1600s

This is a list of events occurring in the 1600s, ordered by year.

1600

January–June

• January 1 – Scotland adopts January 1 as New Year's Day.
• January – Sebald de Weert makes the first definite sighting of the Falkland Islands.
• February 17 – Giordano Bruno is burned at the stake for heresy in Rome.
• February 19 – Huaynaputina volcano in Peru undergoes a catastrophic eruption, the worst to be recorded in South America.
• May 6 – Prince Sigismund Báthory of Transylvania loses the city of Suceava to the Voivode Michael the Brave of Wallachia, during the internecine conflict in Hungary and the Danubian Principalities. For the first time, Transylvania, Moldavia, and Wallachia became one country (known today as Romania). However, the union ends one year later when Michael the Brave is killed.

July–December

• July 2 – Battle of Nieuwpoort in the Eighty Years' War (Dutch War of Independence) between the Dutch and the Spanish
• October 17 – Battle of Sekigahara in Japan, granting Tokugawa Ieyasu nominal control over the whole country.
• December 31 – East India Company granted a Royal Charter in England.

Date unknown

• Sumo wrestling becomes a professional sport in Japan.
• William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream is first performed and his play The Merchant of Venice is published.
• William Gilbert publishes De Magnete, which describes the Earth's magnetic field and is the beginning of modern Geomagnetism.
• Fabritio Caroso's Nobiltà de dame is published.
• Ulster chieftains, with the lead of Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone, resist the English reconquest of Ireland.
• A Persian embassy arrives in Prague and meets with Rudolf II.

1601

January–June

• January 1 – The first day of the 17th century.
• January 17 – France gains Bresse, Bugey and Gex from Savoy, ceding Saluzzo in exchange.
• February 8 – Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, longtime favorite of Queen Elizabeth I of England, rebels against the queen; his revolt is quickly crushed.
• February 25 – Robert Devereux is beheaded.
• Spring – Possible first performance of William Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet.^[1][2]

July–December

• December 24 (Julian Calendar; January 3, 1602 according to the Gregorian Calendar used by the Irish and Spanish forces in the battle) – The Battle of Kinsale ends the siege of Kinsale, Ireland (begun in autumn 1601).

Date unknown

• Dutch troops drive the Portuguese from Málaga.
• The Jesuit Matteo Ricci becomes the first European to enter the Forbidden City in Beijing, China, during the Ming Dynasty.
• A bad harvest occurs in the Tsardom of Russia, due to a rainy summer, causing the Russian famine of 1601–1603.
• A famine (ending in 1603) kills about half the Estonian population.

1602

January–June

• January 3 – Battle of Kinsale: The battle happened on Thursday, 3 January 1602 according to the Gregorian Calendar used by the Irish and Spanish forces in the battle, although, for the English who were still using the old Julian Calendar, the date of the battle was Thursday, 24 December 1601.
• February 2 (Candlemas night) – First known production of William Shakespeare's comedy Twelfth Night, in London.^[3]
• March 20 – The United East India Company is established by the United Provinces States-General in Amsterdam, with the stated intention of capturing the spice trade from the Portuguese.
• May 15 – Bartolomew Gosnold becomes the first European at Cape Cod.
• June – James Lancaster's East India Company fleet arrives at Achin (now 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.

July–December

• November 8 – The Bodleian Library at Oxford University is opened to the public.
• December 11 – A surprise attack by forces under the command of the Duke of Savoy and his brother-in-law, Philip III of Spain, is repelled by the citizens of Geneva (This actually took place after midnight, in the early morning of December 12, but commemorations/celebrations on Fête de l'Escalade are usually held on December 11 or the closest weekend).

Ongoing events

• Russian famine of 1601–1603.

