshly put down by Imperial troops of the Manchu dynasty. Survivors of the battle, part of the Revolt of the Three Feudatories, are put to death.


date: May 6

text: May 6 – The Siege of Ponda, an action by the Maratha Empire in southern India against the Sultanate of Bijapur, ends after four weeks when the Mughal Empire fails to send reinforcements. Most of the defenders are massacred after Emperor Shivaji's troops storm the fortress in what is now a small city in the Indian state of Goa.


date: May 15

text: May 15 – After an invasion and attempt to take over the German principality of Brandenburg, the army of Sweden makes its first conquest, forcing the surrender of the fortress at Löcknitz.


date: May 18

text: May 18 – Misirliohlu Ibrahim Pasha becomes the new ruler of Tripolitania, a province of the Ottoman Empire at the time and now part of the North African nation of Libya. He reigns for 19 months as the Beylerbey of Tripoli.


date: May 23

text: May 23 – Sujinphaa becomes the new figurehead monarch of the Ahom kingdom in northeastern India, enthroned at the capital at Garhgaon (now in the Indian state of Assam), after Gobar Roja is deposed and executed by order of the nobles who control the nation.


date: June 11

text: June 11 – Armed Wampanoag warriors are reported traveling around Swansea, Massachusetts.


date: June 24

text: June 24 – King Philip's War breaks out, as the Wampanoags attack Swansea.


date: June 28

text: June 28 – Brandenburg defeats the Swedish Army in the Battle of Fehrbellin.


date: August 2

text: August 2–4 – The Nipmucks attack Massachusetts troops and besiege Brookfield, Massachusetts.


date: September 1

text: September 1–2 – While Wampanoags and Nipmucks attack Deerfield, Massachusetts, Captain Samuel Moseley commands Massachusetts troops in an attack on the Pennacook tribe.


date: September 15

text: September 15 – The Bremen-Verden Campaign of the Northern Wars begins, with the invasion of Amt Wildeshausen by the Münster army, and their advance on Verden via the city of Bremen.


date: October 5

text: October 5 – The Pocomtuc tribe attacks and destroys the English settlement at Springfield, Massachusetts.


date: December 19

text: December 19 – United colonial forces attack the Narragansetts at the Great Swamp Fight.


date: April

text: April – English merchant Anthony de la Roché, blown off course after rounding Cape Horn eastabout, makes the first discovery of land south of the Antarctic Convergence, landing on South Georgia and (probably) Gough Island.


date: June 26

text: June 26 – The Wampanoag warriors begin a three-day assault on English colonial towns in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in North America, with an assault on the villages of Rehoboth and Taunton. At the same time, Massachusetts troops march to Swansea, to join the Plymouth Colony troops. The warriors elude colonial troops and leave Mount Hope for Pocasset, Massachusetts. The Mohegan tribe travels to Boston, in order to assist the English colonists against the Wampanoags.


date: July 16

text: July 16–24 – An envoy from Massachusetts attempts to negotiate with the Nipmuck tribe.


date: September 12

text: September 12 – English colonists abandon Deerfield, Squakeag, and Brookfield due to a coalition of Indian attacks.


date: December 11

text: December 11 – Antonio de Vea expedition enters San Rafael Lake in western Patagonia.


date: June 21

text: June 21 – Reconstruction of St Paul's Cathedral begins in London under the direction of Christopher Wren, to replace the portion destroyed by the Great Fire of London nine years earlier.


date: August 13

text: August 13 – The Massachusetts Council orders that Christian Indians are to be confined to designated praying towns.


date: October 13

text: October 13 – The Massachusetts Council convenes and agrees that all Christian Indians should be ordered to move to Deer Island.


date: February 25

text: February 25 – Netherlands scientist Christiaan Huygens files drawings of his invention of the balance spring, the key component to the accuracy of portable clocks and pocket watches, in a letter to the Journal des Sçavants.


date: March 4

text: March 4 – John Flamsteed is appointed by King Charles II as England's "astronomical observator", in effect, becoming the first Astronomer Royal.


date: August 10

text: August 10 – King Charles II of England places the foundation stone of the Royal Greenwich Observatory near London; construction begins.


date: October 29

text: October 29 – Gottfried Leibniz makes the first use of the long s (∫) as a symbol of the integral in calculus.


date: November 11

text: November 11 – Gottfried Leibniz makes the earliest known use of infinitesimal calculus in the breaking down of a function.


text: Antonie van Leeuwenhoek begins to use a microscope for observing human tissues and liquids.


text: Giovanni Cassini discovers the Cassini Division in the rings of Saturn.


date: December 24

text: December 24 – 1675–1676 Malta plague epidemic begins.


date: June 1

text: June 1 – The Torsåker witch trials is concluded in Sweden with the execution of 71 people (65 of them women) executed on the same day at the village of Häxberget. The condemned prisoners are beheaded and their bodies are then burned.


date: June 8

text: June 8 – John Sassamon's alleged murderers are executed at Plymouth, Massachusetts.


text: November 11 – Guru Teg Bahadur, ninth of the Sikh gurus, is executed by Mughal rulers, proclaiming that he prefers death rather than disavowing the right of Hindus to practice their own religion. He is succeeded by Guru Gobind Singh, who becomes the tenth Guru.


date: March 25

text: March 25 – England's first royal yacht, HMY Mary, strikes rocks off of the coast of Anglesey while traveling from Dublin to Chester with 74 passengers and crew, and quickly sinks, with the loss of 35 people. The other 39 are able to get to safety. The wreckage is not discovered until almost 300 years later, on July 11, 1971.


date: September 20

text: September 20 – In England, a fire destroys most of the town of Northampton. According to a contemporary account, "the market place (which was a very goodly one), the stately church of Allhallows, 2 other parish churches and above three-fourth parts of the whole town was consumed and laid in ashes.".


date: February 4

text: February 4 – The Italian opera La divisione del mondo, by Giovanni Legrenzi, is performed for the first time, premiering in Venice at the Teatro San Luca. The new opera, telling the story of the "division of the world" after the battle between the Gods of Olympus and the Titans, becomes known for its elaborate and expensive sets, machinery, and special effects and is revived 325 years later in the year 2000.


date: February 27

text: February 27 – Matthew Locke's "semi-opera" Psyche premieres at the Duke's Theatre in London.


date: March 30

text: March 30 – The guild organisation Maîtresses couturières is founded in Paris.


