1654

1651 1652 1653 1654 1655 1656 1657 1658 1659 1660

political events

The Treaty of Westminster April 6 ends the Anglo-Dutch War that started in 1652. Represented by their councillor pensionary Johan de Witt, the Dutch agree to recognize the English Navigation Act of 1651 and to pay an indemnity. They agree to join England in a defensive league, and Witt agrees secretly to exclude members of the house of Orange from the stadholdership in deference to Oliver Cromwell's anxieties over the marriage of Mary, daughter of England's late Charles I, to Willem III of Orange. Cromwell sends Sussex-born mathematician John Pell, 44, to Switzerland in an effort to persuade Swiss Protestants to join a Continental Protestant league against the English crown.

Sweden's queen Kristina abdicates June 6 after a 22-year reign in which she has sold or mortgaged vast amounts of crown property to support the 17 counts, 46 barons, and 428 lesser nobles that she has created. A critic said of her last year, "There is nothing feminine about her save her sex. Her voice, her manner of speaking, her gait, her mien, and her manners are those of a male," but Axel Oxenstierna, Chancellor of the Regents, has said, "Her Majesty is a credit to her sex and age; God knows, how it rejoices me to see that she is NOT womanly, but of good heart and deep understanding. Despite her sex there is nothing feminine about her. Her voice is that of a man and likewise her manner of speech, her movements and gestures . . . although she rides sidesaddle, she sways and bends her body in such a way that, unless one sees her from close quarters, it is easy to take her for a man." With few exceptions, Kristina has avoided the company of women. Dressed in male attire and traveling under the name Count Dohna, she leaves Stockholm, is received into the Catholic Church at Innsbruck, and rides into Rome on horseback, clad in the costume of an Amazon. Kristina is succeeded by a 32-year-old cousin who will reign until 1660 as Karl X Gustav.

Oliver Cromwell quarrels with Parliament September 3 and 9 days later orders the exclusion of hostile members.

The Ukrainian Cossack Bogdan Chmielnicki swears allegiance to Russia's Aleksis I Mikhailovichin in January and gives up the Ukraine's aspirations to independence (see 1651). Russian troops seize Smolensk, beginning a 13-year war over the Ukraine between Russia and Poland. The war will bring the Russians into contact for the first time with the Ottoman Turks in the Balkans (see Chmielnicki, 1657).

The Ottoman Empire has its fourth Celali (Jelali) Revolt in Anatolia. The uprising will be suppressed next year, and a final such revolt will last only from 1658 to 1659, although Jelalis will continue depredations from time to time in this century and the next as a provincial protest against the power of the Janissaries.

Portugal recovers the Brazilian territory taken by the Dutch in 1635.

exploration, colonization

Jesuit missionary Simon Le Moyne visits the area in upper New Netherlands that will later be the site of Syracuse (see Webster, 1786). He finds salt deposits that will be important to the development of the area.

science

Physicist Otto von Guericke uses the air pump he invented 4 years ago to stage a demonstration for the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III at Regensburg. Placing two copper bowls together to form a hollow sphere about 35½ centimeters (14 inches) in diameter, he removes the air from the sphere and shows that the resulting air pressure is so strong that horses cannot pull the bowls apart (see electric generator, 1663).

De Circuli Magnitudine Inventa by Dutch mathematician-astronomer-physicist Christiaan Huygens, 25, attracts widespread attention.

medicine

The Black Death strikes eastern Europe (see Amsterdam, 1663).

religion

Rabbi-scholar Yom Tov Lipmann Heller dies at Kraków September 7 at age 75 (approximate); anti-Catholic religious zealot John Bastwick in late September or early October at age 61.

literature

Legal antiquarian John Selden dies at London November 30 at age 69.

art

Painting: The Infanta Margarita in a Pink Dress by Diego Velázquez; Jan Stix and Bathsheba with the Letter of David by Rembrandt van Rijn; Parental Admonition by Geraert Terborch. Rembrandt's prize pupil Carel Fabritius is killed October 12 at age 32 in an explosion at the Delft arsenal.

theater, film

Theater: Spite for Spite (or Scorn for Scorn, El desdén con el desdén) by Madrid-born playwright Agustin Moreto (y Cabaña), 36, at Madrid. Moreto's plays have been popular since he was 23 and rival in popularity those of the late Lope de Vega, who was far more talented.

architecture, real estate

Architect Jacques Le Mercier dies at Paris June 4 at age 68 (approximate), having begun work on the Saint-Roch Church.

agriculture

Sugar cane is planted in Martinique by a party of 250 Dutch Jews who have been banished from Brazil by the Portuguese (see exploration, colonization [Bélain], 1635). The Caribbean island has been producing cotton and indigo but will soon be a major sugar producer (see cacao, 1660).

1651 1652 1653 1654 1655 1656 1657 1658 1659 1660

Earth science

Irish scholar James Ussher [b. Dublin, Ireland, 1580, d. England, 1656], archbishop of Armagh, publishes his Annales veteris et Novi Testamenti, a work on biblical chronology that dates the Creation to 4004 bce. This date will not be refuted until various lines of evidence in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries become available. See also 1907 Earth science.

Blaise Pascal and Pierre de Fermat exchange letters about the basic laws of probability. They solve a problem of how to divide correctly the stakes in an interrupted game of dice. The problem, proposed to Pascal by the Chevalier de Mèrè, is first known from Fra Luca Pacioli (1494). It had been subsequently studied by Cardano and Tartaglia.

Pascal's Traité du triangle arithméque, not published until 1665, contains his discoveries relating to the binomial coefficients, including what has come to be known as Pascal's triangle, although the triangle was known to many others previously, including Omar Khayyam. See also 1527 Mathematics.

Francis Glisson's Anatomia hepatis gives a detailed anatomical description of the liver.

The Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand II [b. (Italy), July 14, 1610, d. May 24, 1670] invents a thermometer that uses liquid in a glass tube that has one end sealed; this is a slight improvement on Galileo's thermoscope; improvements on this basic design by Fahrenheit about 60 years later will result in the modern thermometer. See also 1592 Tools; 1709 Tools.

Nonfiction

• Edward Johnson (1598-1672): A History of New-England. Better known by its subtitle, The Wonder-Working Providence of Sions Saviour in New England, this first detailed history of the New England colonial experience by the Massachusetts colonist and captain of militia in Boston covers the period 1628 to 1652 and depicts the colonists as spiritual crusaders. Johnson's vigorous prose is interspersed with verse tributes to contemporary figures and events.

Sermons and Religious Writing

• John Eliot: A Primer or Catechism in the Massachusetts Indian Language. Eliot produces the first Indian-language catechism. No copy has survived.
• John Norton: The Orthodox Evangelist. Norton's most famous work is an important theological treatise endorsed by John Cotton, who had provided a prefatory epistle.

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