Timeline 17th Century: 1600-1625
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1600 Feb 4, Tycho
Brahe and Johannes Kepler met for 1st time near Prague.
(MC, 2/4/02)
1600 Feb 8, Vatican sentenced
scholar Giordano Bruno to death.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1600 Feb 17, Giordano Bruno
(b.1548), Italian philosopher, occasional alchemist and advocate of
Copernican theory, was burned at stake by the Catholic Church. In 2008
Ingrid D. Rowland authored “Giordano Bruno: Philosopher / Heretic.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno)(WSJ,
8/21/01, p.A17)(WSJ, 12/19/08, p.A15)
1600 Apr 19, The Dutch ship
Liefde, piloted by Will Adams, reached Japan with a crew of 24 men. 6
of the crew soon died. 4 other ships in the expedition were lost.
(ON, 11/02, p.8)
1600 Oct 21, Tokugawa leyasu
defeated his enemies in the battle of Sekigahara and affirmed his
position as Japan's most powerful warlord. The win enabled Ieyasu to
found a 265-year ruling dynasty.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sekigahara)(Econ, 10/31/09,
p.54)
1600 Nov 19, Charles I of England
was born. Charles I, ruled Great Britain from 1625-1649. He was
executed by Parliament in 1649.
(WUD, 1994, p.249)(HN, 11/19/98)
1600 Dec 12, John Craig, Scottish
church reformer and James VI's court vicar, died.
(MC, 12/12/01)
1600 Dec 31, The British East
India Company (d.1874) was chartered by Queen Elizabeth I in London to
carry on trade in the East Indies in competition with the Dutch, who
controlled nutmeg from the Banda Islands.
(WUD, 1994, p.449)(WSJ, 1/11/99,
p.R49)(www.theeastindiacompany.com/history.html)
c1600 Mahmud al-Kati authored the
Tarikh al-Fattash, a history of the Sudan up to the late 16th century.
(AM, 7/04, p.36)
1600 William Gilbert authored “On
the Loadstone And Magnetic Bodies.” He pioneered the scientific method
of testing hypothesis by experiment.
(WSJ, 4/14/07, p.P10)
1600 Dona Maria, a Timucua Indian
woman, was chief of Nombre de Dios, a Spanish Franciscan mission town
in Florida. 6 years later she inherited the position of chief of San
Pedro de Mocama on Cumberland Island, Georgia.
(AM, 7/01, p.22)
1600 A clock was built in
Augsburg, Germany, that shows a king riding in an elephant pulled
chariot. His huge belly has a tiny clock placed where his navel would
be. When the clock strikes, the king rolls his eyes, licks his lips and
drinks from a tankard, while elephants pull the chariot along a table
and other figures built around the chariot dance. On exhibit at the
Time Museum in Rockford, Ill.
(SF E&C, 1/15/1995, T-10)
1600 A sculptor, later known as
Furienmeister (master of the furies), worked in Florence, Vienna and
perhaps Dresden about this time. In 2006 only about 25 works were
attributed to the artist who carved in ivory.
(Econ, 5/13/06, p.96)
1600 Caravaggio signed a contract
with Tibor Cerasi, Pope Clement VIII’s treasurer-general, to decorate
the Cerasi Chapel of Rome’s Church of Santa Maria Del Popolo with 2
paintings. One would depict the “Martyrdom of St. Peter” and the other
the conversion of Paul.
(WSJ, 10/15/05, p.P11)
c1600 The Tairona civilization,
coerced by the Spaniards to convert to Christianity, fled from their
coastal settlements and moved to the mountains. They were skilled
masons, farmers, weavers and goldsmiths. They had established the city
now known as Ciudad Perdida (lost city) east of Santa Maria in the 5th
century BCE, whose ruins were only rediscovered in 1975. The indigenous
Arhuaco, Assario, and Kogi Indians are thought to be their descendants.
(WSJ, 7/28/97, p.A16)(AM, 11/04, p.19)
c1600 French fishermen and their
families settled the islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon off the coast
of Newfoundland. The 9-island was later made a French territory.
(WSJ, 6/30/00, p.B4)
c1600 Spanish explorers Alvaro de
Mendana and Pedro Fernandez de Quiros visited the Cook Islands but
overlooked Rarotonga, the largest one.
(SFEC, 1/5/97, p.T5)
c1600 Christian missionaries
arrived in India with the first European traders.
(SFC, 11/6/99, p.A14)
1600 Arequipa, Peru, was destroyed
by an earthquake.
(SSFC, 6/24/01, p.A16)
1600 Rudolph II, King of the Holy
Roman Empire, ruled from Prague and lured the astronomer, Tycho Brahe,
from Denmark as well as his student Johannes Kepler.
