1620
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Contents: political eventsexploration, colonization commerce science literature art crime architecture, real estate food availability |
Spanish forces seize the vital Valtelline Pass communications link between Hapsburg Austria and the Spanish Hapsburg Italian possessions. The Spanish action against the Grisons League precipitates a 19-year conflict between Catholic and Protestant factions in Switzerland.
The Dutch stadholder of Friedland, Groningen, and Drenthe dies at Leeuwarden July 13 at age 60; Willem Louis, count of Nassau, has helped his cousin Maurice, Prince of Orange, and the late Johan van Oldenbarnevelt rule the Dutch Republic since 1588.
Poland's chancellor Stanislaw Zolkiewski dies battling Ottoman forces at Cecora October 6 at age 73 after a career in which he has led troops against Moscow.
A Catholic League army commanded by Flemish field marshal Jan Tsaerclaes (Johan Isaclaes), graf (count) von Tilly, 61, defeats Bohemia's "Winter King" Frederick V November 8 in the Battle of the White Mountain as the Thirty Years' War ends its third year. Karl von Liechtenstein and his brother Maximilian have intervened to help Hapsburg forces defeat the Bohemian rebels (see 1608; 1719), Bohemia loses her independence, and the lands of her native Czech nobility are confiscated wholesale by von Tilly, Maximilian of Bavaria, and the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II.
China's 14th Ming dynasty emperor Wanli (Wan-li) dies at Beijing (Peking) August 18 at age 56 after a reclusive 47-year reign in which he has permitted provincial officials to abuse their power and foreign missionaries to make inroads. Unrest has risen among the peasantry in the northern provinces, where corruption and violence have flourished, making the country vulnerable to invasion by the Manchu (see 1616). Wanli is succeeded by his 15-year-old son Chu Yu-chiao, who will reign until 1627 as the emperor Tianji (T'ien-chi) (but see 1624).
The Mayflower Compact drawn up by English Separatists (the Pilgrims) establishes a form of government based on the will of the colonists rather than on that of the crown (see human rights, 1609). The Pilgrims have found that Cape Cod is outside the jurisdiction of the London Company, and they select Plymouth as the site of a settlement (see exploration, colonization, 1621; exploration, colonization [John Smith], 1615).
The 180-ton vessel Mayflower out of Southampton arrives off Cape Cod November 11 with 100 Pilgrims plus two more born at sea during a 66-day voyage. Led by William Brewster, now 53, the Pilgrims decided 3 years ago to seek a new home in order to preserve their English identity. They have obtained a patent from the 14-year-old London Company to settle in America, embarked in a ship only about 60 feet long and 26 wide. After their arrival, they sleep aboard ship for a few nights and then set to work building clapboard houses with thatched roofs.
The Dutch governor-general Jan Pieterszoon Coen receives word at Batavia (later Jakarta) in March that the Dutch and English trading companies have reached an agreement at London to permit mutual trade in existing settlements without interference and to outfit a joint fleet for protection against common enemies (see 1619). Coen responds by defining the Dutch East India Company's "Jacatra Kingdom" as far as the sea south of Java, blocking any possible English move to claim jurisdiction over Javanese territory (see 1621).
Navigator William Adams falls ill at Hirado and dies May 16 at age 55 (approximate), having taken a Japanese wife and settled permanently with her and their two children, Susanna and Joseph. He leaves half his £400 estate to his wife, Mary, and his daughter Deliverance back home in Kent. A Tokyo street will be named Anjin-cho in his memory.
Baltic trade begins to decline as export staples from the region shift from foodstuffs to timber, metals, and naval stores while imports of western woolens diminish. French trade with the Levant will fall by half in the next 15 years, and Dutch Levantine trade will also languish as the Thirty Years' War reduces supplies of linen from Silesia and Lusatia and generally stifles commerce.
Novum Organum by Sir Francis Bacon, 1st baron Verulam, proposes an inductive method of interpreting nature as opposed to the deductive logic of Aristotle. Bacon insists on observation and experience as the sole source of knowledge (now 59, he advanced his career at age 45 by marrying a 14-year-old heiress).
Mathematician Simon Stevin dies at The Hague in March at age 71 (approximate), having gained a reputation for his versatile ability to combine theory with practice and express his arguments lucidly.
Poet-composer Thomas Campion dies at his native London March 1 at age 53.
Painting: The Water Carrier of Seville Diego Velázquez; St. Louis of France Giving Alms by Luis Tristán.
Vice Admiral Sir Richard Hawkins sails as second in command on an expedition against Algerian pirates (corsairs), but the mission does not succeed.
Amsterdam's Westkurk is completed to designs by Hendrick de Keyser.
Pilgrims crowded aboard the poorly provisioned Mayflower survive on "salt horse" (preserved beef), smoked bacon, smoked codfish, smoked herrings, dried fish, hardtack, brown and white biscuit, moldy cheese, root vegetables, grains, dried peas, and beer, the latter in ironbound casks guarded by cooper John Alden, 21. The English religious separatists observe ducks, geese, and partridges; they come across an Indian cache of maize and beans, find acorns, mussels, clams, lobsters, and herbs that include wild leeks and onions, but they are able to get through the winter largely through the help of the Pemaquid Samoset and the Wampanoags Hobomah and Massasoit, who have learned some English from earlier visitors and share tribal stores of maize, dried strawberries, and walnuts with the new colonists. Still, roughly half will die within 3 months of starvation, scurvy, and disease (see food and drink, 1621).
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