date: January 16

text: January 16 – Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon, French writer (d. 1755)


date: January 27

text: January 27 – Erik Benzelius the Younger, Swedish priest (d. 1743)


date: February 28

text: February 28 – Guillaume Delisle, French cartographer (d. 1726)


date: May 29

text: May 29 – Humphry Ditton, English mathematician (d. 1715)


text: June 1 – Francesco Scipione, marchese di Maffei, Italian archaeologist (d. 1755)


date: July 5

text: July 5 – Mary Walcott, American accuser at the Salem witch trials


date: July 12

text: July 12 – Evaristo Abaco, Italian composer (d. 1742)


date: July 14

text: July 14 – Claude Alexandre de Bonneval, French soldier (d. 1747)


date: September 2

text: September 2 – William Somervile, English poet (d. 1742)


date: September 3

text: September 3 – Paul Dudley, Attorney-General of Massachusetts (d. 1751)


date: September 27

text: September 27 – Dorothea Krag, Danish General Postmaster and noble (d. 1754)


date: October 11

text: October 11 – Samuel Clarke, English philosopher (d. 1729)


date: October 21

text: October 21 – Emperor Higashiyama of Japan (d. 1710)


date: October 24

text: October 24 – Richard Temple, 1st Viscount Cobham, English soldier and politician (d. 1749)


date: January 29

text: January 29 – John Sassamon, an English-educated Native American Christian, dies at Assawampsett Pond, an event which will trigger a year-long war between the English American colonists of New England, and the Algonquian Native American tribes.


date: February 6

text: February 6 – Nicolò Sagredo is elected as the new Doge of Venice and leader of the Venetian Republic, replacing Domenico II Contarini, who had died 10 days earlier.


date: April 12

text: April 12 – Richard Bennett, British Colonial Governor of Virginia (b. 1609)


date: April 27

text: April 27 – Lê Hy Tông becomes the new Emperor of Vietnam at the age of 12, after being appointed as a figurehead by the warlord Trịnh Tạc upon the death of Lê Gia Tông.


date: May 6

text: May 6 – August Philipp, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Beck, Danish-German prince and member of the House of Oldenburg (b. 1612)


date: May 18

text: May 18 – Father Jacques Marquette, French missionary and explorer (b. 1636)


date: July 27

text: July 27 – Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne, Marshal of France (b. 1611)


date: August 29

text: August 29 – Joachim Irgens von Westervick, Dano–Norwegian nobleman (b. 1611)


date: September 8

text: September 8 – Amalia of Solms-Braunfels, Princess consort to Frederick Henry (b. 1602)


date: November 1

text: November 1 – Guru Tegh Bahadur, 9th Sikh Guru (b. 1621)


date: November 4

text: November 4 – Remigius van Leemput, painter from the Southern Netherlands (b. 1607)


date: November 11

text: November 11 – Thomas Willis, English doctor who played an important part in the history of anatomy (b. 1621)


date: November

text: November – Feodosia Morozova, Russian religious dissident martyr (b. 1632)


date: December 15

text: December 15 (bur.) – Johannes Vermeer, Dutch painter (b. 1632)


text: January 29 – Feodor III becomes Tsar of Russia.


date: February 23

text: February 23 – While the Massachusetts Council debates how to handle the Christian Indians they had exiled to Deer Island on October 13, 1675, a coalition of Indians led by Metacomet attacks colonial settlements just 16 km mi outside of Boston.


date: May 2

text: May 2 – Mary Rowlandson is ransomed from captivity by Native Americans by a subscription raised by women of Boston.


date: July 2

text: July 2 – Major John Talcott and his troops begin sweeping Connecticut and Rhode Island, capturing large numbers of Native Americans from Algonquian tribes and exporting them out of the English colonies as slaves.


date: August 28

text: August 28 – The Irish Donation of 1676 is shipped from Dublin, to relieve Boston in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.


date: October 17

text: October 17 – The Treaty of Żurawno is signed, between the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire and Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.


date: November 16

text: November 16 – A prison is founded on Nantucket Island, in the English colony of Massachusetts.


text: An Åbo Lantdag (assembly) meets in Turku, Finland.


date: February 14

text: February 14 – Metacomet and his Wampanoags attack Northampton, Massachusetts; meanwhile, the Massachusetts Council debates whether a wall should be erected around Boston.


date: March 29

text: March 29 – Providence, Rhode Island is attacked and destroyed by Native Americans.


date: April 21

text: April 21 – Sudbury Fight: The village of Sudbury, Massachusetts is attacked by Metacom's Wampanoag Confederation as one of the last major battles of King Phillip's War. Captain Samuel Wadworth and 28 of his men are killed in the defense of the town.


date: April 22

text: April 22 – The Battle of Augusta is fought in the Mediterranean Sea off of the coast of Sicily during the Franco-Dutch War. The French Navy and the combined Dutch Republic and Spanish forces each lose over 500 men.


date: May 19

text: May 19 – Peskeomskut Massacre: Battle of Turner's Falls – Captain William Turner leads a raid at first light on an encampment consisting mainly of women and children. An estimated 300-400 lives are taken in less than half an hour, first from gunshot directly into the sleeping tents, then by sword and by drowning as the victims try to flee. This incident happens on the west bank of the Connecticut River, just above the falls known as Turner's Falls in Gill, Massachusetts.


date: June 1

text: June 1 – Scanian War: Battle of Öland – A combined fleet of the Dutch Republic and Denmark–Norway decisively defeats the Swedish Navy, which loses its flagship Kronan.


date: June 12

text: June 12 – The Indian coalition attacks Hadley, Massachusetts, but are repelled by Connecticut troops.


date: June 19

text: June 19 – Massachusetts issues a declaration of amnesty to any Indian who surrenders.


date: June

text: June – Bacon's Rebellion begins in the Virginia Colony. On July 30, Nathaniel Bacon and his followers issue the Declaration of the People of Virginia.


date: July 4

text: July 4 – Captain Benjamin Church and his soldiers begin sweeping Plymouth Colony, for any remaining Wampanoag tribesmen.


date: July 17

text: July 17 – In France, Madame de Brinvilliers is executed for poisoning her father and brothers. The case also scares King Louis XIV into starting a series of investigations about possible poisonings and witchcraft (later called the Affair of the Poisons).


date: July 27

text: July 27 – Nearly 200 Nipmuc tribesmen surrender to the English colonists in Boston.