Date unknown

• Portuguese expelled from Bahrain.
• Ben Jonson writes The Poetaster.
• William Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor is published.
• Persia and Spain conclude a defensive alliance and declare war on the Ottoman Empire.
• A private trading company is established in Copenhagen, with a monopoly on the trade with Iceland.
• The iconoclast and Confucian scholar Li Zhi commits suicide while in a Chinese prison during the late Ming Dynasty; he had taught that women were the intellectual equals of men and should be given equal opportunity in education; he was charged with spreading "dangerous ideas".
• Copies are printed of the geographical map of East Asia created by Matteo Ricci, an Italian Jesuit stationed in Ming Dynasty Beijing, China, with Chinese-written labeling and map symbols.
• Publication of the play A Larum for London, or the Siedge of Antwerp in London.

1603

January–June

• February 25 – Portuguese ship Santa Catarina was seized by Dutch East India Company ships off Singapore. The first permanent Dutch trading post in Indonesia was established in Banten.
• March – Samuel de Champlain, French explorer, sails to Canada.
• March 24 – Elizabeth I of England dies at Richmond Palace and is succeeded by her cousin's grandson, King James VI of Scotland, uniting the crowns of Scotland and England.
• March 24 – Tokugawa Ieyasu is granted the title of shogun from Emperor Go-Yozei, and establishes the Tokugawa Shogunate in Edo, Japan.
• April 28 – The funeral of Elizabeth I of England is held in Westminster Abbey.

July–December

• July 17 or July 19 – Sir Walter Raleigh is arrested for treason.
• July 25 – James I of England is crowned.
• August – Samuel de Champlain returns to France.
• October – Sangley uprising takes place, ending in the massacre of 20,000 Chinese in Manila.^[4]
• November 17 – Sir Walter Raleigh goes on trial for treason in the converted Great Hall of Winchester Castle.
• December 22 – Sultan Mehmed III of the Ottoman Empire dies and is succeeded by his son Ahmed I.

Ongoing events

• Russian famine of 1601–1603.

Date unknown

• Johann Bayer's Uranometria, an atlas of the southern sky, is published.
• The Accademia dei Lincei is founded.
• Huguenot Pierre de Gua is granted royal permission to settle in North America.
• A rebellion breaks out in Transylvania.
• The English crush the Irish rebellion; Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone surrenders.
• Yaqob is deposed as Emperor of Ethiopia by Za Sellase, who appoints his cousin Za Dengel to replace him.
• The earliest of eight companies that would eventually merge to form the Kikkoman Corporation, the ubiquitous producers of soy sauce, is founded in Japan.

1604

January–June

• January 14 – The Hampton Court conference is held between James I of England, the Anglican bishops and representatives of the Puritans.

July–December

• September 20 – Ostend is captured by Spanish forces under Ambrogio Spinola after a 3-year siege.
• October 9 – Supernova 1604 is observed (as of this writing, the last supernova to be observed in the Milky Way).^[5][6]
• November 1 – At Whitehall Palace in London, the William Shakespeare tragedy Othello is presented for the first time.

Date unknown

• The Sikh Holy Scripture Guru Granth Sahib is compiled and edited by Guru Arjan.
• France begins settling Acadia, first successful French North American colony.
• France begins settling French Guiana.
• England concludes the Treaty of London with Spain, ending its involvement in the Eighty Years' War.
• Za Dengel is deposed as Emperor of Ethiopia by Za Sellase, who restores his cousin Yaqob.
• The Table Alphabeticall, the first known English dictionary to be organized by alphabetical ordering, is published.
• Before 1 October, Huntingdon Beaumont completes the Wollaton Wagonway, built to transport coal from the mines at Strelley to Wollaton just west of Nottingham, England. This is currently the world's oldest wagonway with provenance. The exact date is unknown, but a surviving account book for the year ended 30 September 1604 proves it was built within the preceding 12 months.
• The A-text of Christopher Marlowe's The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus is officially published.
• Lancelot de Casteau's L'Ouverture de cuisine published in Liège, including the first printed recipe for choux pastry.

1605

January–June

• April 1 – Pope Leo XI succeeds Pope Clement VIII as the 232nd pope.
• April 13 – Tsar Boris Godunov dies; Feodor II accedes to the Russian throne.
• April 16 – In England, John Winthrop, later governor of the future Massachusetts Bay Colony, marries his first wife (of 4), Mary Forth, daughter of John Forth, of Great Stambridge, Essex.
• May 16 – Pope Paul V succeeds Pope Leo XI as the 233rd pope, making 1605 the last Year of Three Popes until 1978.
• June 1 – Russian troops in Moscow imprison Feodor II and his mother, later executing them.
• June 20 – Pretender Dmitri and his supporters march to Moscow; he is crowned the next month.

