Exploration & Expansion in the 17th century

329 sourced entries, 1600 CE to 1699 CE, oldest first. Also see Exploration & Expansion across every century or everything else in the 17th century.

• 1600January 24 – Sebald de Weert makes the first recorded sighting of the Falkland Islands.source
• 1600April 19 – The first Dutch ship ever to arrive in Japan, the Liefde ("Love"), anchors in Sashifu, in the Bungo Province (modern-day Usuki in Ōita Prefecture). The sailors present on this ship are William Adams, Jan Joosten van Lodensteijn, Jacob Quaeckernaeck and Melchior van Santvoort.source
• 1600December 31 – The East India Company is granted a Royal charter in the Kingdom of England for trade with Asia.source
• 1601February 13 – The first East India Company fleet leaves England on its voyage to the East Indies.source
• 1601April 22 – The first expedition of the East India Company sets sail from England for the Spice Islands with John Davis as pilot-major.source
• 1601May 5 – Dutch explorer Joris van Spilbergen, leading three ships of the Compagnie van De Moucheron, departs on his first expedition to Asia, departing from Veere with the ships Ram, Schaap, and Lam (Ram, Sheep and Lamb). After establishing trade in Sri Lanka, Spilbergen and his crew return to the Dutch Republic in 1604.source
• 1601June 23 – Juan de Oñate, the Spanish colonial administrator in what is now the U.S. state of New Mexico, departs from San Gabriel de Nuevo Mexico with 130 Spanish soldiers and 12 priests on an expedition to explore the interior of the area.source
• 1601July 2 – The Spanish expedition of Juan de Oñate reaches the Canadian River on (the feast day of Biblical Mary Magdalena), in what is now Texas.source
• 1601August 2 – The Oñate expedition reaches the Rita Blanco River on the day of the Feast of the Porciuncula and follows it northward into Oklahoma.source
• 1601September 19 – The Juan de Oñate expedition of Spanish explorers first encounters the indigenous Escanjaque Indians in what is now the U.S. state of Kansas. The Escanjaques ask the Spaniards to assist them in a war against a rival tribe, the Rayados. Instead, Oñate befriends the Rayados five days later.source
• 1601September 28 – The Escanjaque Indians attack Juan de Oñate's Spanish expedition as the Spaniards are returning from their furthest venture east, the Little Arkansas River.source
• 1601Jesuit Matteo Ricci becomes the first European to enter the Forbidden City in Beijing, China, being invited by the Ming Dynasty Emperor.source
• 1602May 25 (May 15 Old Style) – English explorer Bartholomew Gosnold, sailing in the Concord, becomes the first European at Cape Cod.source
• 1602June 2 – Dutch explorer Joris van Spilbergen lands on the eastern side of the island of Sri Lanka, at Santhamuruthu, and begins the process of attempting to establish a relationship with the rulers of the Kingdom of Kandy.source
• 1602June 5 – James Lancaster's East India Company fleet arrives at Achin (modern-day Aceh), Sumatra to deal with the local ruler. Having defeated Portugal's ally, the ruler is happy to do business, and Lancaster seizes a large Portuguese galleon and loots it.source
• 1602June 17 – An expedition of 14 Dutch Republic ships, commanded by Admiral Wybrand van Warwijck, departs from Texel on its expedition to the East Indies.source
• 1603March 15 – French explorer Samuel de Champlain departs from the Channel port of Honfleur in the Calvados département in the Kingdom of France for his first voyage to the settlement of New France in what is now Canada.source
• 1603April 27 – The first permanent Dutch trading post in Indonesia is established in Banten by Vice Admiral Wybrand van Warwijck, who sets up a factory to store and package the trading commodity black pepper.source
• 1604May 22 – English entrepreneur Charles Leigh and a crew of 46 arrive in South America at what is now the Oyapock River in French Guiana after traveling on the ship Olive Plant. The 35 men and boys who stay create a colonial settlement which they call Oliveleigh, and make a claim to all of the area.source
• 1604Before 1 October, Huntingdon Beaumont completes the Wollaton Wagonway, built to transport coal from the mines at Strelley to Wollaton just west of Nottingham, England, the world's oldest wagonway with provenance.source
• 1604France begins settling Acadia, first successful French North American colony.source
• 1605December 21 – On behalf of Spain, Portuguese navigator Pedro Fernandes de Queirós begins his expedition to the South Pacific Ocean with 160 men on three ships. Queiros departs from Callao in the Viceroyalty of Peru with his flagship, San Pedro y San Pablo, and San Pedro and Los Tres Reyes.source
• 1605Habitation at Port-Royal established by France under Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Mons, the first European colonization of Nova Scotia in North America (at this time part of Acadia); the Gregorian calendar is adopted.source
• 1605Crew of the Olive become the first English visitors to Barbados.source
• 1605Refugee French Huguenot merchants begin to settle in Dublin and Waterford.source
• 1606January 29 – Explorer Pedro Fernandes de Queirós of Portugal, accompanied by a party of 160 men on the ships San Pedro, San Pablo and Los Tres Reyes, leads the first Europeans to discover the Pitcairn Islands.source
• 1606February 9 – Queirós and his crew discover Mehetia, followed three days later by the Tauere atoll.source
• 1606February 26 – Sailing on the Dutch ship Duyfken, Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon and the crew make the first confirmed sighting of Australia by a European, reaching the Cape York Peninsula, at the Pennefather River near what becomes Weipa, Queensland. The Duyfken follows by exploring the western coast.source
• 1606May 1 – Pedro Fernandes de Queirós discovers the islands of Vanuatu (also known as the New Hebrides). Believing them to be Australia, he names them La Austrialia del Espiritu Santo.source
• 1606July 14 – The expedition commanded by Portuguese explorer Luís Vaz de Torres, with the ships San Pedrico and Los Tres Reyes Magos, makes the first European sighting of South Pacific islands in New Guinea, starting with Rossel Island and Tagula Island. Discoveries follow on July 18 (Basilaki Island and Sideia Island), July 20 (the Dumoulin Islands and Sariba Island, and July 30 (Doini Island).source
• 1606October 2 – King Charles IX of Sweden founds the city of Vaasa, in the parish of Korsholm in Coastal Ostrobothnia.source
• 1606October – Luís Vaz de Torres is the first European to sail through the Torres Strait.source
• 1606December 19 – The Susan Constant sets out from the River Thames in England leading the Virginia Company's fleet for the foundation of Jamestown, Virginia.source
• 1607April 26 – English colonists make landfall at Cape Henry, Virginia, later moving up the James River.source
• 1607May 14 – Jamestown, Virginia, is established as the first permanent English settlement in North America, beginning the American frontier.source
• 1607May 15 – From Jamestown, Christopher Newport, George Percy, Gabriel Archer and others travel six days exploring along the James River up to the falls and Powhatan's village.source
• 1607June 22 – Christopher Newport sails back to England.source
• 1607July 10 – Ottoman Grand Vizier Kuyucu Murad Pasha launches a secret expedition to confront rebel Kurdish tribal chief Ali Janbulad, who has seized control of Aleppo in what is now Syria.source