(WSJ, 9/24/96, p.A18)
1600 Cardinal Filippo Spinelli,
Pope Clement VIII’s ambassador in Prague, wrote to the Pope that
Emperor Rudolf II was bewitched by the devil.
(WSJ, 9/9/06, p.P9)
1600s The Kongo kingdom broke
apart as a result of the Portuguese induced revolts and slave trade.
(ATC, p.153)
1600s In France the contractor
Jean-Christophe Marie built bridges on the Seine to the Ile St.-Louis
and laid out lots on straight streets for sale.
(SFEC, 6/22/97, p.T8)
1600s In Japan the ancient art of
Sumo wrestling became a professional sport.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R34)
1600s Pirates Anne Bonny and Mary
Read plundered the Caribbean region.
(SFEC, 2/14/99, p.T4)
1600s Portuguese traders brought
the cassava root to Africa from Brazil to feed their slaves.
(NH, 7/96, p.13)
1600-1603 Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618) governed
Jersey, a British Channel Island.
(Econ, 5/23/09, p.59)
1600-1681 Pedro Calderon de la Barca, Spanish baroque
master dramatist. His work included: "Life Is a Dream." "Cuando amor no
es locura, no es amor." (When love is not madness, it is not love).
(WSJ, 10/20/95, p. A-12)(WSJ, 4/5/96, p.A-6)(AP,
10/30/98)
1600-1700 In late 2007 Timothy Brook authored
“Vermeer’s Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global
World.”
(SFC, 2/14/08, p.E3)
c1600-1700 In Early America, fire buckets were
typically made out of leather. Because the man at the top of the
bucket brigade had to toss empty buckets back down to be refilled, the
buckets had to be unbreakable and soft enough so they wouldn‘t injure
anyone standing below.
(HNQ, 1/13/00)
1600-1700 Brazil’s Ouro Preto which means Black Gold
in Portuguese, was founded in the 17th century after huge gold deposits
were discovered under its steep hills.
(AP, 4/19/03)
1600-1700 Cognac 1st appeared when Dutch sea
merchants found that they could better preserve white wine shipped from
France to northern Europe by distilling it. They then learned the wine
got better as it aged in wooden barrels.
(WSJ, 7/14/03, p.A1)
1600-1700 Shabettai Zvi [Sabbatai Zevi], a Kabbalist
from the Ottoman Empire, became the central figure in a widespread
Messianic craze. He declared himself the Messiah and caused an uproar
throughout the Jewish world.
(WSJ, 5/22/98, p.W11)(SFEC, 3/12/00, BR p.2)(Econ,
10/16/04, p.80)
1600-1700 Grass mats called kunaa were made on the
island of Gadu and sent by the Maldivian sultan as part of an annual
tribute to the kingdom of Sri Lanka. "The Fine Mat Industry of the
Suvadiva Atoll" by Andrew Forbes was publ. by the British Museum.
(WSJ, 7/22/96, p.A12)
1600-1700 The Windsor chair originated in Windsor,
England.
(WSJ, 8/15/97, p.A1)
1600-1700 Britain waged wars against the Dutch. The
English fleet sailed in three segments, the 3rd of which was commanded
by a Rear Admiral.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, Z1 p.3)
1600-1700 In England the Roundheads were members or
adherents of the Parliamentarians or Puritan party during the civil
wars of the 17th century. They were called roundheads by the Cavaliers
in derision because they wore their hair cut short.
(WUD, 1994, p.1248)
1600-1700 In Colombia legend held that U’wa Indians
led by Chief Guaiticu committed mass suicide to protest Spanish
colonialism. A historical record was lacking.
(SFC, 4/25/97, p.A3)
1600-1700 A Jesuit priest wrote in Latin the first
recorded description of the magic lantern, a forerunner of later movie
and slide projectors: "Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae."
(SFC, 10/28/96, p.A24)
c1600-1700 Marin Mersenne, French monk and
mathematician. Mersenne numbers, which come from multiplying 2 over and
over and subtracting one, are named after him. A small percentage of
mersenne numbers are also prime numbers.
(SFC, 11/23/98, p.A3)
c1600-1700 In Naples Giovan Battista Basile wrote his
classic collection of folktales known as the "Pentamerone." It included
"La Gatta Cennerentola," or "Cinderella the Cat."
(SFC,11/4/97, p.B3)
c1600-1700 In Norway a local commander in Varda
burned over 70 women alive as witches.
(WSJ, 6/6/00, p.A1)
1600-1700 Ladakh was a West Tibetan kingdom of this
time with lands that extended into what is now Nepal.
