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Contents: political eventshuman rights, social justice exploration, colonization commerce science religion literature art theater, film music food and drink |
The Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II dies at Vienna February 15 at age 57. He is succeeded by his 28-year-old son, who will reign until 1657 as Ferdinand III.
England's Court of Exchequer prosecutes Buckinghamshire squire John Hampden for refusing to pay his share of the ship-duty tax imposed last year (see 1636). He loses his case (seven of the 12 judges rule against him), but he becomes the most popular man in the realm and will have popular support in his cause against the king.
The anarchy that has existed in Laos since the death of Setthathirath I in 1571 ends as Souligna Vongsa ascends the throne, restores order, and begins a reign that will continue until his own death in 1694.
Korea becomes a vassal state of the Chinese Manchus after an invasion led by Dai Zong, but the Korean court and people remain loyal to the Ming.
The Dutch move to assure themselves of African slaves for their sugar estates in the New World. Dutch forces take Elmina from the Portuguese and build forts along the Gold Coast.
A French expedition ascends the Senegal River for 100 miles and establishes posts.
The Swedish queen Kristina charters the New Sweden Company to colonize the New World. Dutch colonists Peter Minuit and Samuel Blommaert have encouraged the queen's advisers (see 1638).
Massachusetts colonists have their first hostile encounter with the Pequot. A force of 240 militiamen, 1,000 Narragansett, and 70 Mohegan destroys a stockaded fort at Mystic, burning the town and slaughtering as many as 600 inhabitants. A relatively small tribe (their name means "people of the shallow water"), the Pequot have lived in about 250 square miles on Long Island Sound. Survivors of the massacre are parceled out to other tribes, with those given to the Mohegans becoming, eventually, the Mashuntucket Pequot of Connecticut (see 1675).
The Dutch West India Company dismisses its New Netherland director general Wouter van Twiller and replaces him with Willem Kieft. Van Twiller has fired the public prosecutor Lubertus van Dincklagen and sent him back to Amsterdam without giving him the 3 years' pay that was owed to him. Van Dincklagen has complained to the Company about the director general's corruption, the Company sends him back to New Netherland as assistant director, and it will take back much of the land that van Twiller has acquired. Van Twiller remains in New Netherland, where he enjoys his status as the richest citizen.
Russian pioneers reach the Pacific after a quick journey across all of Siberia (see 1579; 1689).
Dutch tulip prices multiply 20-fold in January, with transactions taking place not on any organized exchange but basically through tavern betting pools (see 1636). Government authorities float a proposal that would allow a buyer to avoid early execution of certain contracts by paying 10 percent of the sales price to the seller. New supplies of bulbs flood the market, doubts arise that prices will continue to rise, and prices collapse on the first Tuesday of February after years of speculation. Hundreds who have been caught up in the "tulipmania" (tulpenwoede) are ruined as the bottom falls out of the market, and prices fall to a few cents per bulb, their intrinsic value, down from the equivalent of thousands and even tens of thousands of dollars. Courts do not consider the bets to be legal contracts and refuse to enforce them. But the end of the tulip "bubble" does not produce any economic downturn or slowdown: money that should have been spent on more productive purposes has gone into speculation on tulip bulbs, so the end of tulipmania will ultimately have a salutary effect on the Dutch economy.
Discours de la Mèthode by René Descartes lays the foundation for mathematical geometry, reducing everything to numbers and establishing the "Cartesian" principle of basing metaphysical demonstrations on mathematical certitude rather than on scholastic subtleties (see 1619; 1632). The proper guide to reason, says Descartes, is to doubt everything systematically until one arrives at clear, simple ideas that are beyond doubt. He rejects any doubt of his own existence by saying, "Cogito, ergo sum" ("I think, therefore I am").
Edinburgh has riots June 23 when clergymen at St. Giles' Cathedral attempt to read the Anglican liturgy on orders from Charles I. Many Scottish Presbyterians regard episcopacy as popery and organize to resist it (see 1638).
Anglican clergyman Nicholas Ferrar dies at Little Gidding, near Huntingdon, December 4 at age 45. The community that he started 11 years ago will continue to observe the "rule of Little Gidding" until 1657.
Japanese peasants on Kyushu's Shimabara peninsula rise against the shōgun Iemitsu Tokugawa. Their daimyo (feudal lord) Arima has been baptized, and many of them have embraced Christianity, but the shōgun begins a siege in December to force their submission (see 1638).
Nonfiction: Universal Harmony (Harmonie universelle) by philosopher-clergyman-mathematician Marin Mersenne.
Fiction: Novelas Amorosas y Exemplares (ten short prose narratives) by Spanish novelist María de Zayas y Sofomayor, 36, gain wide readership with its stories of horror and melodrama, each with a happy ending.
Poetry: Comus by John Milton (quarto of 35 pages); "Lycidas" by Milton, who memorializes his friend Edward King, lost with all hands when his ship bound for Ireland out of Chester struck a rock in clear weather August 10 and foundered: "Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise/ (That last infirmity of noble mind)" (lines 70, 71); "Aglaura" by English Cavalier poet John Suckling, 28, who has invented the game of cribbage, served under Sweden's late Gustav II Adolf, and retired 2 years ago to the large Norfolk estates that he inherited from his father at age 18: "Why so pale and wan, fond lover," writes Suckling, whose poem "A Session of the Poets" describes his contemporaries.
Poet-author-playwright Gervase Markham dies at London February 3 at age 68 (approximate).
Painting: Five Children of Charles I, Charles I in Three Positions, and Cupid and Psyche by Sir Anthony Van Dyck; The Horrors of War by Peter Paul Rubens; The Triumph of Neptune and Amphètre by Nicolas Poussin; Still Life with Grapes and Vine Leaves by Louise Mouillon. Japanese calligrapher and lacquerware potter Koetsu Honami dies at age 59 after a brilliant career in which he has been supported by the shōgun Iemitsu Tokugawa.
Theater: No Jealousy Without Cause, or The Servant Master (Donde hay agravios ho hay celos, o El amo criado) by Francisco de Rojas Zorilla 1/29 at Madrid's El Pardo; The Most Proper Execution for the Most Just Vengeance (El más impropio verdugo para la más justa verganza) by Zorilla 2/2 at Madrid's Coliseo de Buen Retiro.
Masque: Britannica Triumphant by William Davenant, whose work is suppressed because he arranged to have it performed on a Sunday.
Playwright-poet Ben Jonson dies at London August 6 at age 65 and is buried in Westminster Abbey. William Davenant ingratiates himself with the court and succeeds Jonson as poet laureate.
Venice's Teatro di San Cassiano opens early in the year to give the city its first opera house with seats for the general public. The Tron family has financed the house, and it will lead to other such venues that make opera available to virtually everyone where heretofore it has provided entertainment only for royalty and the nobility (see 1649).
An Oxford scholar from Crete at Balliol College makes himself a cup of strong coffee and offers some to his friends (see 1601). The scholar, a man named Canopius, finds that many who taste it enjoy the brew (see coffee house, 1650).
The Gekkeikan brewery opened at the town of Fushimi outside Kyoto by Jiemon Okura will grow to be the nation's largest sake producer. The imperial family will make the company its official sake supplier, and the Okura family will continue into the 21st century, eventually producing more than 170 products for export to more than 60 countries.
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