date: July 30

text: July 30 – Virginia colonist Nathaniel Bacon and his makeshift army issue a Declaration of the People of Virginia, instigating Bacon's Rebellion against the rule of Governor William Berkeley.


date: August 2

text: August 2 – Captain Benjamin Church captures Metacomet's wife and son.


date: August 17

text: August 17 – Battle of Halmstad (fought at Fyllebro): Sweden gains a decisive victory over Denmark–Norway.


date: September 19

text: September 19 – The Russo-Turkish War (1676–1681) begins, with Russo-Ukrainian troops forcing pro-Ottoman Hetman Ivan Samoylovych to surrender Chyhyryn.


text: September 19 – Bacon's Rebellion: Jamestown is burned to the ground by the forces of Nathaniel Bacon.


date: October 13

text: October 13 – Battle of Gegodog: Trunajaya defeats the Mataram Sultanate.


date: December 4

text: December 4 – Scanian War – Battle of Lund: Sweden defeats the forces of Denmark.


date: January

text: January – Six months into King Philip's War, Metacomet (King Philip), leader of the Algonquian tribe known as the Wampanoag, travels westward to the Mohawk nation, seeking an alliance with the Mohawks against the English colonists of New England; his efforts in creating such an alliance are a failure.


date: February 10

text: February 10 – After the Nipmuc tribe attacks Lancaster, Massachusetts, colonist Mary Rowlandson is taken captive, and lives with the Indians until May.


date: July 11

text: July 11 – The Wampanoags attack Taunton, Massachusetts, but are repelled by colonists.


text: The French East India Company founds its principal Indian base at Pondicherry, on the Coromandel Coast.


date: May 31

text: May 31 – The Massachusetts Council finally decides to move the Christian Indians from Deer Island to Cambridge, Massachusetts (approximate date).


date: September 21

text: September 21 – Pope Innocent XI succeeds Pope Clement X, as the 240th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church.


date: December 21

text: December 21 – Sands baronets created in the Baronetage of Ireland.


text: Emperor Yohannes I of Ethiopia decrees that Muslims must live separately from Christians throughout his realm.


text: The first coffeehouse in North America opens in Boston.


date: December 7

text: December 7 – Ole Rømer makes the first quantitative measurements of the speed of light.


text: Anton van Leeuwenhoek discovers microorganisms.


date: April 2

text: April 2 – Chief Canonchet of the Narragansett people is captured by mercenaries of the Pequot, Mohegan and Niantic nations who have been hired by English settlers. He is offered a chance to live if he makes peace with the English, refuses, and is executed the next day in Stonington, Connecticut.


date: April 12

text: April 12 – Richard Raynsford becomes the new Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales.


date: August 12

text: August 12 – King Philip (Metacomet), chief of the Wampanoags that had waged a war throughout southern New England that bore his name, is killed by an Indian named Alderman, a soldier led by Captain Benjamin Church.


date: May 26

text: May 26 – A fire destroys the town hall and 624 houses in Southwark, London.


date: November 27

text: November 27 – A fire in Boston, Massachusetts, is accidentally set by a careless and sleepy apprentice, who drops a lighted candle, or leaves it too near some combustible substance; this is the largest fire known at this time in the district. The Rev. Increase Mather’s church, dwelling and a portion of his personal library are destroyed.


date: January 31

text: January 31 – Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala, the oldest institution of higher education in Central America, is founded.


date: March 17

text: March 17 – Thomas Boston, Scottish church leader (d. 1732)


date: March 27

text: March 27 – Francis II Rákóczi, Hungarian rebel against the Habsburgs (d. 1735)


text: May 26 – Maria Clara Eimmart, German astronomer, engraver and designer (d. 1707)


date: May 28

text: May 28 – Jacopo Riccati, Italian mathematician (d. 1754)


date: June 17

text: June 17 – Louise de Maisonblanche, illegitimate daughter of Louis XIV of France (d. 1718)


date: June 21

text: June 21 – Anthony Collins, English philosopher (d. 1729)


date: July 3

text: July 3 – Leopold I, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau, Prussian field marshal (d. 1747)


date: July 14

text: July 14 – Caspar Abel, German theologian, historian and poet (d. 1763)


date: August 26

text: August 26 – Robert Walpole, first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1745)


date: September 13

text: September 13 – Élisabeth Charlotte d'Orléans, duchess and regent of Lorraine (d. 1744)


date: September 18

text: September 18 – Eberhard Louis, Duke of Württemberg (d. 1733)


date: October 8

text: October 8 – Benito Jerónimo Feijóo y Montenegro, Spanish scholar (d. 1764)


date: October 19

text: October 19 – Rodrigo Anes de Sá Almeida e Meneses, 1st Marquis of Abrantes, Portuguese diplomat (d. 1733)


date: November 8

text: November 8 – Louise Bénédicte de Bourbon, duchess of Maine, daughter-in-law of Louis XIV (d. 1753)


date: January 14

text: January 14 – Francesco Cavalli, Italian composer (b. 1602)


date: March 22

text: March 22 – Lady Anne Clifford, 14th Baroness de Clifford (b. 1590)


date: April 5

text: April 5 – John Winthrop the Younger, Governor of Connecticut (b. 1606)


date: April 20

text: April 20 – John Clarke, English-born Baptist minister, deputy governor of Rhode Island and physician (b. 1609)


date: July 17

text: July 17 – Madame de Brinvilliers, French serial poisoner, executed (b. 1630)


date: August 11

text: August 11 – Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen, German writer (b. 1621)


date: September 4

text: September 4 – John Ogilby, Scottish-born impresario and cartographer active in Dublin and London (b. 1600)


date: September 9

text: September 9 – Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, French military officer, founder of Montreal in New France (b. 1612)


date: September 10

text: September 10 – Gerrard Winstanley, English religious reformer (b. 1609)


date: September 17

text: September 17 – Sabbatai Zevi, Montenegrin rabbi, kabbalist and founder of the Jewish Sabbatean movement (b. 1626)


date: October 26

text: October 26 – Nathaniel Bacon, Virginian colonist and instigator of Bacon's Rebellion (b. ca 1640s)


date: November 9

text: November 9 – Allart Pieter van Jongestall, Dutch jurist, politician and diplomat (b. 1612)


date: December 25

text: December 25 – Matthew Hale, Lord Chief Justice of England (b. 1609)


text: December 25 – William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, English soldier, politician and writer (b. 1592)


date: April 16

text: April 16 – The Statute of Frauds is passed into English law.