(SFEC,12/14/97, p.T4)
1600-1700 In the 17th century the Geluk sect of
Buddhism cultivated the Mongols under Altyn Khan. The Khan named the
Geluk Lama Sonam Gyatso, "dalai," in reference to his oceanic wisdom.
The 4th Dalai Lama was discovered in the great-grandson of Altyn Khan.
The Gelukpa school gained power over the Kagyud (Black Hat) school of
Tibetan Buddhism.
(SFEM, 12/20/98, p.19)(Econ, 12/24/05, p.56)
1600-1750 The Baroque Era in music, as practiced by
its greatest figures, has pronounced mannerist qualities: mysticism,
exuberance, complexity, decoration, allegory, distortion, the
exploitation of the supernatural or grandiose, all commingled. The
baroque saw the rise of four-part harmony and the figured bass, in
which numerals indicated the harmonies to be used. In 1968 Claude
Palisca authored "Baroque Music." The Baroque style (1620-1680)
extended to art, architecture and theater, represented by a spirit of
opulence, drama and sensuality.
(LGC-HCS, p.24-25)(SFC, 1/23/01, p.C2)(Econ,
4/11/09, p.86)
c1600-1800 The period of the enlightenment, a
philosophical movement characterized by the power of human reason and
by innovations in political, religious and educational doctrine. Peter
Gay later wrote a 2-volume history of the Enlightenment.
(WUD, 1994, p.474)(SFEC, 1/11/98, BR p.9)
1600-1800 About two-thirds of the Albanians converted
to Islam.
(www, Albania, 1998)
1600-1800 In the Southern American colonies, large
land accumulation was fostered by headrights, a program where generally
50-acres per head was awarded to each person who transported an
emigrant to America at his own expense. The systems fostered land
accumulation and speculation in land warrants, often raising the price
of land beyond the means of servants who had worked out their time.
(HNQ, 1/25/99)
1600-1800 A mass migration of nearly 1 million people
from Holland in the 17th and 18th century led to the decline of this
small nation.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.F4)
1600-1867 The Tokugawa (or Edo) Period in Japan.
(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 215)
1600-1868 The cosmopolitan Edo period, the heyday of
the woodblock print.
(WSJ, 4/24/96, A-12)
1600-1681 Pedro Calderon de la Barca, Spanish
dramatist: "Cuando amor no es locura, no es amor." (When love is not
madness, it is not love.)
(AP, 10/30/98)
1600-1900 In Benin a succession of 12 kings ruled
from Abomey and each one built a lavish palace.
(SFEC, 8/28/98, p.T4)
1600-1972 This period was covered by R.F. Foster in
"Modern Ireland 1600-1972" (1989).
(WSJ, 11/13/96, p.A22)
1601 Jan 7, Robert, Earl of Essex
led a revolt in London against Queen Elizabeth.
(MC, 1/7/02)
1601 Jan 17, The Treaty of Lyons
ended a short war between France and Savoy.
(HN, 1/17/99)
1601 Feb 8, The armies of Earl
Robert Devereux of Essex drew into London.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1601 Feb 13, John Lancaster led
the 1st East India Company voyage from London.
(MC, 2/13/02)
1601 Feb 25, Robert Devereux
(b.1566), 2nd earl of Essex, was beheaded following a conviction of
treason. His plan to capture London and the Tower had failed.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Devereux,_2nd_Earl_of_Essex)(HN,
2/25/99)
1601 Mar 19, Alonzo Cano, Spanish
painter, sculptor (Cathedral Granada), was born.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1601 May 2, Athanasius Kircher,
German Jesuit, inventor (magic lantern), was born.
(MC, 5/2/02)
1601 Aug 17, Pierre de Fermat
(d.1665), French mathematician, was born. [There is some dispute as to
his exact birthdate.]
(WSJ, 11/25/96, p.A16)(SFEC,12/797, BR p.5)(SC,
8/17/02)
1601 Aug 22, Georges de Scudery,
French writer (Observations sur le Cid), was born.
(MC, 8/22/02)
1601 Sep 27, Maria de Medicis
(1575-1642), the 2nd wife of King Henry IV of France, gave birth to
Louis XIII, who later became king of France (1610-43). Henry IV, in
honor of the birth, revived a tapestry scheme by poet Nicholas Houel
and artist Antoine Caron, that had been conceived in honor of Caterina
de Medici (1519-1589). Louis ascended to the throne at the age of nine
following the assassination of his father. At 17, he seized control of
the empire from his mother Marie de' Medici. Louis XIII proved to be a
strongly pro-Catholic ruler.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_de%27_Medici)(Econ, 11/1/08, p.98)
1601 Oct 13, Tycho Brahe,
astronomer, died in Prague.