July–December

• July 21 – Pretender Dmitri is officially crowned Tsar Dmitri II.
• September 27 – Battle of Kircholm: Swedish armies are defeated by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
• October – In Strassburg, the world's first newspaper is published by Johann Carolus.
• October 27 – Spanish troops of General Spinola occupy Wachtendonk.
• November 3 – Jahangir begins his 22-year reign of the Mughal Empire.
• November 5 – Gunpowder Plot: A plot by to blow up the English Houses of Parliament is foiled when Sir Thomas Knyvet, a justice of the peace, finds Guy Fawkes in a cellar below the Parliament building and orders a search of the area (records show 36 barrels of gunpowder were found, and Fawkes was arrested for trying to kill King James I of England and the members who were scheduled to sit together in Parliament the next day).

Date unknown

• Francis Bacon publicizes Of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Humane.
• The first half of Miguel de Cervantes's landmark novel Don Quixote ("El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha" or "The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha") — one of the earliest novels in the western literary tradition, is published and becomes Cervantes's first literary success.
• Polish troops occupy Moscow.
• Tokugawa Ieyasu abdicates as shogun of Japan, becoming Ogosho. His son Tokugawa Hidetada succeeds him to the office.
• Crew of the Olive become the first British visitors to Barbados.
• French Huguenot refugees settle in Dublin and Waterford.
• The Priory of St. Gregory's is founded at Douai, Flanders, at this time in the Spanish Netherlands, by its first prior, Saint John Roberts, and other exiles, thus becoming the first English Benedictine house to renew conventual life after the Reformation. More than two centuries later the community will establish Downside Abbey back in England.
• De Nieuwe Tijdinghen, a Dutch proto-newspaper, is published.
• Central Mexico's Amerindian population reaches one million.

1606

January–June

• January 27 – Gunpowder Plot: The trial of Guy Fawkes and other conspirators for plotting against Parliament and James I of England begins.
• January 31 – Guy Fawkes is executed.
• February 26 – Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon makes the first confirmed sighting of Australia by a European.
• March 19 – Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, in the Fortezza Vecchia Chapel of Saint Francesco, elevates Livorno to the rank of city.
• April 10 – The First Charter of Virginia is adopted.
• April 12 – The Union Flag is adopted as the national flag of Great Britain.
• May 17 – Supporters of Vasili Shuisky invade the Kremlin and kill Premier Dimitri II of Russia.

July–December

• August (approx.) – Possible first performance of William Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth in London.^[7][1]
• August 14 – A Dutch fleet is defeated by the Portuguese in the Battle of Cape Rachado.
• November 11 – Peace of Zsitvatorok between the Ottoman and Holy Roman Empires. The independence of Transylvania is recognized by both sides and Austria's annual tribute to the Ottomans is abolished.
• December 26 (St. Stephen's night) – First recorded performance of Shakespeare's tragedy King Lear, before King James I of England in the banqueting hall of Whitehall Palace.^[7]

Date unknown

• A storm buries the village of St Ismail near modern-day Kidwelly, Carmarthenshire, Wales.
• The Jesuit Joannis Stribingius visits Latvia, and describes Latvian mythology.
• The Evangelic Lyceum (Evanjelické lýceum), a Lutheran high school is founded in Bratislava.
• The cryptographic text Steganographia, written by Johannes Trithemius c.1499, is published in Frankfurt.