• 1607August 13 – The ship Gift of God of the Plymouth Company arrives at the mouth of the modern-day Kennebec River in Maine. English colonists establish Fort St. George, also known as the Popham Colony. The settlement lasts little more than a year, before residents return to England in the first oceangoing ship built in the New World, a 30-ton pinnace called The Virginia.source
• 1607September 5 – Hamlet is performed aboard the East India Company ship Red Dragon, under the command of Capt. William Keeling, anchored off the coast of Sierra Leone, the first known performance of a Shakespeare play outside England in English, and the first by amateurs.source
• 1607November 7 – A Dutch warship commanded by Admiral Cornelis Matelief de Jonge arrives at the Malay Peninsula to attempt opening trade with the Pahang Sultanate, and get Pahang's assistance in the Dutch Navy's fight against the Portuguese Navy in Asian trade. Sultan Abdul Ghafur agrees to assistance in return for Dutch technical assistance.source
• 1607December 22 – A fleet of 13 Dutch warships under the command of Admiral Pieter Verhoeff departs the Netherlands on an expedition to the Indian Ocean to open trade with Asian nations and to fight hostile resistance. Verhoeff never returns, and he and many of his crew will be ambushed and killed on May 22 at the Banda Islands in Indonesia.source
• 1607Missionary Juan Fonte establishes the first Jesuit mission among the Tarahumara, in the Sierra Madre Mountains of Northwest Mexico.source
• 1608February 26 – After being held captive in Morocco for more than 13 years, popular professor Malian Ahmad Baba is able to return to Timbuktu on 10 Dhu 'l-Qa'da 1016 A.H.source
• 1608April 10 – Jamestown supply missions: Christopher Newport again sails for England, carrying Powhatan's tribesman Namontack for a visit to London.source
• 1608June 15 – During a voyage in the Arctic Ocean, explorer Henry Hudson and the crew of the Hopewell sight what they claim to be a mermaid, swimming in the seas near Norway.source
• 1608October 1 – The second of the Jamestown supply missions, which set out in July from England, arrives at Jamestown, Virginia, with Christopher Newport commanding the Mary and Margaret carrying 70 settlers, bringing the population back up to 120; the passengers include two women and some skilled artisans, mostly from continental Europe, to develop industries.source
• 1608Spring – The Scrooby Congregation of Protestant English Separatists successfully flees to the Dutch Republic from the Humber, origin of the Pilgrim Fathers who in 1620 move on to North America.source
• 1609April 4 – English explorer Henry Hudson, in the service of the Dutch East India Company, sets out from Amsterdam in the Halve Maen.source
• 1609July 4 – French explorer Samuel de Champlain and his entourage of 60 men in 24 canoes become the first Europeans to enter Lake Champlain, located between the modern-day U.S. states of Vermont and New York.source
• 1609July 25 – The Sea Venture, flagship of the nine-ship fleet of the London Company is deliberately wrecked at Bermuda during a storm, as Admiral George Somers drives the ship into the reefs of Discovery Bay in order to prevent the ship from sinking. A group of 153 survivors stay, making the first English settlement of the island.source
• 1609August 28 – Henry Hudson is the first European to see Delaware Bay.source
• 1609September 2 – Henry Hudson enters New York Bay, aboard the Halve Maen.source
• 1609September 11 – Henry Hudson in the Halve Maen sails into Upper New York Bay, and begins a journey up the Hudson River.source
• 1609Hugo Grotius publishes Mare Liberum, his legal text on freedom of the seas, in Leiden.source
• 1609The Dutch East India Company establishes a trading post in Hirado, Japan.source
• 1610February 24 – English courtier Thomas Roe sets out on an expedition to The Guianas and Amazon River.source
• 1610June 8 – Jamestown: Temporary Governor Gates' convoy meets the ships of Governor Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr (Delaware) at Mulberry Island.source
• 1610July 5 – John Guy sets sail from Bristol, with 39 other colonists, for Newfoundland.source
• 1610August 2 – Henry Hudson sails into what is now known as Hudson Bay, thinking he has made it through the Northwest Passage and reached the Pacific Ocean.source
• 1611June 22 – English explorer and sea captain Henry Hudson, his teenage son John, and seven crewmen are set adrift in or near Hudson Bay, after a mutiny on his ship Discovery. They are never seen again.source
• 1611Thomas Dale founds the city of Henricus on the James River, with the assistance of 350 men, a few miles south of present day Richmond, Virginia.source
• 1611Itoh Gofuku, a predecessor of Matsuzakaya, a famous department store, is founded for the sale of silk in Nagoya, Japan.source
• 1613January 11 – Workers in a sandpit in the Dauphiné region of France discover the skeleton of what is alleged to be a 30-foot tall man (the remains, it is supposed, of the giant Teutobochus, a legendary Gallic king who fought the Romans).source
• 1613March 29 – Explorer Samuel de Champlain becomes the first unofficial Governor of New France in Canada.source
• 1613May 27 – After getting an official proclamation that he is the French Governor of New France, explorer Samuel de Champlain begins exploration of the area westward from Quebec, traveling along the Ottawa River.source
• 1613June 28 (July 8 N.S.) – From Jamestown, John Rolfe makes the first shipment to England of tobacco grown in Virginia, dispatching it on the ship The Elizabeth. The tobacco arrives in England after a voyage of three weeks.source
• 1613October 28 – Keichō embassy: Hasekura Tsunenaga departs Japan in the Date Maru with a Japanese diplomatic mission to the Holy See, scheduled to first travel to Acapulco in New Spain, with a goal of concluding an agreement between Tokugawa Ieyasu and the East India Company, permitting English merchants to live and trade in Japan.source
• 1613December 26 – The Date Maru, carrying the Japanese diplomatic mission commanded Hasekura Tsunenaga, reaches North America, sighting Cape Mendocino on the California coast.source
• 1613Near Jamestown, Virginia, Sir Thomas Dale starts a settlement called Bermuda City, which later becomes part of Hopewell, Virginia.source
• 1614January 22 – Led by Hasekura Tsunenaga, Japan's trade expedition to New Spain (modern-day Mexico) arrives on the Mexican coast with 22 samurai, 120 Japanese merchants, sailors and servants, and 40 Spaniards and Portuguese who serve as interpreters. Having reached the Americas after a voyage that began on October 28, the expedition travels to Acapulco and arrives on January 25.source
• 1614July – Dutch merchant Adriaen Block returns to Amsterdam in the Onrust, having become the first European to enter Long Island Sound and the Connecticut River, and determined that Long Island is an island. He publishes a map of "New Netherland".source
• 1614October 11 – Adriaen Block and a group of Amsterdam merchants petition the States General of the Northern Netherlands for exclusive trading rights, in the area he explored and named "New Netherland".source
• 1614Pocahontas, the 17-year-old daughter of Mamanatowick Wahunsenacawh of the Powhatan Algonquian native tribe in the modern-day U.S. state of Virginia, is forced into child marriage with English colonist John Rolfe at Jamestown, a year after her capture in war. She is given the name of Rebecca Rolfe and departs with John Rolfe to England in 1616, dying before she can return.source
• 1615January 1 – The New Netherland Company is granted a three-year monopoly in North American trade, between the 40th and 45th parallels.source
• 1615February 2 – Sir Thomas Roe sets out to become the first ambassador from the court of the King of England to the Mughal Emperor Jahangir, departing from Tilbury Hope on the ship Lyon under the command of captain Christopher Newport.source