(MC, 10/13/01)
1601 Adriaen de Vries, Dutch
sculptor, supplied Augsburg, Germany, the cast the "Man Pouring Water
From a Conch Shell."
(WSJ, 1/8/99, p.C13)
1601 Caravaggio painted "Supper at
Emmaus."
(WSJ, 8/4/04, p.D8)
1601 Dutch artist Joachim Wtewael
painted "Mars and Venus Discovered by Vulcan."
(SFEM, 8/31/97, p.8)
1601 A British measure, funded by
taxes, provided jobs for the able-bodied poor and apprentice programs
for children.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R25)
1601 Ottoman Sultan Mehmed III
issued an order for the seizure of able youths aged 10-20 to be trained
as janissaries, his special forces. "The infidel parents or anybody
else who resists are to be hanged at once in front of their house gate,
their blood being considered of no importance whatsoever."
(WSJ, 9/17/01, p.A20)
1601-1658 Baltasar Gracian, Spanish philosopher: "You
should avoid making yourself too clear even in your explanations."
(AP, 8/13/00)
1602 Jan 2, Battle at Kinsale,
Ireland: English army beat the Spanish.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1602 Feb 9, Franciscus van de
Enden, Flemish Jesuit, free thinker, tutor of Spinoza, was born.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1602 Feb 14, Pier Francesco
Cavalli, Italian opera composer, was born.
(MC, 2/14/02)
1602 Mar 20, The Dutch East India
Company was chartered to carry on trade in the East Indies. The company
traded to 1798 whereupon its possessions were dissolved into the Dutch
empire.
http://allserv.rug.ac.be/~sdconinc/VOC/
(WUD, 1994, p.449)(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 215)(HNQ,
7/23/00)
1602 Apr 2, Maria de Jesus de
Agreda (Maria Coronel), Spanish Franciscan, was born.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1602 Apr 11, Johann Neukrantz,
composer, was born.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1602 Apr 30, William Lilly,
astrologer, author, almanac compiler, was born in England.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1602 May 15, Bartholomew Gosnold,
English navigator, discovered Cape Cod.
(AP, 5/15/97)(HN, 5/15/98)
1602 May 21, Martha's Vineyard was
first sighted by Captain Bartholomew Gosnold.
(HN, 5/21/98)
1602 May, Sebastian Vizcaino, a
Basque merchant, led 4 small ships north from Acapulco, Mexico, to
chart the coast of California.
(SFC, 11/13/02, p.A8)
1602 Jul 14, Jules Mazarin, French
cardinal, French 1st Minister (1642-61), was born.
(MC, 7/14/02)
1602 Jul 29, The Duke of Biron was
executed in Paris for conspiring with Spain and Savoy against King
Henry IV of France.
(HN, 7/29/98)
1602 Nov 12, The Vizcaino
expedition held Mass on the feast day of San Diego de Alcala. He named
the California landing port after the saint.
(SFC, 11/13/02, p.A8)
1602 Nov 20, Otto von Guericke,
inventor (air pump), was born.
(MC, 11/20/01)
1602 Dec 5, Giulio Caccini's
"Euridice," premiered in Florence.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1602 Dec 16-Jan 3, The Vizcaino
expedition stopped at Monterey, Ca., and grizzly bears were seen
feeding on a whale carcass. Sebastian Vizcaino, Spanish Explorer,
discovered an island off the coast of California that he named San
Nicolas. It is the outermost of the eight Channel Islands about 75
miles southwest of Los Angeles. It was later used as the site for Scott
O'Dell’s novel: "Island of the Blue Dolphins." [see 1835-1853] Santa
Barbara was named by the Vizcaino expedition.
(Pac. Disc., summer, ‘96, p.12)(IBD, 1960,
p.183)(Via, 3-4/99, p.38)
1602 Caravaggio painted "The
Taking of Christ." In 2005 Jonathan Harr authored “The Lost Painting:
The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece.”
(WSJ, 5/13/99, p.A28)(SSFC, 12/11/05, p.M6)
1602 An atlas made by the Flemish
mapmaker Abraham Ortelius, bound in vellum with text in Spanish, was
one of dozens issued between 1570 and 1612. It is available in 1995 for
$160,000 from New York dealer W.G. Arader III.
(WSJ, 11/24/95, p.B-8)
1602 Bartholomew Gosnold camped
for a few months in a party of 24 gentlemen and 8 sailors on Cuttyhunk
Island, Mass.
(SFEM, 11/15/98, p.23)
1602 Denmark imposed a strict
trade monopoly and cut off Iceland's products from lucrative markets.
(SFEC, 9/19/99, p.A18)
1602 Japan’s Shogun Ieyasu seized
the Dutch ship Liefde and granted its crew allowances to live in Japan.