date: May 29

text: May 29 – The Treaty of Middle Plantation establishes peace between the Virginia colonists and the local Indians.


date: October 29

text: October 29 – Michel le Tellier becomes Chancellor of France.


date: February 26

text: February 26 – On the Indonesian island of Java, Amangkurat II of the Mataram Sultanate agrees to bring his kingdom under the protection of the Dutch East India Company to drive out rebels.


date: February 28

text: February 28 – During the Franco-Dutch War, the Siege of Valenciennes by the French Army begins in the Spanish Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). The city surrenders on March 17.


date: March 17

text: March 17 – Franco-Dutch War: Siege of Valenciennes (1676–77) in the Spanish Netherlands ends with surrender of the town to the French.


date: April 11

text: April 11 – Franco-Dutch War: Battle of Cassel – A French force under Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, defeats a combined Dutch-Spanish force under William of Orange in French Flanders.


date: May 31

text: May 31 – Scanian War: Battle of Møn – Danish ships clash with a Swedish fleet under Niels Juel, between Fehmarn and Warnemünde; the Danish defeat the Swedish and capture a number of ships.


date: June 25

text: June 25–26 – Scanian War: Siege of Malmö – Danish attackers fail to take the town from the Swedish.


date: July 14

text: July 14 – Battle of Landskrona: Sweden and its 13,000 troops, under the command of King Charles XI, successfully repel a 12,000-man invasion force from Denmark, commanded by King Christian V.


date: August 14

text: August 14 – William of Orange, the leader of the Dutch Republic, is forced to end the siege of the Spanish Netherlands (modern-day Belgium) city of Charleroi after six days.


date: August 28

text: August 28 – During war between the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire, Russian troops led by Grigory Romodanovsky and Ukrainian Cossacks led by Ivan Samoylovych arrive at the besieged Ukrainian city of Chigirin (modern-day Chyhyryn) and inflict heavy casualties on the encamped Turkish and Tatar troops. Ibrahim Pasha, leader of the 45,000 member Ottoman force, retreats the next day and, by the time of the relief of Chigirin on September 5, the Ottoman Army has lost 20,000 men. Ottoman Sultan Mehmed IV, outraged by the defeat, sends 200,000 troops the following year and destroys the city.


text: September 17 – Troops from Denmark invade and capture the Swedish island of Rügen and drive out the local population. Five months later, on January 18, 1678, Sweden recaptures the island. Nine months later, troops from Denmark and Brandenburg invade for a third time and capture the island again on October 22, 1678. Eight months later, Denmark is given the island back under a treaty ending the Swedish-Brandenburg War on June 29, but by then, the island of Rügen is in ruins. In modern times, the island becomes a vacation resort in Germany.


date: November 16

text: November 16 – French troops occupy Freiburg.


date: December 9

text: December 9 – The French Navy, led by Charles de Courbon de Blénac with a land force of 950 men, lands at the Caribbean island of Tobago, lays siege to the Dutch fort defending the territory during the Franco-Dutch War, and destroys the structure when it fires a cannon overlooking the fort, striking the gunpowder arsenal. The explosion kills 250 of the defenders, including Dutch Admiral Jacob Binckes and 16 officers. Combined with the sinking of four ships of the Netherlands Navy, the victory at Tobago ends Dutch military power in the Antilles.


date: December 15

text: December 15 – The Siege of Stettin (the modern-day Polish city of Szczecin but, at this time, a possession of Sweden) ends after almost five months with Sweden's surrender of the city to Prussia's Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg. The siege, part of the Scanian War, had begun on June 25.


text: Yusuf Bey is replaced as sanjak-bey of Lajjun Sanjak by an Ottoman officer, ending the power of the Turabay dynasty.


date: December 7

text: December 7 – Father Louis Hennepin of Belgium, exploring North America, becomes the earliest known European person to discover Niagara Falls, and the first to report its existence. In his book A New Discovery of a Vast Country in America, published in 1698, Hennepin writes "Betwixt the lakes Ontario and Eire there is a vast prodigious Cadence of water which falls down after a surprising and astonishing manner, inasmuch that the Universe does not afford its parallel."


text: The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith is written (published in 1689).


text: Francis Aungier, 3rd Baron Aungier of Longford, is created 1st Earl of Longford in the Peerage of Ireland.


text: Ice cream becomes popular in Paris.


text: Antonie van Leeuwenhoek observes spermatozoa under the microscope.


text: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz gives a complete solution to the tangent problem.


text: Robert Plot publishes The Natural History of Oxford-shire, Being an Essay Toward the Natural History of England, in which he describes the fossilised femur of a human giant, now known to be from the dinosaur Megalosaurus.


date: January 21

text: January 21 – The first medical publication in America (a pamphlet on smallpox) is produced in Boston.


text: The population of Paris first exceeds 500,000.


date: February 15

text: February 15 – Four members of the English House of Lords embarrass King Charles II at the opening of the latest session of the "Cavalier Parliament" by proclaiming that the session is not legitimate because it had not met in more than a year. The Duke of Buckingham, backed by Lord Shaftesbury, Lord Salisbury and Baron Wharton, makes an unsuccessful motion to end the session. When the four Lords refuse to apologize, they are arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London.


text: February 26 – The first arrests are made in the case that will develop into the "Affair of the Poisons" in France, as Magdelaine de La Grange and her accused accomplice, Father Nail, are detained on suspicion of poisoning her lover, a Messr. Faurie. While in prison in the Bastille and awaiting trial Mademoiselle La Grange writes letters accusing other persons of carrying out murders by poison as well.


date: January 1

text: January 1 – Jean Racine's tragedy Phèdre is first performed, in Paris.


date: April 6

text: April 6 – Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor visits the University of Innsbruck.


date: August

text: August – The French guild of the Maitresses bouquetieres is founded in Paris.


date: September 10

text: September 10 – Henry Purcell is appointed a musician to the court of Charles II of England.


date: September 18

text: September 18 – the Kangxi Emperor of China grants titles and ranks to all of his wives, and names Empress Xiaozhaoren as his consort.


date: November 4

text: November 4 – The future Mary II of England marries William of Orange in London.


text: Spinoza's Ethics (Ethica, ordine geometrico demonstrata) is published as part of his Opera Posthuma in Amsterdam.