• 1615June 2 – The first Récollet missionaries arrive at Quebec City, from Rouen, France.source
• 1615September 17 – Los Baños, Laguna, is founded by Spanish colonists on Luzon island in the Philippines.source
• 1615Austrian merchants receive economic privileges in the Ottoman Empire.source
• 1615Konoike Shinroku opens an office in Osaka, and begins shipping tax-rice from western Japan to Osaka.source
• 1616January 10 – English diplomat Sir Thomas Roe presents his credentials to the Mughal Emperor Jahangir, in Ajmer Fort, opening the door to the British presence in India. Roe sailed in the Lyon under the command of captain Christopher Newport, best known for his role in the Virginia colonies.source
• 1616January 29 – Dutch captain Willem Schouten, in the Eendracht, rounds the southern tip of South America, and names it Kaap Hoorn, after his birthplace in Holland.source
• 1616March 19 – Sir Walter Ralegh, English explorer of the New World, is released from prison in the Tower of London, where he has been imprisoned for treason, in order to conduct a second (ill-fated) expedition, in search of El Dorado in South America.source
• 1616March 26–August 30 – English explorer William Baffin, as pilot to Robert Bylot on the Discovery, makes a detailed exploration of Baffin Bay, whilst searching for the Northwest Passage. The expedition also discovers Smith Sound, Lancaster Sound and Devon Island, and reaches latitude 77° 45' North, a record which holds for 236 years.source
• 1616August 8 – The Tokugawa shogunate (Bakufu) in Japan forbids foreigners other than Chinese from traveling freely, or trading outside of the ports of Nagasaki and Hirado.source
• 1616October 25 – Dirk Hartog makes the second recorded landfall by a European on Australian soil, at Dirk Hartog Island off the Western Australian coast, and the pewter Hartog Plate is left to mark the landfall of the Dutch ship Eendracht.source
• 1616Dutch traders smuggle the coffee plant out of Mocha, a port in Yemen on the Red Sea, and cultivate it at the Amsterdam Botanical Gardens. The Dutch later introduce it to Java.source
• 1616Master seafarer Henry Mainwaring, Oxford graduate and lawyer turned successful Newfoundland pirate, returns to England, is pardoned after rescuing a Newfoundland trading fleet near Gibraltar, and begins to write a revealing treatise on piracy.source
• 1616The Dutch establish their colony of Essequibo, in the region of the Essequibo River, in northern South America (modern-day Guyana), for sugar and tobacco production. The colony is protected by Fort Kyk-Over-Al. The Dutch also map the Delaware River in North America.source
• 1616In Spanish Florida, the Cofa Mission at the mouth of the Suwannee River disappears.source
• 1616The Ottoman Empire attempts landings at the shoreline between Cádiz and Lisbon.source
• 1616Pierre Vernier is employed, with his father, in making fine-scale maps of France (Franche-Comté area).source
• 1616The first African slaves are brought to Bermuda, an English colony, by Captain George Bargrave to dive for pearls, because of their reputed skill in this activity. Harvesting pearls off the coast proves unsuccessful, and the slaves are put to work planting and harvesting the initial large crops of tobacco and sugarcane. Some English refuse to purchase Brazilian sugar because it is produced by slave labour.source
• 1617May 24 – King James VI of Scotland authorizes the Scottish East India Company, led by Lord Glencairn to trade to the East Indies, the Levant, Greenland, Muscovy and all other islands in the north, north-west and north-eastern seas. James VI is advised that the authorization is not in conflict with charters granted by him in his capacity as King James I of England to England's East India Company, the Levant Company, and the Muscovy Company.source
• 1618January 6 – Jahangir, ruler of the Mughal Empire in northern India, gives an audience for the first time to a representative of the British East India Company, receiving Sir Thomas Roe at the capital at Ahmedabad.source
• 1618April 21 – Spanish-born Jesuit missionary Pedro Páez becomes (probably) the first European to see and describe the source of the Blue Nile in Ethiopia.source
• 1618July 31 – Lenaert Jacobszoon and the crew of the Dutch East India Company ship Mauritius become the first Europeans to sight what is now the Australian state of Western Australia, landing at the North Cape.source
• 1619December 4 – Thirty-eight colonists from England disembark in Berkeley Hundred, Virginia from the Margaret of Bristol and have a day of celebration to give thanks to God, in what is considered by some historians to be the first Thanksgiving in the Americas.source
• 1619Jahangir grants a British mission important commercial concessions at Surat, on the west coast of India.source
• 1619An expedition in Sri Lanka, led by Filipe de Oliveira, deposes and executes the last Jaffna king (Cankili II), putting an end to the Jaffna Kingdom.source
• 1619The Danish–Dutch whaling settlement of Smeerenburg is founded in Svalbard.source
• 1619A Spanish expedition sails around Tierra del Fuego, mapping the coast and discovering the Diego Ramírez Islands.source
• 1620July 3 – Captain Andrew Shilling, on behalf of the English Honourable East India Company, lays claim to Table Bay in Africa.source
• 1620July 25 (July 15 OS) – The armed merchant ship Mayflower embarks about 65 emigrants for New England at or near her home port of Rotherhithe on the Thames east of London; about July 29 (July 19 OS) she anchors in Southampton Water.source
• 1620August 1 (July 22 OS) – The ship Speedwell departs Delfshaven with English separatist Puritans from Leiden bound to rendezvous with the Mayflower; on August 5 (July 26 OS) she anchors in Southampton Water.source
• 1620September 2 (August 23 OS) – Mayflower and Speedwell depart together from Dartmouth; they are well out into the Atlantic when the Speedwell is again found to be leaking.source
• 1620September 16 (September 6 OS) – Mayflower departs from Plymouth in England on her third attempt to cross the Atlantic. The Pilgrims on board comprise 41 "saints" (English separatists largely from Holland), 40 "strangers" (largely secular planters from London), 23 servants and hired workers, together with c. 30 crew.source
• 1620December 21 – Plymouth Colony: William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims land near what becomes known as Plymouth Rock, in Plymouth, Massachusetts.source
• 1620Mayflower and Speedwell return again to England, anchoring at Plymouth; the latter ship is given up as a participant in the voyage and on September 12 (September 2 OS) departs for London, most of her passengers and stores having been transferred to the Mayflower.source
• 1620History of submarines: Cornelis Drebbel demonstrates the first navigable undersea boat in the Thames in England.source
• 1621March 16 – Samoset, a Mohegan, visits the settlers of Plymouth Colony and greets them: "Welcome, Englishmen! My name is Samoset."source
• 1621April 1 – The Plymouth, Massachusetts colonists create the first treaty with native Americans.source
• 1621April 5 – The Mayflower sets sail from Plymouth, on a return trip to England.source
• 1621May 12 – The city of Tornio in Lapland is founded by King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, becoming the northernmost city in the world at the time.source
• 1621The Venezuelan city of Petare is founded by Spanish conquistadors, as San Jose de Guanarito.source
