1686
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Contents: political eventshuman rights, social justice commerce science religion education literature theater, film music food and drink |
Ottoman troops lay siege to the Hungarian city of Buda, across the river from Pesth, and tunnel under Buda's walls, planning to take the city by surprise. Austrian troops liberate Buda July 8 from the Turks, who have controlled the city since 1541, but the pashas have left it a ruin, its treasures destroyed or stolen. Moscow concludes a treaty of "eternal" peace (the Peace of Grzymultowski) with Poland's Jan III Sobieski, ceding Kiev permanently to the Poles, and declares war on Constantinople.
The League of Augsburg created July 9 opposes France's Louis XIV, allying the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I, Spain's Carlos II, Sweden's Karl XI, and the electors of Bavaria, Saxony, and the Palatine. Last year's revocation of the Edict of Nantes has aroused Protestants against France (see 1688).
The Great Condé (Louis II de Bourbon, 4th prince de Condé) dies at Fontainebleau December 11 at age 65, having courageously protected Protestants who were persecuted after last year's revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
France annexes Madagascar.
The state of Cayor on Africa's west coast loses its Baol tributary (see 1556), but troops of the Wolof empire will soon invade Cayor, many of whose tribespeople will flee to Baol. Rulers of Baol will successfully resist European efforts to conquer them until the French occupy their territory in the middle of the 19th century.
The Mughal emperor Aurangzeb captures Bijapur, ending the Adil Shahi dynasty that has ruled since 1489 and has fiercely resisted the southward advance of the Mughal armies.
The English East India Company begins to impose its will by force after 80 years of trying to cement relations with the rulers of India. Company official Job Charnock moves his factory from the besieged town of Hooghly to an island at the mouth of the Ganges and begins a pattern of company rule that will continue until 1858 (see exploration, colonization [Calcutta], 1690).
The Dominion of New England is created by the consolidation of English colonies under the administration of New York governor Sir Edmund Andros, 49. He arrives at Boston December 20 and assumes control of the government of Plymouth and Rhode Island (see King William's War, 1689).
French military strategist Pierre Chevalier de Troyes leaves Montreal March 30 with a detachment of 100 men, five officers, and a chaplain in birch-bark canoes with orders to seize and occupy the English fort at Moose Factory on James Bay. Not all of his men are trained soldiers, but de Troyes overruns the fort June 21, captures three other forts (Monsoni, Rupert, and Quichicouaneand), heads for home August 19, and reaches Montreal in late October, having lost only three men in battle.
Pope Innocent XI issues a bull March 20 condemning the extension of slavery.
Robert Livingston creates a manor out of his American landholdings, which ultimately will embrace 160,000 acres (see 1679; Louisiana Purchase, 1803).
"A New Method for Maxima and Minima as Well as Tangents, Which is Impeded Neither by Fractional nor by Irrational Quantities, and a Remarkable Type of Calculus for This" ("Nova Methodus pro Maximis et Minimis, Itemque Tangentibus, qua nec Fractas nec Irrationalales Quantitates Moratur, et Singular pro illi Calculi Genus") by Gottfried W. Leibniz is published in the Acta Eruditorum, reporting the mathematician's research on differential calculus and illustrating it with examples (see 1671). Leibniz will publish a follow-up paper in 1686, stressing the power of his calculus to investigate transcendental curves, which the late René Descartes regarded as "mechanical" objects that could not be analyzed.
Physicist Otto von Guericke dies at Hamburg May 11 at age 83, having predicted that comets will return on a regular basis from outer space; geologist-theologian Nicolaus Steno dies at Schwerin November 26 at age 48.
England readmits Roman Catholics to the army.
England's first convent school for girls is publicly recognized at York, where it has opened along lines established by Mary Ward in 1642.
The school for young ladies that opens August 1 at Saint-Cyr on the outskirts of Versailles is France's first state-supported school. Louis XIV bought the property for 3 million francs 2 years ago as a gift for his second wife, Françoise d'Aubigné, Mme. de Maintenon, 50, who was governess to his children before becoming his mistress. She began founding small boarding schools for girls in 1680 but has been told by the king that her new one must not be a convent because France needs more good mothers, not more nuns. Its 250 students, aged 7 to 12, have been personally selected by the king and are expected to remain until age 20; each has proved that she has four noble ancestors on her father's side, that she is impoverished, and that she is free of epilepsy or the vapors. The headmistress, Mme. de Brinon, has a staff of 12, none of whom has been required to take the vows of any religious order but rather an oath to devote her life to educating the young females in her charge. The staff will be increased to 16, with four dames, or teachers, having three assistants each and with the student body divided into four groups of about 60 girls each. Girls 7 to 10 (the Reds) study reading, writing, arithmetic, elementary sacred history, catechism, and music; girls 11 to 13 (the Greens) study the same subjects plus geography and mythology; girls 14 to 16 (the Yellows) take more advanced courses in French and religion, with extra classes in deportment and dancing; and girls 17 to 20 (the Blues) have far fewer academic studies but receive moral instruction and lessons in advanced needlework (see 1688).
Nonfiction: "Discourse on Metaphysics" ("Discours de métaphysique") by Gottfried W. Leibniz is published in February, and his "Brief Demonstration of the Memorable Error of Descartes and Others About the Law of Nature" ("Brevis Demonstratio Erroris Memorabilis Cartesii et Aliorum Circa Legem Naturae") appears in the Acta Eruditorum in March; Entrétiens sur la pluralité des mondes by Bernard de Fontenelle popularizes Cartesian cosmology (see 1637); L'Histoire des oracles by Fontenelle attacks credulity and superstition.
Fiction: Five Women Who Chose Love (Koshoku Gonin Onna) and A Woman Who Devoted Her Entire Life to Lovemaking (Koshoku Ichidai Onna) by Saikaku Ihara, whose realistic fiction reflects the sentiments and manners of Japan's masses.
Theater: Successful Kagekiyo (Shusse Kagekiyo) by Japanese playwright Monzaemon Chikamatsu (Sugimori Nobumori), 33, who has become associated in the puppet theater at Osaka with the chanter Takemoto Gidayu. Together they have developed an advanced style and Chikamatsu has adapted a Japanese army play to the puppet theater.
Opera: Armide 2/15 at Paris, with music by Jean Baptiste Lully.
"Cordon Bleu" cookery has its origin in the Institut de Saint-Louis. Cookery is among the subjects taught and the school will become known for its cooking lessons and for the cordon bleu (blue ribbon) which girls wear beginning at age 17 to show that they are members of the senior class (see Distel, 1880). Mme. de Maintenon's name will make its mark on French menus, lamb à la Maintenon being a saddle of lamb stuffed with a mushroom purée.
Bakers working at night in Buda hear the noise of Turks excavating tunnels under the city and sound a warning. The army is alerted, the city is saved, and the bakers are by some accounts commissioned to create a roll shaped like the half-moon on the Ottoman flag as a reminder (see Vienna, 1683).
"It is an unhappy thing that in later years a Kind of Drink called Rum has been common among us," writes Boston clergyman Increase Mather, 47, who has been president of Harvard College since last year. "They that are poor, and sicked, too, can for a penny or twopence make themselves drunk" (see 1655).
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