1607

January–June

• January 13 – The Bank of Genoa fails after the announcement of national bankruptcy in Spain.
• January 19 – San Agustin Church in Manila is officially completed; it is currently the oldest church in the Philippines
• January 20 – A massive wave sweeps along the Bristol Channel, possibly a tsunami, killing 2,000 people.
• March 10 – Susenyos defeats the combined armies of Yaqob and Abuna Petros II at the Battle of Gol in Gojjam, which makes him Emperor of Ethiopia.
• April 25 – Battle of Gibraltar: A Dutch fleet destroys a Spanish fleet anchored in the Bay of Gibraltar (Battle of Gibraltar).
• April 26 – English colonists make landfall at Cape Henry, Virginia, later moving up the James River to found Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in what is now the United States.
• May 14 – Jamestown, is settled as what would become the first permanent English colony in North America.
• May 15 – Jamestown: Christopher Newport, George Percy, Gabriel Archer, and others travel 6 days exploring along the James River up to the falls and Powhatan's village.
• May 26
  • Jamestown: The president directs the fort to be strengthened and armed against the many attacks of the natives: "Hereupon the President was contented the Fort should be pallisadoed, the ordinance mounted, his men armed and exercised, for many were the assaults and Ambuscadoes of the Savages ..." [John Smith, Proceedings (Barbour 1964)]
  • 200 armed Indians attack the Jamestown settlement, killing 2 and wounding 10.
• May 28 – Jamestown: The Fort is pallisadoed: "we laboured, pallozadoing our fort" [Gabriel Archer (Arber)].
• June 5 – John Hall marries Susanna, daughter of William Shakespeare.
• June 8 – Newton rebellion: The Tresham landowners family kills 40–50 peasants during protests against the enclosure of common land in Newton, Northamptonshire, UK, at the culmination of the Midland Revolt.
• June 10 – Jamestown: Captain John Smith is released from arrest and sworn in as a member of the colony Council.
• June 15 – Jamestown: The triangular fort is completed and armed: "The fifteenth of June we had built and finished our Fort, which was triangle wise, having three Bulwarkes, at every corner, like a halfe Moone, and foure or five pieces of Artillerie mounted in them. We had made our selves sufficiently strong for these Savages. We had also sowne most of our Corne on two Mountaines." [George Percy (Tyler 1952:19)]
• June 22 – Christopher Newport sails back to England.
• June 27 – Jamestown: The colony bears extreme toil in strengthening the fort [from John Smith, Proceedings (Barbour 1964:210)].

July–December

• August 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 a 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 ocean going ship built in the New World, a 30-ton pinnace called The Virginia.
• September 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, and the first by amateurs.
• September 10 – Jamestown President Edward Maria Wingfield is deposed and John Ratcliffe elected.
• September 14 – Flight of the Earls: Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone, and Rory O'Donnell, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell, flee Ireland for Spain with ninety followers to avoid capture by the English crown, never to return.
• December (early) – Captain John Smith of the Jamestown Colony is captured by Opechancanough and then sent to Chief Powhatan for execution; Pocahontas rescues him.

Date unknown

• Spain is effectively bankrupt.
• The rule of Andorra passes jointly to the king of France and the Bishop of Urgell.
• Yaqob is defeated in battle and deposed by his cousin Susenyos, who then becomes Emperor of Ethiopia.
• In the Midland Revolt against Enclosures in England, the term Levellers is first used.
• Missionary Juan Fonte establishes the first Jesuit mission among the Tarahumara, in the Sierra Madre Mountains of Northwest Mexico.

1608

January–June

• January
  • At Jamestown, Virginia, Christopher Newport returns in a ship with the First Supply and about 100 new settlers; he finds only 38 survivors.
  • Powhatan releases Captain John Smith.
• January 7 – Fire destroys "all the houses in the fort" at Jamestown; the fort is repaired in March.
• January 8 – Ensign Thomas Savage arrivies in Jamestown with the First Supply under Christopher Newport.
• January 17 – Emperor Susenyos of Ethiopia defeats an Oromo army at Ebenat; 12,000 Oromo are reportedly killed at a cost of 400 Amhara.
• March 18 – Susenyos is formally crowned Emperor of Ethiopia at the ancient city of Axum.
• April 10 – Jamestown, Virginia: Christopher Newport again sails for England.
• May 14 – The Protestant Union is founded in Auhausen.