• 1622May 13 – The Eendracht, a VOC ship and the second recorded European ship to make landfall on Australian soil, is wrecked off the western coast of Ambon Island, Dutch East Indies.source
• 1622July 13 or July 14 – English and Dutch ships defeat the Portuguese, near Portuguese East Africa.source
• 1622December 22 – The Spanish colonial city of Bucaramanga is founded in the colony of Nueva Grandada in what is now Colombia.source
• 1622Dutch ships under Jochem Swartenhont, while escorting a convoy, repel a Spanish squadron near Gibraltar.source
• 1623January 21 – Voyage of the Pera and Arnhem to Australia: Captains Jan Carstenszoon of the Arnhem and Willem Joosten van Coolsteerdt of the Pera depart on an expedition for the Dutch East India Company from Ambon, Maluku (Amboyna) to explore the Australian coast.source
• 1623April 29 – A fleet of 11 Dutch ships depart for the coast of Peru, seeking to seize Spanish treasure.source
• 1623May 8 – A Dutch East India Company party, led by explorer Jan Carstenszoon, fights a skirmish with 200 indigenous Australian Wik peoples.source
• 1623July 10 – The English ship Anne becomes the third vessel to bring settlers to Plymouth Colony, the Puritan settlement in modern-day Massachusetts, carrying more settlers, after the Mayflower on November 21, 1620, and the Fortune on November 9, 1621.source
• 1623Zildjian begins the commercial manufacture of cymbals in Turkey. The company will still be operating, from Massachusetts, in the 21st century.source
• 1623Gabriel Bethlen, Prince of Transylvania, issues an order, dated at Kolozsvár/Klausenburg/Cluj, that allows Jews to settle, trade freely and practice religion in Transylvania, and exempts them from wearing the usual Jewish sign.source
• 1623On the coast of Massachusetts Bay, the settlement that will become the City of Gloucester, Massachusetts, is first inhabited by men from Dorchester, Dorset, England.source
• 1623On the coast of New Hampshire, the settlement of Hilton's Point, which will become Dover, New Hampshire, is established by men from London, England, the first European settlers in the state.source
• 1624February 7 – (January 28, 1623/4 old style) England first colonizes Saint Kitts and Nevis.source
• 1624May – The first Dutch settlers arrive in New Netherland; they disembark at Governors Island.source
• 1624August – Portuguese Jesuit priest António de Andrade becomes the first European to enter Tibet, arriving at Tsaparang.source
• 1625May 1 – A Portuguese-Spanish expedition recaptures Salvador, Bahia (Bahia) from the Dutch.source
• 1625November 1–7 – Cádiz Expedition: English forces commanded by Admiral George Villiers (which set out from Plymouth on October 8) are decisively defeated by the Spanish at Cádiz.source
• 1625The Dutch settle Manhattan, founding the town of New Amsterdam. The town will transform into a piece of New York City.source
• 1626January 9 – Peter Minuit sails from Texel Island for America's New Netherland colony, with two ships of Dutch emigrants.source
• 1626Establishment of the coastal settlement of Salem, Massachusetts.source
• 1627January 26 – The Dutch ship t Gulden Zeepaert, skippered by François Thijssen, makes the first recorded European sighting of the coast of South Australia.source
• 1627February 17 – England lands the first European settlers on Barbados.source
• 1627April 10 – The t Gulden Zeepaert reaches Batavia in the Dutch East Indies.source
• 1627June 20 – Turkish Abductions: Barbary corsairs from Salé raid the fishing village of Grindavík in Iceland and take captives into slavery, the first of several raids.source
• 1627July 5–13 – Turkish Abductions: Barbary corsairs from Algiers raid the East Fjords of Iceland and take captives into slavery.source
• 1628April 21 – Generalissimo Albrecht von Wallenstein of the Holy Roman Empire is made Admiral of the Baltic Sea by Emperor Ferdinand II.source
• 1628September 6 – Puritans settle Salem, which will later become part of Massachusetts Bay Colony.source
• 1628The first black slaves arrive in Dutch Manhattan.source
• 1629February 11 – Puritan migration to New England (1620–1640): Around 350 English Puritans on six ships, led by Francis Higginson in the Lyon's Whelp, sail from Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, heading to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in America. They arrive on June 19.source
• 1629June 17 – Anglo-Spanish War (1625–1630): A Spanish expedition, led by Fadrique de Toledo, wipes out the English colony on Nevis.source
• 1629June 19 – Puritan migration to New England (1620–1640): The six ships of Puritans, led by Francis Higginson in the Lyon's Whelp, arrive in America at Salem, to settle in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.source
• 1629September 7 – Anglo-Spanish War (1625–1630): A Spanish expedition, led by Fadrique de Toledo, wipes out the English colony on St. Kitts.source
• 1629William Alexander, 1st Earl of Stirling briefly establishes a Scottish colony at Port Royal, Nova Scotia.source
• 1630February 22 – Native American Quadequine introduces popcorn to English colonists.source
• 1630April 8 – Puritan migration to New England (1620-1640): Winthrop Fleet – The ship Arbella and three others set sail from the Solent in England, with 400 passengers under the leadership of John Winthrop, headed for the Massachusetts Bay Colony in America; seven more, with another 300 aboard, follow in the next few weeks.source
• 1630June 6 – Swedish warships depart from Stockholm, Sweden for Central Europe.source
• 1630June 14 – Passengers of the Arbella, including Anne Bradstreet, America's first poet of significance, finally set foot in the New World at Salem, Massachusetts.source
• 1630September 24 – The first ship of de Sauce's emigrants arrive at Southampton Hundred, on the James River in Virginia.source
• 1630Settlers leave Pannaway Plantation and begin to settle in Strawbery Banke which in 1653 is renamed Portsmouth, New Hampshire.source
• 1630Paramaribo (in modern-day Suriname) is first settled by the English.source
• 1631May 28 – William Claiborne sails from England to establish a trading post on Kent Island, the first English settlement in Maryland.source
• 1632June 20 – Two ships, Saint Jean (250 tons) and L'Esperance-en-Dieu, set sail from La Rochelle in France, bound for Acadia in North America.source
• 1632July 23 – Three hundred colonists for New France depart Dieppe.source
• 1632Antigua and Barbuda is first colonized by England.source
• 1632Approximate date – Last inhabitants leave the original city of Reimerswaal in Zeeland.source
• 1633September 26 – a group from the Plymouth Colony settles in Windsor, Connecticut, making it the first settlement in the state.source
• 1633November 11 – the Dutch expedition of Jan Janszoon van Hoorn, against Spanish pirates in Central America, ends after six months with van Hoorn's success.source
• 1633November 22 – commissioned by Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore to transport 140 English colonists to the province of Maryland in America, The Ark and another ship, the Dove (with 128 settlers), depart Gravesend in England for the New World. Three days later, the two ships become separated by a storm in the English Channel, and the crew of The Ark assumes that the Dove sank.source
• 1633November 29 – The Ark runs into a more violent storm, but manages to stay afloat and to continue on its journey to America. The Dove turns out to have survived the storms, and both ships will arrive in Maryland on February 24.source
• 1633English colonists settle what will become the town of Hingham, Massachusetts.source
• 1634January 14 – France's Compagnie normande obtains a one-year monopoly on trade with the African kingdoms in Guinea.source
