1639
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The Scots seize Edinburgh Castle and raise an army for what will be remembered as the first Bishops' War, but they make peace June 18 with England's Charles I, who has marched to meet them near Berwick, accompanied with some reluctance by William Fiennes, 1st viscount Saye and Sele, who refuses to take the oath binding peers to fight for the king. No military engagement takes place, but a new Scottish parliament assembled after the armies have disbanded is intractable in its Presbyterian opposition to English episcopacy (see 1640).
Swedish forces capture Austrian soldier Raimondo Monecuccoli, 30, who joined the Hapsburg army at age 16 and has distinguished himself at Breitenfeld in 1631, Lützen in 1632, Nördlingen in 1634, and Wittstock in 1636. He will remain a prisoner until 1642, putting the time to good use by completing his education, with special attention to war studies, and will begin writing about strategy and tactics.
Bernhard, duke of Saxe-Weimar, dies at Breisach July 18 at age 35, having exhausted himself in his efforts to support the Protestant side in the Thirty Years' War.
The Swiss leave their Alpine passes open for use by Spanish troops under terms of a September 3 treaty.
A Spanish armada of 45 warships and 30 merchant vessels catches the attention of Dutch admiral general Maarten (Harpertszoon) Tromp, 41, off Beachy Head September 15. Commanded by Admiral Antonio de Oquendo and other experienced captains, the fleet is transporting some 13,000 recruits to Flanders; Tromp has only 13 ships, but five more Dutch vessels arrive the next day, and he decides to take on the Spaniards. Captured by an English pirate 30 years ago, Tromp was taken by Mediterranean pirates in 1621, commanded the Dutch flagship against pirates from Ostend in 1629, has defeated a fleet of Dunkirk privateers in February, and battles the Spanish armada for 6 hours before the Spaniards withdraw, their overcrowded ships having suffered many casualties. Reinforced by a squadron from Zeeland, Tromp attacks again October 21 and administers a crushing defeat in the Battle of the Downs. Pirates out of Dunkirk continue to prey on Dutch merchantmen, and Admiral Tromp will devote the next few years to dealing with them.
The former Ottoman sultan Mustapha I is strangled in June. The Divan convokes a special session and issues a fatwa establishing that hereafter the successor to a sultan shall be his oldest male relative—uncle, brother, or nephew—and not the eldest son.
The Ottoman Empire and Persia's Safavid regime divide Kurdistan between them, but Kurdish chieftains have much earlier adopted a policy of aligning themselves with whatever major power prevails. Kurds will enjoy considerable autonomy provided that they pay their taxes and provide fighting men for their political overlords.
The Connecticut General Court promulgates Fundamental Orders that will be recognized by some as the first written constitution in America. Neither wholly democratic nor entirely antitheocratic, it embodies many of the ideas of Hartford clergyman Thomas Hooker and is an advance over general Puritan thinking.
A papal bull issued April 22 by Pope Urban VIII prohibits the enslavement of Indians in Brazil, Paraguay, or the West Indies but says nothing about enslaving Africans.
Madras is founded by officers of the East India Company, who sail along the Bay of Bengal, land on the southeastern coast of India, and build Fort St. George, a fortified warehouse that will serve as the base for English recruitment of native armies with whose help the Company will make inroads into the interior of the subcontinent, enabling it to reap huge profits.
A new canal links France's Loire and Seine Rivers (see 1603; 1681).
English clergyman-astronomer Jeremiah Horrocks, 22, makes the first recorded observation of the transit of Venus November 24 (Julian calendar) at Hoole, Lancashire, using a telescope that focused the image of the sun onto a piece of card while the planet moves across the face of the sun. A poor farmer's son, Horrocks (or Horrox) has studied briefly at Cambridge, applied the laws of planetary motion devised by the late Johann Kepler, and predicted the planet's transit, a phenomenon that Kepler overlooked.
The Japanese shōgun Iemitsu Tokugawa finds that some Christian missionaries have remained despite last year's expulsion order (see 1638). He expels Portuguese traders from Japan on suspicion of complicity in the Shimabara uprising (which was actually supported by a Dutch vessel), orders the massacre of any Portuguese who have not fled, closes Japanese ports to all foreigners except for some Chinese and Dutch merchants at Nagasaki, and prohibits construction of large ships that might carry people abroad (the policy of isolation from world commerce will be continued for more than 200 years). Iemitsu also orders that any farmer who does not pay his taxes be hanged as if he were a Christian (many cannot pay because poor crops have produced famine) (see 1641).
Mongolia's Da Khure Monastery is completed for the high priest of the country's Buddhist high priest (bodgo-gegen) at what will become the city of Ulan Bator. The monastery is situated at an elevation of 4,430 feet on a windswept plateau that has served until now as a seasonal residence for migratory princes (see religion, 1650).
The Whole Book of Psalms Faithfully Translated into English Metre (The Bay Psalm Book), published by English-born printer Stephen Day, 47, is the first book to be printed and bound in New England. Day has set up a printshop at Cambridge with encouragement from the Massachusetts Bay colony government, and his book will be republished in frequent editions until late in the 18th century.
Philosopher Tommaso Campanella dies at Paris May 21 at age 70. Released from his prison cell in 1626, he fled to France 5 years ago after the discovery of a new anti-Spanish plot at Naples and received a warm welcome from Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu.
Poetry: Paroemiologia by English-born Baptist clergyman-physician John Clarke, 30, contains the verse, "Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." Clarke helped to found Providence at the head of Narragansett Bay, and his verse will be widely credited a century hence to Benjamin Franklin, as will his line, "He that will not be counseled cannot be helped."
Poet and literary theorist Martin Opitz (von Boberfeld) dies at Danzig (Gdansk) August 30 at age 41.
Painting: The ceiling of Rome's Barberini Palace is covered with a gigantic fresco of clouds and swirling figures by Italian painter-architect Pietro da Cortona (Pietro Berretini), 42, who has been working on the project for six years; The Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew by Jusepe de Ribera.
London's Drury Lane Theatre opens under the direction of poet-playwright William Davenant, who will gain his greatest fame as a stage manager (but see politics, 1642).
Felipe IV completes Madrid's 353-acre Parque del Retiro.
"Smithfield" hams shipped to England from the Virginia colony fetch good prices at London's Smithfield Market, whose premises are taken over by the city after 516 years and reorganized as a market for live cattle.
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