1651 1652 1653 1654 1655 1656 1657 1658 1659 1660
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England and Spain go to war (see Jamaica, 1655). The English capture some Spanish treasure ships off Cádiz September 9 (see 1657).
Oliver Cromwell's Third Parliament convenes September 17. England has had no Parliament since January of last year, and Cromwell's son-in-law Charles Fleetwood has helped him govern the realm, resisting efforts to make Cromwell king.
Russian forces seize the Swedish fortresses of Dinaburg and Kokengausen on the Zapadnaya Dvina, renaming the latter fortress Czarevich-Dmitriev; hostilities will continue until 1660 (see 1661). The Swedish army of Karl X Gustav defeats the Poles in the 3-day Battle of Warsaw July 29 to 31 in the First Northern War, whereupon Russia, Denmark, and the Holy Roman Empire declare war on Sweden, whose ally Brandenburg deserts her. The Transylvanian prince György Rákóczi II has joined Karl Gustav in hopes of deposing Poland's Jan II Casimir and being elected Polish king; his defiance of the Ottoman Turks who hold sovereignty over Transylvania results in an order to some other Ottoman vassals, the Crimean Tatars, to drive Rákóczi's forces out of Poland (see 1657). Poland recognizes the sovereignty of the Elector of Brandenburg over East Prussia.
Portugal's João IV dies at Lisbon November 6 at age 53 after a reign of nearly 16 years. Having regained the nation's independence after 60 years of Spanish rule, he is succeeded by his 13-year-old son, who has been paralyzed since age 3 but will reign until 1667 as Afonso VI, the second Braganza (Bragança) king (his mother will serve as regent until 1662).
Dutch forces take the Sinhalese port of Colombo from the Portuguese.
New Providence in the Bahamas is settled by a group of Bermudans unrelated to the group that came with William Sayle in 1648 (see 1663).
Massachusetts colonist Miles Standish dies at Duxbury October 3 at age 72.
Dutch East India Company shares plummet on the Amsterdam Exchange and many investors are ruined. Among them is painter Rembrandt van Rijn, now 50, who is declared bankrupt and whose possessions are put up for sale.
The Dutch in Ceylon make cinnamon a state monopoly but will not have complete control of the island's cinnamon until 1658. When prices fall too low, the Dutch will burn great quantities of the bark, and they will destroy groves of clove and nutmeg trees in the Moluccas, creating artificial scarcities that will force prices up, enriching the Dutch East India Company.
Christiaan Huygens revolutionizes clockmaking with an instrument regulated by a pendulum (see Galileo, 1640). Now 27, he has adopted an idea proposed to him by the late Marin Mersenne, applying a concept that occurred to the late Galileo Galilei in 1583 while watching a lamp swinging from a long chain in Pisa Cathedral (see Clement, 1670).
Dutch mathematician Johan van Waveren Hudde, 28, anticipates the power-series for ln (1 + x) and next year will do pioneering work on the use of space coordinates. Hudde promotes Cartesian geometry and philosophy in Holland; his discoveries (they will be called Hudde's rules) will presage the use of algorithms to solve problems of calculus (see Newton, 1666).
Olof Rudbeck returns to Uppsala after studying at Leyden, is appointed professor of anatomy, and builds an anatomical theater where he performs dissections on human bodies, scorning criticism of the practice that is new to Uppsala (see 1653).
English physician Thomas Wharton, 42, describes the anatomy of glands. He has discovered the duct (Wharton's duct) from the submaxillary gland to the mouth.
The Hôpital Général opens at Paris. It is a combination hospital, poorhouse, and factory.
The Amsterdam synagogue excommunicates rabbinical student Baruch de Spinoza, 24, in July for views the elders consider heretical. Spinoza turns to grinding lenses in order to support himself (see 1670).
Bishop James Ussher dies at Reigate, Surrey, March 21 at age 75; Bishop Joseph Hall at Higham, Norfolk September 8 at age 82.
Nonfiction: The Common-wealth of Oceana by English political theorist James Harrington, 45, whose romance is intended as a reply to Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan of 1651. Restating Aristotle's theory of constitutional stability and revolution, Harrington says a government is certain to reflect a social system in which the bulk of the land is owned by the gentry rather than by the king and the Church as in ages past. He favors dividing the country into landholdings of a specified maximum value, having a legislature that holds a referendum on each proposed law, and a complex rotation scheme for public officials: "The law is but words and paper without the hands and swords of men," writes Harrington, but he will be credited with saying that the ideal form of government is "an empire of laws and not of men." Agents of the lord protector Oliver Cromwell seize copies of Harrington's book from the printer (it requires intervention by Cromwell's daughter Elizabeth [Mrs. John Claypoole] to have them released).