• 1634August (prob.) – Jean Nicolet becomes the first European to set foot in what becomes the U.S. state of Wisconsin. He is in search of a water-route to the Pacific, when he lands at Green Bay of Lake Michigan.source
• 1634The English establish a settlement at Cochin (modern-day Kochi) on the Malabar Coast.source
• 1635June 28 – France's Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique begins its occupation of the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, with Charles Liénard de L'Olive as its first Governor.source
• 1635Willem and Joan Blaeu publish the first edition of their Atlas Novus, in Amsterdam.source
• 1635Guadeloupe and Martinique are colonized by France.source
• 1636March 5 (February 24 Old Style) – King Christian IV of Denmark and Norway gives an order, that all beggars that are able to work must be sent to Brinholmen, to build ships or to work as galley rowers.source
• 1636May 14 – William Pynchon and his men establish the settlement of Agawam Plantation (now Springfield, Massachusetts) in territory controlled by the Agawam people, a subset of the Algonquian peoples, and negotiate for its purchase for Britain's Connecticut Colony. The Agawams deed the land to Connecticut on July 15, and the area is later deeded by Connecticut to the Massachusetts Bay Colony.source
• 1637April 10 – Plymouth Colony grants the "tenn menn of Saugust" a new settlement on Cape Cod, later named Sandwich, Massachusetts.source
• 1637June 27 – The first English venture to China is attempted by Captain John Weddell, who sails into port in Macau and Canton during the late Ming dynasty with six ships. The voyages are for trade, which is dominated here by the Portuguese (at this time combined with the power of Spain). He brings 38,421 pairs of eyeglasses, perhaps the first recorded European-made eyeglasses to enter China.source
• 1637August 16 – Adam Olearius, sent along with Philipp Crusius and Otto Bruggemann by the German Duke of Holstein-Gottorp to establish a trade deal with Persia, is welcomed by the Safavid ruler, the Shah Safi at the Persian capital, Isfahan.source
• 1637Scottish army officer Robert Monro publishes Monro, His Expedition With the Worthy Scots Regiment Called Mac-Keys in London, the first military history in English.source
• 1637Elizabeth Poole becomes the first female founder of a town (Taunton, Massachusetts) in the Americas.source
• 1637France places a few missionaries in the Ivory Coast, a country it will rule more than 200 years later.source
• 1638March 29 – Settlers from Sweden arrive on the ships Kalmar Nyckel and Fogel Grip to establish the settlement of New Sweden in Delaware, beginning the Swedish colonization of the Americas.source
• 1638April 3 – Preacher John Wheelwright is banished from Boston and founds Exeter, New Hampshire.source
• 1638April 14 – The Netherlands colonizes Mauritius, with colonists from the ship Dragon going ashore after sighting it the day before, an event chronicled by British traveler Peter Mundy.source
• 1638August 15 – The Portuguese expedition led by Pedro Teixeira completes the first ascent of the Amazon River, crossing the Quijos River and arriving at Quito in Ecuador soon after (the same trip had been made in the opposite direction, in 1541).source
• 1638September – John Spofford arrives in Boston Harbor, on the ship John of London, and is one of the first people to establish Rowely, Essex County, Massachusetts.source
• 1639Russian Cossacks advance over the Urals to the Pacific, to Okhotsk.source
• 1639Japanese wives and children of Dutch and British people from Hirado are sent to Batavia (Asian headquarters of the VOC, renamed Jakarta by the Japanese around three centuries later) on Dutch ships.source
• 1639Dejima, an island trading post off Nagasaki, becomes the only official port of trade allowed for Europeans, with the multi-national United East Indies Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie) as the only European party officially allowed. Trading parties from China, India and other places are still officially allowed, though the VOC will become the usual broker for them.source
• 1640September 7 – Portuguese missionary Sebastien Manrique reaches Dhaka and stays for 27 days, leaving on October 4.source
• 1641May 24 – Providence Island in the Caribbean, settled by English Puritans and a haven for English pirates off the coast of modern-day Colombia, is captured in a joint operation of the Spanish Navy in an attack led by Don Francisco Díaz Pimienta, and the Portuguese Navy led by the Count of Castel-Melhor Sousa. The expedition takes 770 prisoners, 380 slaves and a fortune in plundered gold and silver.source
• 1641The Dutch found a trading colony on Dejima, near Nagasaki, Japan.source
• 1641The Norwegian city of Kristiansand is founded by King Christian IV of Denmark-Norway.source
• 1642November 24 – Abel Tasman and his crew become the first Europeans to discover "Van Diemen's Land", later the Australian island and state of Tasmania, and the island is claimed for the Netherlands on December 3 at what becomes Prince of Wales Bay.source
• 1642December 13 – Abel Tasman and his crew become the first recorded Europeans to sight New Zealand, arriving at its South Island. In a battle between the Europeans and the Island's Maori inhabitants, four crew members are killed.source
• 1643January 21 – Abel Tasman sights the island of Tonga.source
• 1643February 6 – Abel Tasman sights the Fiji Islands.source
• 1643May 20 – Dutch expedition to Valdivia: The Dutch fleet (led by Hendrik Brouwer) is spotted off Carelmapu in Chile, soon afterwards landing nearby and plundering the fort and village.source
• 1643August 24 – Dutch expedition to Valdivia: A Dutch fleet establishes a new colony in the ruins of Valdivia in southern Chile.source
• 1643October 28 – Dutch expedition to Valdivia: The Dutch end their occupation of Valdivia in Chile.source
• 1643December 25 – Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean is sighted and named by Captain William Mynors of the British East India Company ship Royal Mary.source
• 1643December 28 – Dutch expedition to Valdivia: The failed Dutch expedition arrives back at Recife in Dutch Brazil.source
• 1644January 30 – Dutch explorer Abel Tasman departs from Batavia in the Dutch East Indies (modern-day Jakarta in Indonesia) on his second major expedition for the Dutch East India Company, to map the north coast of Australia. Tasman commands three ships, Limmen, Zeemeeuw and Braek, and returns to Batavia at the beginning of August with no major discoveries.source
• 1644The Dutch West India Company displays greater interest in profit than in colonization.source
• 1645The Stolberg-Wernigerode branch of the family of the counts of Stolberg and Wernigerode is founded in Germany.source
• 1646March 2 – The future Charles II of England escapes from Cornwall into exile across the English Channel.source
• 1647Dutch artist Salomon van Ruysdael completes the oil painting, The Crossing at Nijmegen.source
• 1648June 20 – Russian explorer Semyon Dezhnyov departs from Srednekolymsk to begin the first recorded voyage through the Bering Strait, between Asia and North America, and arrives in September.source
• 1649March 17 – French colonists from Martinique, led by former Martinique Governor Jacques Dyel du Parquet, land at St. Georges Harbour on the island of Grenada for the founding of Fort Annunciation. The fort is soon abandoned and the colonists cross the harbour for the founding of Fort Royal which eventually becomes the city of St. George's, Grenadasource
