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A "Glorious Revolution" ends nearly 4 years of Roman Catholic rule in England, and the War of the League of Augsburg pits Protestant Europe and much of Catholic Europe against France's Louis XIV.
England's James II issues a proclamation in April ordering clergymen to read from their pulpits the king's Declaration of Indulgence of last year, exempting Catholics and Dissenters from penal statutes. The birth of a son June 10 to James's queen, Mary, suggests the likelihood of a Roman Catholic succession, although it is widely, if falsely, believed that the infant was slipped into the queen's bed in a warming pan in order to ensure a Catholic successor. Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby, returns to politics in June (he was released from the Tower of London 4 years ago) and raises support in the north of England for the Dutch stadholder Willem of Orange (the king's son-in-law), Whig leaders send an invitation to Willem June 30. Willem issues a declaration to the English people September 21, lands at Tor Bay November 5, and moves to assume the throne with his wife, Mary. Whig leader John Somers, 37, has presided as counsel for the Seven Bishops in drafting a Declaration of Rights and will be Willem's (William's) most trusted minister. James II retreats from Salisbury without giving battle; plagued by a nosebleed that cannot be stanched, he throws the Great Seal of England into the Thames, escapes to France December 23, and begins efforts to regain the throne. His infant son James Edward is removed to the French court set up by James in exile (see 1689; James Edward, 1701).
The Great Elector Friedrich Wilhelm dies at Potsdam May 9 at age 68, having centralized Brandenburg's political administration in his capacity of Der Grosse Kurfürst, reorganized her state finances, rebuilt her towns and cities in the wake of the Thirty Years' War, developed a strong army, and gained Hohenzollern sovereignty over Prussia.
A French army invades the Palatinate and lays waste the countryside on orders from the minister of war, François Michel Le Tellier, 47, marquis de Louvois. Captain Abraham Duquesne, marquis du Quesne, has died at Paris on the night of February 1 at age 77.
Venice elects Francesco Morosini doge.
Ottoman forces surrender Belgrade to the Austrians August 20 after 21 days' bombardment.
Siam's king Narai falls seriously ill in March, an anti-French clique led by the king's foster brother Phetracha, 54, ousts the king's Greek-born friend (and virtual prime minister) Constantine Phaulkon and executes him at the inland capital Ayutthaya June 5 at age 40, the king dies at Lop Buri July 11 at age 55 after a 32-year reign, and Phetracha makes himself king, beginning a reign that will continue until his death in 1703. Narai has engaged Chinese, English, and Persian officers to help him break the Dutch East India Company's domination of his country's foreign trade by developing relations with the English East India Company and, more notably, with the French (see 1687); he has encouraged writers but has accepted French occupation of Bangkok, but the Siamese now expel the French from Ayutthaya and will have little contact with the West for the next 150 years (see 1703).
Sir John Narborough, Royal Navy, dies at Chelsea Naval Hospital at age 52, having served as a commissioner of the Admiralty since 1680. He was made a rear admiral and knighted in 1673 after serving under the duke of York at the Battle of Solebay, and an island in the Pacific bears his name.
The pirate ship Cygnet beaches on the northwest Australian coast January 4 with the first Englishmen to set foot on what has been called New Holland. Among them is crewman William Dampier, who joined the ship in New Spain in 1686 and has sailed with her to the Philippines, Indochina, and the island of Timor. The Cygnet remains until March, but her crew finds the Aborigines unfriendly and the territory unpromising. Dampier spends the summer making scientific observations at what later will be called King Sound. He and some shipmates are marooned on one of the Nicobar islands; he travels with seven of them in a crowded native canoe through a hurricane to Sumatra; and he will serve as a gunner at Bencoelen before returning to London with nothing but his journals (see 1697).
French Huguenot refugees arrive in South Africa, where they will strengthen the Dutch settlement founded in 1652.
Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore, begins to lose control of the Maryland colony as a result of the Glorious Revolution in England (see 1661; 1692).
The 24-year-old French East India Company (Compagnie des Indes Orientales) receives permission from the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb's government to carry on a duty-free business in Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa on payment of 40,000 rupees.
Lloyds of London has its beginnings in a society formed to write marine insurance policies by merchants and sea captains who gather at Edward Lloyd's 1-year-old coffeehouse in Tower Street near the Thames. Lloyd will move to larger and more luxurious quarters in Lombard Street in 1691, encouraging the underwriters by providing quill pens, ink, paper, and shipping information while his staff of five serves coffee, tea, and sherbet. The term "underwriting" will derive from his patrons' practice of writing their names, one beneath the other, at the bottom of each policy, with each man writing the amount he will insure until the full amount is subscribed (see Lloyd's List, 1696).
Venice's Ponte de tre Archi is completed across the Cannaregio Canal to facilitate pedestrian travel in the city.
Sir Roger L'Estrange loses the official position of surveyor of the imprimery that he has held since 1663.
Nonfiction: Les Caractères de Théophraste, traduitsdu grec, avec les caractéres et les Moeurs de ce Siécle by French moralist-satirist Jean de La Bruyère, 43, whose portraits and aphorisms point out the arrogance and immorality of France's stupid ruling class. La Bruyère cries out against the social injustice that prevails (he has added 390 sketches to the 30 by Theophrastus); Digression sur les anciens et les modernes by Bernard de Fontenelle defends evolution in the arts.
Writer-preacher John Bunyan dies at Bedford August 31 at age 59; Charles du Fresne, seigneur du Cange, at Paris October 23 at age 77, having been forced by an epidemic to leave his native Amiens.
Fiction: Oroonoko by playwright Aphra Behn, now 48, whose novel introduces the figure of the noble savage.
Novelist-satirist Antoine Furetière dies at his native Paris March 14 at age 68. He was expelled from the Académie Française 4 years ago after disclosing his intention to publish a universal dictionary of the French language, on which he had been working for 40 years, and when the Dictionnaire is published in three volumes 2 years hence in Holland, it will prove far more comprehensive and useful than that of the Académie.
Theater: The Squire of Alsatia by Thomas Shadwell in May at London's Drury Lane Theatre, with actress Anne Bracegirdle, 25, in her stage debut. Shadwell has adapted the Terence comedy Adelphoe of 160 B.C.
Buccaneer-explorer William Dampier finds breadfruit (Artocarpus communes) growing on the Pacific island of Guam (see Bligh, 1787).
English landowners seize the opportunity of the Revolution to enact a bounty on the export of grain, an act that will increase domestic prices of grain (and of food) for the next few years (see 1689).
England's William III ("Dutch William") will discourage use of the nation's West Country cider in order to give Dutch distillers a market for their gin, which will become popular among people of the English working class.
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