Poetry: The Miscellanies by Abraham Cowley, who has returned to England and is studying medicine at Oxford.
Painting: The Maids of Honor (Las Meninas) by Diego Velázquez, who depicts the family of Spain's Felipe IV; The Procuress (The Matchmaker) by Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer, 23. Gerrit van Honthorst dies at Utrecht April 27 at age 65; Jan van Goyen at The Hague April 27 at age 60.
London stage manager William Davenant opens a theater of sorts May 21 at Rutland House in Charterhouse Yard, having obtained permission with help from influential friends to stage what he calls "operas" to get around the Puritan Parliament's ban on theatrical performances. His opening piece is a dialogue that defends the drama in abstract terms.
The Corsa al Palio held at the Italian city of Siena begins an annual July-August horse race event that will pit competitors from each of the city's contrades against each other.
London has 1,156 taverns (pubs) that serve as gathering places for the city's men.
1651 1652 1653 1654 1655 1656 1657 1658 1659 1660
Astronomy
Christiaan Huygens discovers that the odd "handles" Galileo had seen on Saturn are really rings; he also discovers Saturn's largest satellite, Titan, and observes dark patches in the Orion Nebula, for which he is often credited with the discovery of the nebula, although it had been observed at least twice before. See also 1619 Astronomy. (See biography.)
MathematicsJohn Wallis refers to mathematical induction as reasoning per modum inductionis, the first step toward naming the still new method of proof. See also 1575 Mathematics.
As part of his development of the pendulum clock, Christiaan Huygens discovers that the involute of a cycloid is a cycloid and that the cycloid is the curve required to make a pendulum strictly regular at all amplitudes. The involute of a curve is a second curve related to the first, based on the curvatures of the two curves.
Medicine & healthAdenographia, or a Description of the Glands of the Whole of the Body by Thomas Wharton [b. Winston-on-Tees, England, August 31, 1614, d. London, November 15, 1673] includes the first description of the submaxillary gland.
ToolsChristiaan Huygens develops a form of pendulum clock based on the cycloid. The cycloid is a curve that, when used to control a pendulum on a string, adjusts the beat precisely as the amplitude changes so that it remains the same; otherwise, the beat is only approximately steady. Despite the theoretical advantages of using a cycloid as a control, simpler forms of the pendulum clock will prove to be more practical. See also 1641 Tools; 1673 Tools.
Essays and Philosophy
| Millennium: | 2nd millennium |
|---|---|
| Centuries: | 16th century – 17th century – 18th century |
| Decades: | 1620s 1630s 1640s – 1650s – 1660s 1670s 1680s |
| Years: | 1653 1654 1655 – 1656 – 1657 1658 1659 |
| 1656 by topic: | |
| Arts and Science | |
| Architecture - Art - Literature - Music - Science | |
| Lists of leaders | |
| Colonial governors - State leaders | |
| Birth and death categories | |
| Births - Deaths | |
| Establishments and disestablishments categories | |
| Establishments - Disestablishments | |
| Works category | |
| Works | |
| Gregorian calendar | 1656 MDCLVI |
| Ab urbe condita | 2409 |
| Armenian calendar | 1105 ԹՎ ՌՃԵ |
| Assyrian calendar | 6406 |
| Bahá'í calendar | -188–-187 |
| Bengali calendar | 1063 |
| Berber calendar | 2606 |
| English Regnal year | 7 Cha. 2 – 8 Cha. 2 (Interregnum) |
| Buddhist calendar | 2200 |
| Burmese calendar | 1018 |
| Byzantine calendar | 7164–7165 |
| Chinese calendar | 乙未年十二月初五日 (4292/4352-12-5) — to —
丙申年十一月十六日(4293/4353-11-16) |
| Coptic calendar | 1372–1373 |
| Ethiopian calendar | 1648–1649 |
| Hebrew calendar | 5416–5417 |
| Hindu calendars | |
| - Vikram Samvat | 1712–1713 |
| - Shaka Samvat | 1578–1579 |
| - Kali Yuga | 4757–4758 |
| Holocene calendar | 11656 |
| Iranian calendar | 1034–1035 |
| Islamic calendar | 1066–1067 |
| Japanese calendar | Meireki 2 (明暦2年) |
| Korean calendar | 3989 |
| Minguo calendar | 256 before ROC 民前256年 |
| Thai solar calendar | 2199 |
| Wikimedia Commons has media related to: 1656 |
Year 1656 (MDCLVI) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Tuesday of the 10-day slower Julian calendar.
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