• 1649August 26 – After his "True Levellers", commonly called "The Diggers", abandon their last major colony at St. George's Hill at Weybridge in England, their leader, Gerrard Winstanley, publishes the pamphlet "A Watch-Word to The City of London, and the Armie", recounting the experience.source
• 1649The town of Kristinestad, named after Queen Christina of Sweden, is founded in Ostrobothnia by Count Per Brahe the Younger.source
• 1650September 29 – Henry Robinson opens his Office of Addresses and Encounters, a form of employment exchange, in Threadneedle Street, London.source
• 1652April 6 – Dutch sailor Jan van Riebeeck establishes a resupply camp for the Dutch East India Company at the Cape of Good Hope in modern-day South Africa, thus founding Cape Town.source
• 1652July 5 – The 1652 Articles of Peace and Friendship are signed between the Province of Maryland and the Conestoga Indians, ceding most of the land around the Chesapeake Bay to the English colonists.source
• 1654August 18 – Oliver Cromwell launches the Western Design with the appointment of Admiral William Penn to prepare for a fleet to leave on Christmas Day for an English expedition to the Caribbean to counter Spanish commercial interests, effectively beginning the Anglo-Spanish War (which will last until after the English Restoration in 1660). The fleet leaves Portsmouth in late December.source
• 1654December 11 – Sir William Petty wins the contract from the Commonwealth of England to make a survey of Ireland.source
• 1654December 25 – An English Navy fleet of 17 warships and 20 transports, carrying 325 cannons, 1,145 seamen, and 1,830 troops, under the command of Admiral William Penn departs from Portsmouth to begin Oliver Cromwell's planned surprise attack on Spain's colonies in the New World.source
• 1656June 16 – After a 41-day voyage, the seven-member team dispatched from the Vergulde Draeck reaches Batavia and alerts Dutch East India Company officials that the ship was wrecked on April 28. Two rescue ships, the Goede Hoop and the Witte Valck are sent to rescue the men marooned in Western Australia. By the time the Goede Hoop arrives, the crew find no sign of the wreckage of the Vergulde Draeck.source
• 1656July 18 – In an attempt to find survivors of the Vergulde Draeck, a search party is sent ashore by the rescue ship Goede Hoop; eleven men from two search parties while in the forests around the wreckage site. No trace of the Vergulde Draeck will be found for more than three centuries, until its wreckage is discovered by skin divers on April 13, 1963.source
• 1657August 20 – The ship Les Armes d'Amsterdam arrives at Quebec, New France. Among the passengers is Michel Mathieu Brunet dit Lestang (1638–1708), colonist, explorer and co-discoverer of modern-day Green Bay, Wisconsin, and ancestor of the Brunet, Lestang and Carisse families of North America.source
• 1658February 6 – Swedish troops of Charles X Gustav of Sweden cross The Great Belt in Denmark, over frozen sea.source
• 1658The Dutch in the Cape Colony start to import slaves from India and South-East Asia (later from Madagascar).source
• 1659February 2 – Jan van Riebeeck produces the first South African wine, at the Cape of Good Hope.source
• 1659First British colonists arrive on Saint Helena.source
• 1659Spanish Infanta Maria Theresa brings cocoa to Paris.source
• 1660March 31 – The war in the West Indies between the indigenous Carib people, and the French Jesuits and English people who have colonized the islands, is ended with a treaty signed at Basse-Terre at Guadeloupe at the residence of the French Governor, Charles Houël du Petit Pré.source
• 1660May 23 – With the way cleared for his return to England, King Charles II ends his exile at the Hague in the Netherlands and departs from Scheveningen harbor on the English ship Naseby, renamed for the occasion HMS Royal Charles , as part of a fleet of English warships brought by Admiral Edward Montagu. On commemorative memorabilia in the Netherlands, the date of Charles's departure is listed as June 2, 1660, the date on the Gregorian calendar used in continental Europe but not in England.source
• 1661October 31 – Köprülüzade Fazıl Ahmed Pasha is appointed as the new Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire at the request of his late father, the Grand Vizier Köprülü Mehmed Pasha, serving under the Sultan Mehmed IV for 15 years and continuing the Köprülü family dynasty whose members will serve as Viziers until 1711.source
• 1662February 1 – Chinese general Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong) captures the Dutch East India Company's settlement at Fort Zeelandia (now Tainan) on the island of Taiwan after a nine-month siege, ending the company's rule on the island, then establishes the Kingdom of Tungning. In response, the Kangxi Emperor of the mainland Qing dynasty relocates all residents along the southern coast, by 50 miles.source
• 1662March 18 – Carrosses à cinq sols, a short-lived experiment of the first public bus system (horse-drawn wagons holding eight passengers) begins in Paris as the idea of mathematician Blaise Pascal and financed by the Duc de Rouanez, with transportation to and from the Royal Square for the cost of five sous.source
• 1662April 22 – The Paugussett tribe, granted reservations in the British colony of Connecticut in North America, sell a large amount of tribal land to Captain Joseph Hawley including several towns in Fairfield County: Shelton, Trumbull, Derby and Monroe.source
• 1662May – The last credible report of a sighting of the dodo bird, now extinct, is made by Volkert Evertsz, a survivor of the shipwreck of the Dutch ship Arnhem, which struck reefs on February 12. The survivors had made their way in a small boat to Ile d'Ambre, an island in the Indian Ocean 200 km northeast of Mauritius. When rescued by the English ship Truroe in May, Evertsz reports that he and his group had survived by eating the local wildlife, including the dodo.source
• 1663March 4 – The Prince Edward Islands in the sub-antarctic Indian Ocean are discovered by Barent Barentszoon Lam, of the Dutch ship Maerseveen, and named Dina (Prince Edward) and Maerseveen (Marion).source
• 1664February 2 – Jesuit missionary Johann Grueber arrives in Rome after a 214-day journey that had started in Beijing, proving that commerce can be had between Europe and Asia by land rather than ship.source
• 1664February 26 – Alexandre de Prouville de Tracy, appointed by King Louis XIV of France as Lieutenant Général of the Americas, departs from the port of La Rochelle with 1,200 men and seven ships to expand France's property in the Caribbean Sea and in South America.source
• 1664November 17 – Latvian colonist Jacob Kettler, Duke of Courland, gives up all of his rights to his African colony at St Andrew's Island in the Gambia River to representatives of King Charles II, in return for keeping possession of the Caribbean island of Tobago.source
• 1665July 9 – The colonization of the south Indian Ocean island Réunion begins, with Louis XIV's East India Company (Compagnie des Indes Orientales) sending 20 permanent settlers, under the command of Etienne Regnault, from the French ship Taureau.source
• 1665July 11 – Pierre de Beausse, an envoy of France's King Louis XIV, formally claims possession of the African island of Madagascar on behalf of the French East India Company after landing on the coast in the 32-gun frigate Saint-Paul.source
• 1666March – The Tavernier Blue, precursor to the Hope Diamond, is first recorded, when French gem merchant Jean-Baptiste Tavernier purchases it from the Kollur Mine in the Mughal Empire in uncut form.source