(ON, 11/02, p.9)
1602-1674 Phillipe de Champaigne, painter. His work
included the "Portrait of Arnauld D’Andilly."
(AAP, 1964)
1602-1686 Otto von Guericke helped to overthrow the
guesswork physics of Aristotle through experiments with air pressure.
(SFC, 10/2/97, p.E5)
1603 Jan 1, The Spanish party of
Sebastion Vizcaino sighted a point off the Central California coast
that they named Ano Nuevo.
(SFEC, 2/27/00, p.T8)
1603 Mar 24, Tudor Queen Elizabeth
I (69), the "Virgin Queen," died. She had reigned from 1558-1603.
Scottish King James VI, son of Mary, became King James I of England in
the union of the crowns. In 2006 Leanda de Lisle authored “After
Elizabeth.”
(WSJ, 4/16/97, p.A13)(HN, 3/24/99)(WSJ, 2/4/06, p.P9)
1603 Mar 30, Battle at Mellifont:
English army under Lord Mountjoy beat the Irish.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1603 Apr 3, William Smith,
composer, was born.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1603 Apr 5, New English king James
I departed Edinburgh for London.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1603 Jul 17, Sir Walter Raleigh
(1552-1618) was arrested. He was prosecuted by Sir Edward Coke. James I
suspended his death sentence and had him incarcerated in the Tower of
London for 13 years during which time he wrote his "History of the
World."
(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TUDrayleigh.htm)(WSJ,
1/6/04, p.D10)
1603 Jul 29, Bartholomew Gilbert
was killed in the colony of Virginia by Indians, during a search for
the missing Roanoke colonists.
(HN, 7/29/98)
1603 Oct 20, A Chinese uprising in
the Philippines failed after 23,000 killed.
(MC, 10/20/01)
1603 Nov 5, Irini Fedorovna,
Russian daughter of Czar Boris Godunov, died.
(MC, 11/5/01)
1603 Dec 27, Thomas Cartwright
(~68), English Presbyterian publicist, died.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1603 Roger Williams (d.1683) was
born in London. After a brief period as a Baptist, the founder of the
Rhode Island Colony and colonial religious leader, became a Seeker—one
who adhered to the basic tenets of Christianity but refused to
recognize any creed. Williams was the first champion of complete
religious toleration in America.
(HNQ, 5/1/99)(WSJ, 6/21/05, p.D10)
1603 King James I of England
allowed the public limited access to Hyde Park.
(SFEM, 3/21/99, p.8)
1603 Following the London plague
in this year weekly Bills of Mortality began to be published.
(Econ, 12/22/07, p.97)
1603 Galileo invented the
thermometer.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)
1603 In Prague Adriaen de Vries
made a bust of Emperor Rudolf.
(WSJ, 12/7/99, p.A24)
1603 Kabuki theater started in
Japan when a shrine maiden named Okuni traveled to Kyoto and performed
a dance of ecstasy dressed in men’s clothing while chanting Buddha’s
name. [see 1586]
(SFC, 7/12/01, p.A23)
1603 In Japan the wooden
Nihonbashi bridge, half way between Edo Bay and Edo Castle, was built.
In 1911 it was replaced by a stone version.
(Econ, 10/7/06, p.52)
1603 The Nijo Castle was built in
Kyoto, Japan, as a residence for the Shogun. The castle's Ninomaru
Palace is famous for its "nightingale" (creaking) floors that warn of
intruders.
(Hem., 2/96, p.60)
1603 Tokyo replaced Kyoto as the
administrative center of Japan.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R51)
1603-1617 Ahmed I succeeded Mehmed III in the Ottoman
House of Osman. Ahmet I had the Blue Mosque constructed to show that
Muslim architects could rival the Byzantine glories of the Haghia
Sophia. Construction was completed in 1616, a year before Ahmet I died
at age 27.
(Ot, 1993, xvii)(AP, 11/30/06)
1603-1868 The founding and era of the Tokugawa
Shogunate.
(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 215)(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.34)
1604 Apr 4, Thomas Churchyard,
poet, pamphleteer, died.
(MC, 4/4/02)
1604 May 4, Claudio Merulo (71),
Italian organist, composer, died.
(MC, 5/4/02)
1604 May 18, (OS)England and Spain
agreed signed the Treaty of London ending the 19 year Anglo-Spanish war.
(AH, 6/07,
p.31)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_London_%281604%29)
1604 Jun 26, French explorer
Samuel de Champlain, Pierre Dugua and 77 others landed on the island of
St. Croix and made friends with the native Passamaquoddy Indians. It
later became part of Maine on the US-Canadian border.