text: The use of male impotence is ended as a factor in French divorce proceedings.


text: The John Roan School is established in Greenwich, London.


text: Jules Hardouin Mansart begins la place Vendôme in Paris (it is completed in 1698).


text: Elias Ashmole gifts the collection that begins the Ashmolean Museum to the University of Oxford in England.


date: February 3

text: February 3 – Jan Santini Aichel, Czech architect (d. 1723)


date: February 4

text: February 4 – Johann Ludwig Bach, German composer (d. 1731)


date: February 8

text: February 8 – Jacques Cassini, French astronomer (d. 1756)


date: May 4

text: May 4 – Françoise Marie de Bourbon, youngest daughter of Louis XIV (d. 1749)


date: August 27

text: August 27 – Otto Ferdinand von Abensperg und Traun, Austrian field marshal (d. 1748)


date: September 17

text: September 17 – Stephen Hales, English physiologist, chemist, and inventor (d. 1761)


date: October 20

text: October 20 – Stanisław Leszczyński, King of Poland (d. 1766)


text: William Dummer, acting Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (d. 1761)


date: January 8

text: January 8 – Sir John Fowell, 2nd Baronet, English politician (b. 1623)


date: February 21

text: February 21 – Baruch Spinoza, Dutch philosopher (b. 1632)


date: March 18

text: March 18 – Marie Luise von Degenfeld, morganatic second wife of Charles I Louis, Elector Palatine of Germany (b. 1634)


date: March 28

text: March 28 – Václav Hollar, Czech-born actor (b. 1607)


text: May 4 – Isaac Barrow, English mathematician (b. 1630)


date: May 20

text: May 20 – George Digby, 2nd Earl of Bristol, English statesman (b. 1612)


date: June 26

text: June 26 – Francesco Buonamici, Italian architect, painter and engraver (b. 1596)


date: August 1

text: August 1 – George Christian, Landgrave of Hesse-Homburg (1669–1671) (b. 1626)


date: August 28

text: August 28 – Wallerant Vaillant, painter of the Dutch Golden Age (b. 1623)


date: September 11

text: September 11 – James Harrington, English political philosopher (b. 1611)


date: November 2

text: November 2 – Robert Sidney, 2nd Earl of Leicester, English politician (b. 1595)


date: November 11

text: November 11 – Barbara Strozzi, Italian singer and composer (b. 1619)


text: November 11 – Johann Weikhard of Auersperg, Austrian prime minister (b. 1615)


date: December 13

text: December 13 – Thomas Howard, 5th Duke of Norfolk, English noble (b. 1627)


date: January 10

text: January 10 – England and the Dutch Republic sign a mutual defense treaty in order to fight against France.


date: April 12

text: April 12 – The Treaty of Casco Bay is signed between officials of the Province of New York and the Penobscot tribe and the Wabanaki Confederacy, bringing an end to further fighting that has happened in the two years since the end of King Philip's War in the modern-day U.S. state of Maine. Under the terms of the treaty, English settlers pay rent to the Penobscots and are given back farm land that had been confiscated in the war, while the English settlers agree to respect the Penobscot land rights.


date: July 29

text: July 29 – Muhammad Azam Shah is appointed as the Mughal Governor of Bengal by his father, the Emperor Aurangzeb, but serves for a little more than a year before being recalled from Dhaka.


date: August 10

text: August 10 – The Treaties of Nijmegen end the Franco-Dutch War. The County of Burgundy is ceded to the Kingdom of France.


date: December 1

text: December 1 – The Test Act provides that members of both the House of Lords and House of Commons of England must swear an anti-Catholic oath, before taking office.


date: March 25

text: March 25 – The Spanish Netherlands city of Ypres falls after a seven-day siege by the French Army. It is later returned to the Netherlands and eventually becomes part of Belgium.


date: July 23

text: July 23 – The Battle of Ortenbach, one of the last major engagements of the Franco-Dutch War, takes place near Offenburg at the Rhine river in southwestern Germany, as French forces under the command of François de Créquy overwhelm a larger force of Holy Roman Empire troops commanded by the Duke of Lorraine, Karl V Leopold.


date: August 14

text: August 14–15 – The Battle of Saint-Denis is fought after the signing of peace in the Franco-Dutch War.


date: August 21

text: August 21 – On the island of Java in modern-day Indonesia, the Kediri campaign begins as Mataram Sultanate and Dutch East India Company (VOC) forces under the command of VOC Captain François Tack begin marching from Jepara toward Kediri to suppress the Trunajaya rebellion that had driven out the Mataram Sultan. They are joined by two other columns of troops over the next fortnight.


date: September 5

text: September 5 – Sultan Amangkurat II of Mataram sets off from Jepara with the main force in the Kediri campaign, leading native troops, along with VOC forces under the command of Anthonio Hurdt, leader of the campaign.


date: September 6

text: September 6 – Titus Oates begins to present allegations of the "Popish Plot", a supposed Roman Catholic conspiracy to assassinate king Charles II of England. Oates applies the term Tory to those who disbelieve his allegations.


date: September 17

text: September 17 – The Franco-Dutch War between the Kingdom of France and the Dutch Republic (and its allies) comes to an end after more than six years as the Treaties of Nijmegen bring about a ceasefire.


date: November 25

text: November 25 – The Kediri campaign is successfully concluded in Indonesia as Anthonio Hurdt and Sultan Amangkurat II capture Kediri and force the rebel Prince Trunajaya to flee.


date: May 11

text: May 11 – French admiral Jean d'Estrees runs his whole fleet aground in either the Las Aves Archipelago or Isla de Aves, intending to reach Curaçao.


date: June 10

text: June 10 – French buccaneer Michel de Grammont arrives at Spanish-held Venezuela with six pirate ships, 13 smaller craft, and 2,000 men in a daring raid on the South American territory, then leads half of his force inward toward Maracaibo, which he takes on June 14. During the rest of the month, he and his soldiers march inland as far as Trujillo. Grammont and his pirates finally depart on December 3.


text: About 1,200 Irish families sail from Barbados to Virginia and the Carolinas.


date: April 2

text: April 2 – Ignatius Gregory Peter VI Shahbaddin is enthroned as the Patriarch of the Syriac Catholic Church in Aleppo, after receiving recognition by Ottoman Sultan Mehmed IV and by Pope Innocent XI.