• 1666April 23 – On Saint Christopher Island more commonly called St Kitts, a Caribbean Sea island divided between colonies of England and France, a battle near Sandy Point Town over control of the territory ends with a victory by the French over a numerically-superior English force two days after English Deputy Governor William Watts of Anguilla had sent an expedition to capture the neighbouring island of Saint Martin. Governor Watts and the French Governor of Saint-Christophe, Charles de Sales, are both killed in the battle.source
• 1666September 4 – Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb grants the French East India Company a royal mandate to trade at the port of Surat.source
• 1667March 27 – In North America (Canada), explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle is released from the Society of Jesus (Jesuits).source
• 1667After Shivaji's escape, hostilities between the Marathas and the Mughals ebb, with Mughal sardar Jaswant Singh acting as intermediary between Shivaji and Aurangzeb for new peace proposals.source
• 1668March 27 – King Charles II of England signs an agreement with representatives of the English East India Company to lease the Indian city of Bombay (modern-day Mumbai) to the company for a rent of 10 pounds sterling per year, with transfer taking effect on September 21.source
• 1668June 16 – A group of Spanish Jesuit missionaries become the first European settlers to arrive at the island of Guam, founding a mission to convert the Chamorro people of the Mariana Islands to Christianity.source
• 1668October 7 – French Jesuit missionary Jean Pierron arrives at the Mohawk Nation city of Tionondogen (near modern-day Palatine, New York, U.S.) to replace Jacques Frémin in attempting to convert members of the Iroquois tribe to Christianity.source
• 1669July 25 – Pieter Bickel, a Lutheran pastor and a mountaineer in Austria, becomes the first person to climb to the peak of the tallest of the Southeastern Walsertal Mountains, the 8310 foot Großer Widderstein.source
• 1669August 17 – A group of English settlers, led by Joseph West, departs from The Downs on the ship Carolina with instructions to make the first European settlement in the modern-day U.S. state of South Carolina. After a long voyage with stops in Ireland and Barbados, the Carolina settlers arrive at Port Royal on March 17 next.source
• 1669October 9 – The English ship Nonsuch returns to London with the first products acquired from trade around Canada's Hudson Bay, a cargo of fine furs. The bounty from the Nonsuch expedition attracts investors for the soon-to-be-chartered Hudson's Bay Company.source
• 1670March 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
• 1670May 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
• 1670December 15 – Henry Morgan, a Welsh privateer in English service, recaptures Santa Catalina Island, Colombia.source
• 1670December 31 – The expedition of John Narborough leaves Corral Bay having surveyed the coast and lost four hostages to the Spanish.source
• 1670The first French settlers arrive on the Petite Côte of modern-day Senegal.source
• 1671January 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.source
• 1671August 15 – Jamaica's Governor Thomas Lynch offers a general pardon to pirates who are willing to come under Jamaican jurisdiction.source
• 1671September 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.source
• 1671The first Jewish families settle in Berlin, moving from Vienna at the invitation of Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg.source
• 1673May 17 – In America, trader Louis Joliet and Jesuit missionary-explorer Jacques Marquette begin exploring the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes.source
• 1673June 17 – French explorers Father Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet reach the headwaters of the Mississippi River, and descend to Arkansas.source
• 1673France begins its expedition against Ceylon.source
• 1673The stalactic grotto of Antiparos (Aegean Sea) is discovered.source
• 1674July 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.source
• 1675April – 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.source
• 1675June 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.source
• 1675July 16–24 – An envoy from Massachusetts attempts to negotiate with the Nipmuck tribe.source
• 1675September 12 – English colonists abandon Deerfield, Squakeag, and Brookfield due to a coalition of Indian attacks.source
• 1675December 11 – Antonio de Vea expedition enters San Rafael Lake in western Patagonia.source
• 1676January – 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.source
• 1676February 10 – After the Nipmuc tribe attacks Lancaster, Massachusetts, colonist Mary Rowlandson is taken captive, and lives with the Indians until May.source
• 1676July 11 – The Wampanoags attack Taunton, Massachusetts, but are repelled by colonists.source
• 1676The French East India Company founds its principal Indian base at Pondicherry, on the Coromandel Coast.source
• 1677December 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."source
• 1678May 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.source
• 1678June 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.source
• 1678About 1,200 Irish families sail from Barbados to Virginia and the Carolinas.source
• 1679August 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.source
• 1679December 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.source
• 1679French explorer Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut, explores the Saint Louis River; the city of Duluth, Minnesota, will take its name from him.source
• 1680April 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.source
• 1680August 20 (August 10 Old Style) – The settlement of Karlskrona in Sweden is founded, as the Royal Swedish Navy relocates there.source
• 1680August 21 – In the Pueblo Revolt, the native Pueblo people capture Santa Fe (now in New Mexico) from the Spanish colonists.source
• 1681The Port of Honfleur, France, is re-modelled by Abraham Duquesne.source
• 1681Havertown and Bryn Mawr are founded in Pennsylvania by Welsh Quakers.source
• 1682April 7 – René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, exploring rivers in America, reaches the mouth of the Mississippi River.source
• 1682October 12 – Sultan Mehmed IV departs Istanbul for Adrianople.source
• 1682October 19 – Kara Mustafa departs with the Ottoman army to Adrianople.source
• 1682December 11 – William Penn meets with Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore for the first discussion of the boundary between the colonies of Pennsylvania and Maryland, fixed at 40 degrees north. Recognizing that 40° north would remove Pennsylvania's access to the sea, Penn proposes a purchase of some of Maryland's territory.source
• 1682December 27 – Colonists from the German electorate of Brandenburg arrive at Akwidaa on the Brandenburger Gold Coast at what is now Ghana and, five days later, begin building a fort at what is now Princes Town.source
• 1682Celia Fiennes, noblewoman and traveller, begins her journeys across Britain, in a venture that will prove to be her life's work. Her aim is to chronicle the towns, cities and great houses of the country. Her travels continue until at least 1712, and will take her to every county in England, though the main body of her journal is not written until the year 1702.source
• 1683July 8 – Admiral Shi Lang of Qing dynasty China leads 300 ships with 20,000 troops out of Tongshan, Fujian, and sails towards the Kingdom of Tungning, in modern-day Taiwan and Penghu, in order to quell the kingdom in the name of the Qing.source
