1636

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political events

Gaspar de Guzmán, conde-duque de Olivares, invades northwestern France in a desperate gamble to defeat the French and restore Spanish power. His soldiers burn villages in Beauvaise and Picardy, plunder crops, and force peasants to flee with food, livestock, and belongings. Basque seaports are ravaged, but the French win a narrow victory at Corbie, forcing Spain into a war of attrition that will drain her for 23 years.

The Battle of Wittstock 58 miles northwest of Berlin October 4 pits a 15,000-man Swedish army against a 20,000-man army of Imperial, Saxon, and Bavarian troops with 33 guns. The Lutheran prince Johann George, elector of Saxony, heads the defensive alliance that is trying to cut the Swedes off from the Baltic, but Swedish field marshal Count Johann Banér, 38, lures the complacent enemy out of his entrenched position with a feigned frontal attack while his two Scottish officers, Alexander Leslie and James King, come around from the rear and flank to surprise the Imperialist army, whose soldiers flee in disorder, losing 5,000 killed and wounded along with all of their artillery pieces. The Swedes lose 3,000 killed and wounded, but their morale is restored.

Charles I extends to all of England a ship-money tax levied 2 years ago only on coastal towns; Buckinghamshire squire John Hampden, now 42, defies the order (see 1637)

Persia's Shah Safi retakes Erivan in the spring and signs a treaty with Constantinople setting western borders that will remain substantially unchanged for more than 2 centuries.

The Manchus who invaded Korea in 1627 take Seoul and force the Korean king to surrender unconditionally.

The Manchus at Mukden set up a civilian administration modeled on that of their Chinese neighbors to the south and proclaim an imperial Da Qing dynasty (see 1620; 1644).

The Japanese shōgun Iemitsu Tokugawa forbids his people to travel abroad (see 1623; 1639).

exploration, colonization

Dutch West India Company forces in the Caribbean occupy the island of Aruba (see Curaçao, 1634).

Providence is founded at the head of Narragansett Bay by English clergyman Roger Williams, 33, who was banished by the Massachusetts Great and General Court last year for his outspoken criticism of what he called the intolerant Puritans' "abuse of power." He favored a separation of church and state, the court wanted him shipped home to England, Governor John Winthrop suggested that he simply relocate to Narragansett Bay, and he has sought a place where "persons of distressed conscience" could go. Williams selects the name in gratitude for "God's merciful providence" that the Narragansett have granted him title to the site (see Providence Plantations, 1644).

Springfield, Massachusetts, is founded by colonists who follow William Pynchon west to take advantage of the abundant pasturage in the area. Springfield will become an important meat-packing center.

Hartford, Connecticut, is founded by Massachusetts colonists who have traveled overland from New Towne with English-born Puritan clergyman Thomas Hooker, now 50 (see 1635; politics, 1638).

The town of Haarlem is founded by Dutch colonists on Manhattan Island.

commerce

A Dutch merchant serves a sailor a small breakfast of herring; while his back is turned, the sailor by some accounts spies what he thinks is an onion, he eats it in a few quick gulps, and the merchant finds that he has lost a tulip bulb so valuable that its sale would have yielded enough money to outfit and man a substantial ship (see 1634; 1637).

medicine

Another epidemic of the Black Death strikes London (see 1625; 1665).

Physician Santorio Santorius dies at Venice February 22 at age 74, having introduced quantitative experimental procedure into medical research.

education

The University of Utrecht has its beginnings in a school opened in the Dutch city. It will become a great center of European learning.

Harvard College has its beginnings in a seminary founded October 28 by the 36 men of the Great and General Court of Massachusetts. Salem magistrates last year persuaded Puritan colonist John Humfrey to relinquish his interest in 300 acres of land, and the Court agrees "to give 400£ towards a schoale or colledge, whearof 200£ to bee paid the next yeare, and 200£ when the work is finished, and the Court to appoint wheare and what building." The sum of £400 represents one-third of Salem's town revenue for the year (see 1638).

art

Painting: Prince Baltasar Carlos as Huntsman by Diego Velázquez; Danae and The Blinding of Samson by Rembrandt van Rijn, whose etchings The Woman on the Mound and Diana at Her Bath are published; Feast of Venus, Landscape with Het Steen, and Landscape with a Rainbow by Peter Paul Rubens. Dutch still-life painter Jan Davidsz de Heem, 30, moves to Antwerp because "there one could have rare fruits of all kinds, large plums, peaches, cherries, oranges, lemons, grapes and others, in finer condition and state of ripeness to draw from life."

theater, film

Theater: The Comic Illusion (L'illusion comique) by Pierre Corneille in January at the Théâtre du Marais, Paris; Le Cid by Pierre Corneille, with Montdory in the role of Rodriguez.

Masque: Love's Mistress by Thomas Heywood, whose entertainment is attended by Charles I and Queen Henrietta three times in 8 days.

music

Requiem: Musikalische Exequien by Heinrich Schütz is the first German requiem.

agriculture

A Dutch planter introduces sugar cane from Brazil into the West Indian island of Barbados, whose English settlers have been cultivating cotton, ginger, indigo, and tobacco for export while growing beans, plantains, and other food for their own consumption. Sugar will become the chief crop of Barbados and of all the Caribbean islands (see 1627).

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