text: In Ireland, the vacant Bishopric of Leighlin is given to the Bishop of Kildare in commendam; it will later be formed into the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin.


date: January 27

text: January 27 – The first fire engine company in North America goes into service in Boston.


date: March 28

text: March 28 – The nova V529 Orionis is discovered by Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius (Jan Heweliusz).


date: October 17

text: October 17 – English magistrate Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey is found murdered in Primrose Hill, London. His death is seen as proof of the "Popish Plot" to the public.


date: November 11

text: November 11 (November 1 O.S.) – England's House of Commons votes to begin impeachment proceedings against five Roman Catholic members of the House of Lords, Viscount Stafford, the Marquess of Powis, Baron Arundell, Baron Petre and Baron Belasyse accused by Protestant members as participating in a "Popish Plot". Viscount Stafford is convicted and executed, while the other four are imprisoned in the Tower of London for more than five years.


date: November 26

text: November 26 – William Staley, an English banker and a Roman Catholic, becomes the first person to be executed in connection with the "Popish Plot" arrests.


date: February 18

text: February 18 – The first part of English nonconformist preacher John Bunyan's Christian allegory The Pilgrim's Progress is published in London.


date: March 21

text: March 21 – Thomas Shadwell's comedy A True Widow is given its first performance, at The Duke's Theatre in London, staged by the Duke's Company.


date: June 25

text: June 25 – Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia becomes the first woman to be awarded a university degree, a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Padua.


date: March 4

text: March 4 – Antonio Vivaldi, Italian composer (d. 1741)


date: March 7

text: March 7 – Filippo Juvarra, Italian architect (d. 1736)


date: April 14

text: April 14 – Abraham Darby I, one of the English fathers of the Industrial Revolution (d. 1717)


date: May 3

text: May 3 – Amaro Pargo, Spanish corsair (d. 1747)


date: May 16

text: May 16 – Andreas Silbermann, German organ builder (d. 1734)


date: September 16

text: September 16 – Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, English statesman and philosopher (d. 1751)


date: September 29

text: September 29 – Adrien Maurice de Noailles, 3rd Duke of Noailles, French soldier (d. 1766)


date: October 10

text: October 10 – John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll, Scottish soldier (d. 1743)


date: October 16

text: October 16 – Anna Waser, Swiss painter (d. 1714)


text: November 26 – Jean Jacques d'Ortous de Mairan, French geophysicist (d. 1771)


date: December 8

text: December 8 – Horatio Walpole, 1st Baron Walpole, English diplomat (d. 1757)


date: December 13

text: December 13 – Yongzheng Emperor of China (d. 1735)


date: December 14

text: December 14 – Daniel Neal, English historian (d. 1743)


date: December 30

text: December 30 – William Croft, English composer (d. 1727)


date: March 23

text: March 23 – Revolt of the Three Feudatories in southern China: rebel general Wu Sangui, lord of the Yunnan fief, takes the imperial crown, names himself monarch of "The Great Zhou", based in the Hunan province, with Hengyang as his capital. He contracts dysentery over the summer and dies on October 2, ending the rebellion against the Kangxi Emperor.


date: April 24

text: April 24 – Louis VI, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt (1661–1678) (b. 1630)


date: May 4

text: May 4 or May 14 – Anna Maria van Schurman, Dutch poet and scholar (b. 1607)


date: June 17

text: June 17 – Giacomo Torelli, Italian stage designer, engineer, and architect (b. 1608)


date: June 19

text: June 19 – Benedict Arnold, Rhode Island colonial governor (b. 1615)


date: August 16

text: August 16 – Andrew Marvell, English writer (b. 1621)


date: August 28

text: August 28 – John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton, English soldier (b. 1602)


date: September 19

text: September 19 – Christoph Bernhard von Galen, Westphalian Catholic prince-bishop of Münster and military leader (b. 1606)


date: October 12

text: October 12 – Edmund Berry Godfrey, English magistrate (b. 1621)


date: October 18

text: October 18 – Jacob Jordaens, Flemish painter (b. 1593)


date: October 19

text: October 19 – Samuel Dirksz van Hoogstraten, Dutch painter (b. c. 1627)


date: November 1

text: November 1 – William Coddington, first Governor of Rhode Island (b. 1601)


date: November 30

text: November 30 – Andries de Graeff, Dutch politician (b. 1611)


date: December 3

text: December 3 – Edward Colman, English Catholic courtier under Charles II (b. 1636)


date: January 24

text: January 24 – King Charles II of England dissolves the "Cavalier Parliament", after nearly 18 years.


date: February 5

text: February 5 – The Treaty of Celle is signed between France and Sweden on one side, and the Holy Roman Empire, at the town of Celle in Saxony (in modern-day Germany). Sweden's sovereignty over Bremen-Verden is confirmed and Sweden cedes control of Thedinghausen and Dörverden to the Germans.


date: March 6

text: March 6 – In England, the "Habeas Corpus Parliament" (or "First Exclusion Parliament") is opened.


date: May 27

text: May 27 – The Parliament of England passes the Habeas Corpus Act, "for the better securing the liberty of the subject" and then adjourns.


date: July 12

text: July 12 – In England, the "Habeas Corpus Parliament" (or "First Exclusion Parliament") is dissolved, while in recess, by King Charles II. The King exercises his royal prerogative of dissolution to prevent the parliament from passing a bill that would exclude non-Anglicans from the succession to the English throne, specifically the king's Roman Catholic brother, James, Duke of York, as part of the Exclusion Crisis.


date: September 18

text: September 18 – The Province of New Hampshire is separated from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.


text: October 12 – Representatives of the Dutch Republic and the Kingdom of Sweden sign the last of the nine Treaties of Nijmegen, ending the last of the conflicts that began during the Franco-Dutch War.


date: December 10

text: December 10 – A peace treaty is signed between Ali Bey al-Muradi, Bey of Tunis; his brother whom he had overthrown in 1678, Muhammad Bey al-Muradi; and their uncle, Muhammad al-Hafsi al-Muradi, the Pasha of Tunis, after mediation by the Dey of Algiers.


date: February 3

text: February 3 – Moroccan troops from Fez are killed, along with their commander Moussa ben Ahmed ben Youssef, in a battle against rebels in the Jbel Saghro mountain range, but Moroccan Sultan Ismail Ibn Sharif is able to negotiate a ceasefire allowing his remaining troops safe passage back home.