• 1683October 6 – Germantown, Philadelphia is founded as the first permanent German settlement in North America (in 1983 U.S. President Ronald Reagan declares a 300th Year Celebration, and in 1987, it becomes an annual holiday, German-American Day).source
• 1684February 24 – A treaty is signed between European German colonists in Brandenburg-Prussia, and the African chiefs in what is now Ghana to permit the German colonists to build a second fort on the Brandenburger Gold Coast, and the fortress of Dorotheenschanze is built. The area is now the Ghanaian city of Akwida.source
• 1684July 24 – René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle sails again from France, with a large expedition designed to establish a French colony on the Gulf of Mexico, at the mouth of the Mississippi River.source
• 1684The British East India Company receives Chinese permission to build a trading station at Canton. Tea sells in Europe for less than a shilling a pound, but the import duty of 5 shillings makes it too expensive for most English people to afford; hence smuggled tea is drunk much more than legally imported tea.source
• 1685February 4 – A treaty is signed between Brandenburg-Prussia and the indigenous chiefs at Takoradi in what is now Ghana to permit the German colonists to build a third fort on the Brandenburger Gold Coast.source
• 1685February 20 – René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, intending to establish a colony near the mouth of the Mississippi River, lands with 200 surviving colonists at Matagorda Bay on the Texas coast, believing the Mississippi to be near. He establishes Fort St. Louis.source
• 1685Adam Baldridge founds a pirate base at Île Sainte-Marie, Madagascar.source
• 1686March 3 – A group of 107 French Canadian soldiers, under the command of Pierre de Troyes, begins the Hudson Bay expedition, departing from Montreal on an 800 mi journey to take control of the properties of British North American settlers of the Hudson's Bay Company. The group marches for 82 days and arrives at the first Hudson's Bay fort, at Moose Factory on June 19.source
• 1686The Café Procope, which remains in business in the 21st century, is opened in Paris by Procopio Cutò, as a coffeehouse.source
• 1687December 31 – In response to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, a group of Huguenots set sail from France, and settle in the recently established Dutch colony at the Cape of Good Hope, where, using their native skills, they establish the first South African vineyards.source
• 1688January 5 – Pirates Charles Swan and William Dampier and the crew of the privateer Cygnet become the first Englishmen to set foot on the continent of Australia.source
• 1688March – William Dampier makes the first recorded visit to Christmas Island, now a territory of Australia, located south of the island of Java (now part of Indonesia).source
• 1688November 11 (November 1 OS) – Glorious Revolution: William III of Orange sets sail a second time from Hellevoetsluis, the Netherlands, to take over England, Scotland and Ireland from King James II of England.source
• 1689March 27 – Japanese haiku master Bashō sets out on his last great voyage, which will result in the prose and verse classic Oku no Hosomichi ("Narrow Road to the Interior").source
• 1689May 12 – Nine Years' War: With England and the Netherlands now both ruled by William III, they join the Grand Alliance (League of Augsburg), thus escalating the conflict, which continues until 1697. This is also the effective beginning of King William's War, the first of four North American Wars (until 1763) between English and French colonists, both sides allied to Native American tribes. The nature of the fighting is a series of raids on each other's settlements, across the Canadian and New England borders.source
• 1689November 22 – Peter the Great decrees the construction of the Great Siberian Road to China.source
• 1689Japanese writer Bashō goes on a voyage, resulting in the classic Narrow Road to the Interior.source
• 1689Peter the Great decrees the construction of the Great Siberian Road to China.source
• 1690January 27 – The crew of the ship HMS Welfare, commanded by John Strong, become the first European people to land at the Falkland Islands.source
• 1690The Hearth Tax is abolished in Scotland, one year after its abolition in England and Wales.source
• 1692September 14 – Diego de Vargas leads Spanish colonists in retaking the city of Santa Fe, after a 12-year exile, following the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.source
• 1692December 5 – John Goldsborough arrives in Madras as the new administrator of the British East India Company.source
• 1693November 21 – The 46-gun Royal Navy frigate HMS Mordaunt founders off of the coast of Cuba.source
• 1693Financier Richard Hoare relocates Hoare's Bank (founded 1672) from Cheapside to Fleet Street in London.source
• 1693China concentrates all its foreign trade on Canton; European ships are forbidden to land anywhere else.source
• 1694February 5 – The ship Ridderschap van Holland is lost at sea, having departed the Cape of Good Hope with a crew of 300, with a destination of Batavia (modern-day Jakarta in Indonesia), normally a voyage of two months. It never arrives and is never seen again.source
• 1694April 2 – Sheikh Yusuf, exiled by the administrators of the Dutch East Indies (modern-day Indonesia), arrives at the Dutch Cape Colony on the ship De Voetboog, at what later becomes Cape Town, South Africa, along with two wives, two concubines and twelve children. Resettled by the colonial government at a farm in Zandvliet, the Sheikh introduces Islam to South Africa.source
• 1694Rascians establish the settlement which will become Novi Sad on the Danube.source
• 1695A naval skirmish occurs between English and Swedish ships en-route to Portugal.source
• 1696December 7 – Connecticut Route 108, one of Connecticut's oldest highways is laid-out to Trumbull.source
• 1697March 9 – Grand Embassy of Peter the Great: Tsar Peter the Great of Russia sets out to travel in Europe incognito, as Artilleryman Pjotr Mikhailov.source
• 1697Heinrich Escher, Mayor of Zürich, introduces chocolate to Switzerland from Brussels.source
• 1698June 24 – The Trade with Africa Act 1697 goes into effect in English overseas possessions, ending the monopoly of the Royal African Company (RAC) on the triangular trade by opening it to any English merchants who pay a 10 percent fee to the RAC.source
• 1698July 14 – Darien scheme: The first Scottish settlers leave for an ill-fated colony in Panama.source
• 1698October 24 – Iberville and Bienville sail from Brest to the Gulf of Mexico, to defend the southern borders of New France.source
• 1698November 2 – The Darien scheme Scottish settlers land in Panama and establish their ill-fated colony; 80% of them would die within the first year.source
• 1698The Whigs sponsor Captain Kidd of New York as a privateer against French shipping.source
• 1699May 1 – Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville founds the first European settlement in the Mississippi River Valley, at Fort Maurepas (Ocean Springs, Mississippi).source
• 1699July 26 – William Dampier's expedition to New Holland (Australia), in HMS Roebuck, reaches Dirk Hartog Island, at the mouth of what he calls Shark Bay in Western Australia, and he begins producing the first known detailed record of Australian flora and fauna.source
• 1699October 3 – The Liverpool Merchant, the first slave ship to depart from the Port of Liverpool, sets sail for West Africa where it embarks hundreds of African slaves and sails for Barbados, arriving there on September 18, 1700 with 220 slaves on board.source