(PacDis, Spring/'94, p. 43)(SSFC, 6/20/04, p.D10)
1604 Sep 20, After a two-year
siege, the Spanish retook Ostend [NW Belgium], the Netherlands, from
the Dutch.
(WUD, 1994, p.1019)(HN, 9/20/98)
1604 Oct 9, "Kepler's Nova" was
1st sighted. Kepler saw the supernova on Oct 17.
(www.seds.org/~spider/spider/Vars/sn1604.html)
1604 Nov 1, William Shakespeare's
tragedy "Othello" was first presented at Whitehall Palace in London.
(AP, 11/1/99)
1604 Claude Lorrain (b.1682),
French painter (also known as Claude Gelée), was born.
(WSJ, 11/6/02, p.D8)
1604 Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
(1547-1616) published the first part of "The Ingenious Hidalgo Don
Quixote de la Mancha." Don Quixote and his friend Sancho Panza seek
what a modern poet has called an impossible dream, a dream of justice
in an earthly paradise, a contradiction in terms, as practical men have
always known... Cervantes was the first to see that the new world
coming into being needed such heroes; otherwise it would go mad." In
2006 Manuel Duran and Fay R. Rogg authored “Fighting Windmills.”
(V.D.-H.K.p.150)(HN, 9/29/02)(WSJ, 6/10/06, p.P8)
1604 The “Moor of Venis” (Othello)
by Shaxberd (Shakespeare) was performed in London.
(http://ise.uvic.ca/Library/SLTnoframes/plays/othsubj.html)(WSJ,
10/22/05, p.P13)
1604 Johannes Kepler, German
astronomer, observed a supernova with his naked eye. He also worked out
an elliptical orbit for Mars.
(NG, 5/88, p.619)(SFC, 11/29/96, p.A16)
1604 Christopher Marlowe, English
writer, published his version of the "Tragical History of Dr. Faustus."
(V.D.-H.K.p.238)
1604 The first official
condemnation of tobacco was made by King James I, who cited the health
hazards of smoking in his Counterblaste to Tobacco.
(HNQ, 11/10/98)
1604 Juan de Onate, Spanish
colonizer of New Mexico, explored along the Colorado.
(NG, 5.1988, Mem For)
1604 Samuel de Champlain sailed
into the river estuary at what later became the seaport of St. John in
New Brunswick, Canada.
(SFEC, 7/30/00, p.T5)
c1604 Arjun, the 5th Sikh guru,
compiled the sacred book "Granth Sahib," a compilation of over 6,000
hymns meant to be sung to classical Indian ragas. Arjun was responsible
for the Harimandir (temple of God) in the city of Amritsar. Arjun was
later executed by Muslim rulers in Lahore. In 2004 Sikhs marked the
400th anniversary of the book’s arrival to Amritsar.
(WSJ, 10/12/01, p.W17)(AP, 9/1/04)
1604-1605 Caravaggio painted "St. John the Baptist in
the Wilderness."
(WSJ, 4/28/98, p.A16)
1604-1606 Caravaggio painted "Madonna di Loreto."
(WSJ, 2/8/00, p.A20)
1604-1634 Ligdan Khan (reigned 1604-34), the last
great Mongol leader, ruled. He united many Mongol tribes to defend
their homeland against the rising power of the Manchu.
(www.gobiexpeditions.com)
1604-1690 Reverend John Eliot was an English
missionary in Massachusetts called the "Apostle to the Indians." The
Puritan Eliot learned the Algonquian language and preached to the
Indians. He translated the Bible into Algonquian and published it in
1663 in Cambridge, Mass.
(HNQ, 6/7/98)(WSJ, 8/7/98, p.W13)
1605 Apr 8, Philip IV king of
Spain and Portugal (1621-65) ), was born.
(HN, 4/8/98)
1605 Apr 8, Louis de Vadder,
Flemish painter, was born.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1605 Apr 12, Boris Godunov, Tsar
of Russia (1598-1605), died.
(MC, 4/12/02)
1605 Apr 16, New Mexico’s Gov. Don
Juan de Onate passed by the sandstone bluff of El Morro where he left
his mark in the stone. He was returning from an expedition to the Gulf
of California, which he called the South Sea.
(SSFC, 4/10/05, p.F9)
1605 Apr 18, Giacomo Carissimi,
composer, was born.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1605 Jun 10, False Dimitri was
crowned Russian tsar for 1st time.
(MC, 6/10/02)
1605 Jun 15, Thomas Randolph,
English poet and playwright, was born.
(HT, 6/15/00)
1605 Jun, Pierre Dugua moved the
French settlement at St. Croix, Maine, to Nova Scotia at a site named
Port Royal.