date: February 19

text: February 19 – Ajit Singh Rathore becomes the new Maharaja of the Jodhpur State a principality in India also known as Marwar, located in the modern-day Rajasthan state.


date: June 1

text: June 1 – Battle of Drumclog: A group of 200 Scottish Covenanters overwhelm a small Scottish Army unit, that had been pursuing them for the murder of Archbishop Sharp. The Covenanters, led by 19-year-old William Cleland, kill 36 of the Scottish soldiers.


date: June 22

text: June 22 – Battle of Bothwell Bridge in Scotland: Royal forces led by James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth and John Graham of Claverhouse subdue the Scottish Covenanters.


date: October 6

text: October 6 – Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb returns control of Bengal to the local Nawab of Murshidabad after removing his son, Prince Qutb-ud-Din Muhammad Azam, from the position of Mughal Governor of Dhaka.


date: October 18

text: October 18 – A sea battle is fought between England's Royal Navy and the navy of India's Maratha Empire (under the command of Mai Nayak Bhandari), with English bombardment driving the Maratha occupation of the island fortress at Khanderi (off of the western Indian coast south of Mumbai).


text: December 10 – More than 200 captives on the ship The Crown of London, all Scottish Covenanters arrested after the battle of Bothwell Bridge, are killed when the ship is wrecked on the Orkney Islands while transporting the group to exile in North America.


date: December 26

text: December 26 – In modern-day Indonesia, the Trunajaya rebellion comes to an end with the surrender of Prince Panembahan Maduretno to the Sultan Amangkurat II of Mataram, ruler of the entire island of Java. While treated with respect as a prisoner of the occupying forces of the Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie or VOC), Panembahan is killed seven days later by Amangkurat after the VOC allows him to attend a ceremonial visit to the sultan's palace.


text: The Tibet–Ladakh–Mughal war (1679–84) begins with the Tibetan invasion of Ladakh.


date: August 7

text: August 7 – The brigantine Le Griffon, commissioned by René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, is towed to the southern end of the Niagara River, to become the first ship to sail the upper Great Lakes of North America.


text: December 3 – French explorers René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle (commonly called "La Salle") and Henri de Tonti set off from their fort near Niagara Falls in North America on the first European expedition to explore the upper Mississippi River.


text: French explorer Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut, explores the Saint Louis River; the city of Duluth, Minnesota, will take its name from him.


date: January 30

text: January 30 – The Orthodox Confession of Faith is drafted up in the Buckinghamshire Assembly and signed by 54 messengers and elders of all Baptist churches in Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, and Oxfordshire, in England.


date: April 3

text: April 3 – Aurangazeb, the Muslim ruler of the Mughal Empire in India, decrees the imposition of the jizya, an annual tax upon non-Muslims under Mughal jurisdiction, primarily Hindus. The tax had been abolished by Aurangazeb's great grandfather, Akbar.


date: May 3

text: May 3 – James Sharp, the Church of Scotland's Archbishop of St Andrews, is assassinated at Magus Muir in Fife, when his coach is ambushed by a group of nine of the Scottish Covenanters. Only two of the assassins, David Hackston and Andrew Guillan, are captured.


date: December 16

text: December 16 (December 6 O.S.) – Oliver Plunkett, the Roman Catholic Primate of All Ireland and Archbishop of Armagh, is arrested on false charges of plotting to aid a French invasion of the British Isles, the so-called "Popish Plot". Executed in 1681, Plunkett will be canonized as a Roman Catholic saint almost 300 years later in 1975.


text: Malpas Tunnel on the Canal du Midi in Hérault, France, Europe's first navigable canal tunnel, is excavated by Pierre-Paul Riquet (169 m ft, concrete lined).


date: March 12

text: March 12 – Catherine Deshayes Monvoisin, commonly called "La Voisin" and the suspected killer of over 1,000 people in France by poisoning, is arrested outside of the Church of Notre-Dame-de-Bonne-Nouvelle in Paris and imprisoned at Vincennes for the next 11 months. After her conviction, she is publicly burned at the stake on February 22, 1680.


date: April 8

text: April 8 – In the Italian region of Piedmont, a landslide causes the village of Bosia to sink into the ground and then get buried, killing 200 inhabitants. The village is then rebuilt at another site and continues to exist.


date: November 27

text: November 27 – A fire in Boston, Massachusetts, burns all of the warehouses, 80 houses, and all of the ships in the dockyards.


date: April 10

text: April 10 – A total eclipse of the Sun takes place over North America, with its peak over the region occupied by the Lakota Sioux people in modern-day South Dakota.


date: June 4

text: June 4 – A 6.4 magnitude earthquake in Armenia strikes near Yerevan, at the time part of the Persian Empire.


date: September 2

text: September 2 – The 8.0 magnitude Sanhe-Pinggu earthquake devastates Beijing and Hebei in China.


date: January 24

text: January 24 – Christian Wolff, German philosopher (d. 1754)


date: March 18

text: March 18 – Matthew Decker, English merchant and writer (d. 1749)


date: March 29

text: March 29 – Benedict Calvert, 4th Baron Baltimore, colonial governor of Maryland (d. 1715)


date: May 29

text: May 29 – Antonio Farnese, Duke of Parma (d. 1731)


date: August 16

text: August 16 – Catharine Trotter Cockburn, English novelist, dramatist, philosopher (d. 1749)


date: August 22

text: August 22 – Pierre Guérin de Tencin, French cardinal (d. 1758)


date: October 13

text: October 13 – Princess Magdalena Augusta of Anhalt-Zerbst, Duchess of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg (d. 1740)


date: October 16

text: October 16 – Jan Dismas Zelenka, Bohemian composer (d. 1745)


date: October 18

text: October 18 – Ann Putnam, Jr., American accuser in the Salem witch trials (d. 1716)


date: November 11

text: November 11 – Firmin Abauzit, French scientist (d. 1767)


text: Francesco Zerafa, Maltese architect (d. 1758)


text: George Psalmanazar, French-born imposter and essayist (d. 1763)


text: James Erskine, Lord Grange, Scottish judge (d. 1754)


date: February 5

text: February 5 – Joost van den Vondel, Dutch dramatist and poet (b. 1587)


date: March 16

text: March 16 – John Leverett, Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (b. 1616)


date: April 5

text: April 5 – Anne Geneviève de Bourbon, French princess and political activist (b. 1619)


date: May 9

text: May 9 – Miguel Mañara, was the main founder of the Hospital de la Caridad in Seville (b. 1627)


date: August 12

text: August 12 – Marie de Rohan, French courtier and political activist (b. 1600)


date: August 24

text: August 24 – Jean François Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz, French churchman and agitator (b. 1614)


date: October 1

text: October 1 – Antonia of Württemberg, princess, literary figure, patron, and Christian Kabbalist (b. 1613)


date: October 3

text: October 3 – Hugh Bethell, English Member of Parliament and High Sheriff (b. 1615)


date: October 4

text: October 4 – Bil'arab bin Sultan becomes the new Imam of Oman upon the death of his father, Sultan bin Saif.