July–December

• July 3 – Quebec City is founded by Samuel de Champlain.
• July – The English ship Mary and Margaret, captained by Christopher Newport, leaves England bound for Jamestown, Virginia.^[8]
• August 24 – The first official English representative to India lands at Surat.
• September 10 – John Smith is elected council president of Jamestown, and begins expanding the fort.
• September 21 – The University of Oviedo, Spain is founded.
• October 1 – At Jamestown, a second supply ship, the Mary and Margaret, arrives with Christopher Newport, including 70 settlers, bringing the population back up to 120; the passengers include 8 glassmen.
• October 2 – Dutch lens maker Hans Lippershey demonstrates the first telescope in the Dutch parliament.
• December – Jamestown: Christopher Newport returns to England carrying cargo with "tryals of Pitch, Tarre, Glasse, Frankincense, Sope Ashes ..."

Date unknown

• The first cheques are used in the Netherlands

.

• Old Bushmills Distillery is founded in Bushmills, County Antrim, Ireland.
• Uniform Land-Tax Law is imposed in Korea.
• Five Royal Schools in Ulster are given Royal Charter by King James I

1609

January–June

• January 15 – One of the world's first newspapers, Avisa Relation oder Zeitung, is published in Augsburg, Germany.
• January 31 Bank of Amsterdam established.
• February 4 – The last day of Keichō 慶長 13 (according to the Japanese lunar calendar).
• March 12 – Bermuda becomes an English colony.
• March – Twelve Years' Truce: The Netherlands and Spain agree to a 12-year ceasefire (1609–1621) in the Eighty Years' War.
• April 4 – Felipe III (Philip III), King of Spain, signs an edict to expel of all moriscos from Spain (see September 11).
• April 9 – Spain recognizes Dutch independence.
• May 23 – The Second Charter of Virginia is officially ratified, which is intended to replace the council with a Governor who has absolute control in the colony.

July–December

• July 6 – Bohemia is granted freedom of religion (Letter of Majesty).
• July 23 – Jamestown: A hurricane at sea separates the 9 ships (600 more settlers) en route, one ship sinks, and the ship Sea Venture wrecks at Bermuda.
• July 28 – Bermuda is first settled by survivors of the English Sea Venture, en route to Virginia.
• July 30 – At what is now Crown Point, New York, Samuel de Champlain participates in a battle between the Huron and Iroquois, shooting and killing two Iroquois chiefs; this helps set the tone for French–Iroquois relations for the next 100 years.
• August 25 – Galileo Galilei demonstrates his first telescope to Venetian lawmakers.
• August 28 – Henry Hudson is the first European to see Delaware Bay.
• August – Jamestown: Seven ships arrive at the colony, with 200–300 men, women, and children, reporting that the Sea Venture wrecked near Bermuda.
• September 2 – Henry Hudson enters New York Bay aboard the Halve Maen.
• September 10 – Jamestown: Capt. George Percy replaces Captain John Smith as president of the Council, and Smith returns to England.
• September 11 – Valencia expels all the Moriscos (see April 4).
• September 12 – Henry Hudson discovers the Hudson River aboard the Halve Maen.
• October 12 – "Three Blind Mice" is published by London teenage songwriter Thomas Ravenscroft.

Date unknown

• The greatest witch-hunt in history, the Basque witch trials, is held.
• Samuel de Champlain claims the Lake Champlain area of Vermont for France.
• The Dutch East India Company imports tea to Europe.
• The Japanese Shimazu clan Invades the Ryukyu Islands, making the Ryukyu Kingdom a vassal of Japan.
• Warsaw becomes the capital of Poland.
• The Statutes of Iona are passed, marking the end of the bloody feuds between the clans in the Scottish highlands.
• The Catholic League (German) is formed.
• The Douay-Rheims Bible Old Testament vol. 1 is published.
• The municipality of Buenavista in Marinduque, Philippines was founded.
• The Dutch East India Company establishes a trading post in Hirado, Japan
• Johannes Kepler publishes his first two laws of planetary motion in Astronomia Nova.
• Hugo Grotius publishes Mare liberum.
• Cornelius Drebbel invents the thermostat.

Significant people

Births

Deaths

References