(SSFC, 6/27/04, p.A2)
1605 Oct 19, Thomas Browne,
British writer (Garden of Cyrus), was born.
(MC, 10/19/01)
1605 Nov 5, The Gunpowder Plot was
planned in response to strict enforcement of anti-Catholic laws by King
James I. Several prominent English Catholics plotted to blow up
Parliament when the King was to address the House of Lords. Robert
Catesby gathered a dozen young men to smuggle barrels of gunpowder into
the basement of the House of Parliament. 36 barrels of gunpowder were
placed in the cellar. The plot was discovered and one of the
conspirators, Guy Fawkes, was arrested as he entered the cellar before
the planned explosion. Fawkes was supposed to light the fuse but was
caught and horribly tortured. Fawkes, after persuasion on the rack in
the White Tower of London, confessed to trying to blow up Parliament.
Fawkes and other conspirators were tried, convicted and executed.
November 5 is known as Guy Fawkes Day in England and is celebrated by
shooting firecrackers and burning effigies of Fawkes. The story is told
in the 1996 book "Faith and Treason: The Story of the Gunpowder Plot"
by Antonia Fraser. In 2005 Alice Hogge authored “God’s Secret Agents:
Queen Elizabeth’s Forbidden Priests and the Hatching of the Gunpowder
Plot.”
(NG, V184, No. 4, 10/1993, p. 54)(AP, 11/5/97)(HNQ,
3/15/00)(Econ, 11/5/05, p.92)
1605 Dec 1, Juan de Padilla,
composer, was born.
(MC, 12/1/01)
1605 Dec 27, English sea captain
John Davis was killed by Japanese pirates whose ship he had captured
off the coast of Sumatra. In 1889 Clements Markham authored “A Life of
John Davis, the Navigator, 1550-1605, Discoverer of Davis Straits.”
(ON, 11/05, p.9)
1605 The painting "Death of
Samson," attributed to Peter Paul Rubens, may have been done by a
student and completed as late as 1650. The work was later purchased by
the Getty Museum for $6 million through Italian art dealers from the
Corsini family and contested whether or not it was a national treasure.
(WSJ, 4/2/99, p.W12)
1605 Bacon published his
"Advancement of Learning."
(V.D.-H.K.p.139)
1605 Pope Paul V (d.1621) was
elected following Clement VIII. After 2 months he elevated his young
law-student nephew, Scipione Borghese, to the office of cardinal.
(WSJ, 9/15/98, p.A20)(WSJ, 2/8/00, p.A20)
1605 The American Indian
Tisquantum, aka Squanto, was picked up by seafarer George Weymouth and
taken to England. He spent 9 years there and returned to the New World
as the interpreter for John Smith.
(SFEM, 11/15/98, p.28)
1605 The first scientific
description of the dodo bird was made by the Dutch botanist Carolus
Clusius from an observation of a dodo at the home of the anatomist
Peter Paauw.
(NH, 11/96, p.24)
1605 In France Henry IV and his
minister, Duc de Sully, decided to build a square over the former site
of the Hotel Royal des Tournelles. The new square was named the Place
Royale until the Revolution when it was renamed the Place des Vosges
after the first administrative department, Les Vosges, that paid taxes.
(SFEM, 3/15/98, p.16)
1605 Henry IV established a
building code that set architectural themes and specified that
pavilions had to owned by a single family.
(SFEM, 3/15/98, p.35)
1605 In India Akbar the Great
died. He was succeeded by Juhangir the ineffectual and his "evil queen"
Nur Jahan.
(HT, 4/97, p.23)
1605 Japan’s Shogun Ieyasu allowed
some of the Dutch crew of the ship Liefde to return home, but kept Will
Adams in Japan. Adams soon married Magoma Oyuki, a young noblewoman.
(ON, 11/02, p.10)
1605-1612 Don Pedro de Zuniga served as the Spanish
ambassador to England. Zuniga actively engaged in espionage while
serving as ambassador to England, sending various reports and maps
concerning the English colony in Virginia to the Spanish court.
(AH, 6/07,
p.31)(www.she-philosopher.com/ib/bios/zuniga.html)
1605-1704 Marc-Antoine Charpentier, French composer.
His work included "Antiennes "O" de l’Avent."
(WSJ, 11/27/01, p.A20)
1606 Jan 31, Guy Fawkes, convicted
for his part in the "Gunpowder Plot" against the English Parliament and
King James I, was hanged, drawn and quartered.
(AP, 1/31/98)(HN, 1/31/99)
1606 Apr 12, England's King James
I decreed the design of the original Union Flag (also referred to as
the Union Jack), which combined the flags of England and Scotland.