date: October 26

text: October 26 – Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery, British soldier, statesman, and dramatist (b. 1621)


date: November 19

text: November 19 – Roger Conant, Massachusetts governor, founder of Salem, Massachusetts (b. 1592)


date: December 10

text: December 10 – Francesco Barberini, Italian Catholic cardinal (b. 1597)


date: December 21

text: December 21 – Claude Lamoral, 3rd Prince of Ligne, Spanish general and prince (b. 1618)


date: December 31

text: December 31 – Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, Italian physiologist and physicist (b. 1608)


text: Emperor Ling of Han succeeds Emperor Huan of Han as the emperor of the Chinese Han Dynasty; the first year of the Jianning era.

source_section: Events › By place › Asia


text: The Roman army crosses the Alps into Pannonia, and subdues the Marcomanni at Carnuntum, north of the Danube.

source_section: Events › By place › Roman Empire


text: Emperor Marcus Aurelius and his adopted brother Lucius Verus leave Rome, and establish their headquarters at Aquileia.


text: Li Tong, Chinese general (d. 209)


text: Gu Yong, Chinese chancellor (d. 243)


text: Cao Ren, Chinese general (d. 223)


text: Dou Wu, Chinese politician and regent


text: Chen Fan, Chinese official and politician


text: Daniel of Padua, Italian bishop and saint


text: Titus Flavius Boethus, Roman politician


text: Huan of Han, Chinese emperor (b. 132)


text: Anicetus, pope of Rome (approximate date)


text: Titus Furius Victorinus, Roman prefect


date: February 12

text: February 12 – The Marquis de Croissy, Charles Colbert, becomes France's Minister of Foreign Affairs and serves for 16 years until his death, when he is succeeded as Foreign Minister by his son Jean-Baptiste Colbert.


date: June 10

text: June 10 – England and Spain sign a mutual defense treaty.


date: September 15

text: September 15 – A treaty is concluded between the Dutch Republic and the Ottoman Empire for Ottoman Sultan Mehmed IV and his subjects to apply Dutch law to Dutch visitors to Ottoman territory.


date: October 29

text: October 29 – At the request of King Charles XI of Sweden, the Riksdag in Sweden enacts the Great Reduction, returning fiefs which had been granted to the Swedish nobility to the Crown. The nation becomes an absolute monarchy under the rule of Charles.


text: Chambers of Reunion (French courts under Louis XIV) decide on the complete annexation of Alsace.


text: The first Portuguese governor is appointed to Macau.


date: January 2

text: January 2 – King Amangkurat II of Mataram (located on the island of Java, part of modern-day Indonesia), invites Trunajaya, who had led a failed rebellion against him until his surrender on December 26, for a ceremonial visit to the royal palace. After Trunajaya arrives, King Amangkurat stabs his guest to death.


date: March 25

text: March 25 – Troops sent by the Sultan of Morocco, Ismail Ibn Sharif, begin a blockade of the port of Tangier, occupied by the English and located on the North African coast. Palmes Fairborne is dispatched to defend Tangier as the colonial governor and commander-in-chief of English forces.


date: March 30

text: March 30 – A total eclipse of the Sun takes place and is visible over central Africa, with totality over the Opala Territory in the modern-day Democratic Republic of the Congo.


date: April 27

text: April 27 – Prince Sambhaji and fellow prisoners kill the commander of the Panhala prison and take control of the fort, as he makes plans to become ruler of the Maratha Empire.


date: June 16

text: June 16 – Sambhaji Bhosle and his troops capture Raigad, the capital of the Maratha Empire and Sambhaji becomes the new Chhatrapati or Emperor. Sambhaji deposes his younger brother Rajaram I and places Rajaram and Rajaram's mother under house arrest.


text: September 15 – A four month truce between England and Morocco expires and the Alcaid Omar, Viceroy of Morocco, begins a bombardment of the English fort at Tangier.


date: September 21

text: September 21 – Spanish troops make a counterattack on Santa Fe in the modern-day U.S. state of New Mexico, allowing the remaining Spanish troops in the besieged city to flee to El Paso (now in Texas).


date: April 30

text: April 30 – The first French Huguenots in the New World arrive at Charleston, South Carolina, as 45 of the religious exiles arrive at Oyster Point on the ship Richmond, after being sent there by King Charles II of England.


date: August 20

text: August 20 (August 10 Old Style) – The settlement of Karlskrona in Sweden is founded, as the Royal Swedish Navy relocates there.


date: August 21

text: August 21 – In the Pueblo Revolt, the native Pueblo people capture Santa Fe (now in New Mexico) from the Spanish colonists.


date: February 16

text: February 16 – Rev. Ralph Davenant's will provides for foundation of the Davenant Foundation School for poor boys in Whitechapel, in the East End of London.


date: March 24

text: March 24 – The Earl of Shaftesbury informs the Privy Council of England that the Roman Catholics of Ireland were about to launch a rebellion, backed by France. The investigation leads to the arrest and ultimate execution of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh, Oliver Plunkett.


date: June 22

text: June 22 – The Sanquhar Declaration, written by Richard Cameron, leader of the Covenanters who oppose the control of religion in Scotland by King Charles, is read aloud by Richard's brother Michael Cameron at the public square in the village of Sanquhar in Dumfriesshire.


date: November 17

text: November 17 – The Green Ribbon Club, a predecessor of the British Whigs, organizes a procession to burn an effigy of the Pope in London for the second year running.


text: Johann Pachelbel writes his Canon in D Major


date: March 27

text: March 27 – The London Penny Post delivery service begins operations after being created by Robert Murray and William Dockwra, with a policy of delivering letters to any part of London or its suburbs for the price of one English penny.