(HN, 4/12/98)(AP, 4/12/06)
1606 May 6, Lorenzo Lippi,
[Perlone Zipoli], poet, painter, was born.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1606 Jun 6, Pierre Corneille
(d.1684), French dramatist, poet and writer of Le Cid, was born:
"Guess, if you can, and choose, if you dare."
(AP, 3/28/98)(HN, 6/6/98)
1606 Jul 15, The painter Rembrandt
(d.1669) Harmenszoom van Rizn (Rijn), was born in Leiden, Netherlands.
His paintings included "Old Woman Cutting Her Nails," "Night Watch,"
"Self Portrait Leaning Forward" (1628), "Two Studies of Saskia Asleep"
(1635-1637), "Jupiter and Antiope" (1659) and "Aristotle Contemplating
the Bust of Homer." He started making etchings in the 1620s when the
medium was barely a 100 years old.
(WSJ, 10/1/96, p.A20)(SFC, 10/12/96, p.E3)(SFC, 5/17/97, p.E1)(AP,
7/15/97)
1606 Dec 20, Virginia Company
settlers left London to establish Jamestown.
(HFA, '96, p.44)(MC, 12/20/01)
c1606 Caravaggio painted "St. John
the Baptist."
(WSJ, 4/28/98, p.A16)
1606 Caravaggio fled Rome after he
accidentally killed a man.
(Econ, 2/26/05, p.82)
c1606 Peter Paul Rubens painted
"The Massacre of the Innocents." In 2002 it sold for $76.7 million at
auction.
(WSJ, 7/11/02, p.B8)
1606 Shakespeare wrote the tragedy
"King Lear." William Shakespeare wrote "Antony and Cleopatra." He also
wrote "The Tragedy of Macbeth." A shorter version was made in 1623
Folio.
(WUD, 1994, p.788)(WSJ, 3/13/97, p.A12)(WSJ,
10/27/97, p.A1)
1606 Dona Maria, a Timucua Indian
woman, inherited the position of chief of San Pedro de Mocama on
Cumberland Island, Georgia. She had been chief of Nombre de Dios, a
Spanish Franciscan mission town in Florida.
(AM, 7/01, p.22)
1606 The order of the Sisters of
Ursula was founded in France. Like their Jesuit brethren they try to
fuse contemplative withdrawal with worldly engagement.
(WSJ, 12/3/98, p.W17)
1606 Venice expelled the Jesuits
as part of a larger jurisdictional dispute with the Vatican.
(WSJ, 5/5/07, p.P10)
1606-1612 A drought in the American southeast was the
worst in 770 years and caused the deaths of many Jamestown colonists in
1910.
(SFC, 4/24/98, p.A3)
1607 Jan 30, A sudden flood around
the Bristol Channel in southwest Britain killed at least 2,000 people.
It was the worst natural disaster ever recorded in Britain.
(Econ, 5/5/07, p.101)
1607 Feb 24, Claudio Monteverdi's
opera "Orfeo," premiered at the Court Theater in Mantua.
(WSJ, 6/19/97, p.A16)(AP, 2/24/07)
1607 Mar 8, Johann Rist, composer,
was born.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1607 Apr 26, Ships under the
command of Capt. Christopher Newport sought shelter in Chesapeake Bay.
The forced landing led to the founding of Jamestown on the James River,
the first English settlement. An expedition of English colonists,
including Capt. John Smith, went ashore at Cape Henry, Va., to
establish the first permanent English settlement in the Western
Hemisphere.
(NG, Sept. 1939, p.356)(AP, 4/26/98)(HN, 4/26/98)
1607 May 13, English colonists
landed near the James River in Virginia. They went shore the next day
and founded a colony named Jamestown. In 1996 archeologist discovered
the original Jamestown Fort and the remains of one settler, a young
white male who died a violent death. In 2003 David A. Price authored
"Love and Hate in Jamestown."
(SFC, 9/13/96, p.A2)(AP, 5/13/97)(HN, 5/24/98)(WSJ,
11/25/03, p.D8)(AP, 5/13/07)
1607 May 14, Some 104 men and boys
filed ashore from the small sailing ships Susan Constant, Godspeed, and
Discovery, onto what English adventurers came to call Jamestown Island
in Virginia. Capt. John Smith (27) was among the Englishmen who founded
Jamestown.
(HN, 10/3/00)(AP, 5/14/97)(SFEC, 10/15/00,
p.T12)(ON, 2/07, p.7)
1607 May 24, Captain Christopher
Newport and 105 followers founded Jamestown on the mouth of the James
River in Virginia. They had left England with 144 members, 39 died on
the way over. The colony was near the large Indian village of
Werowocomoco, home of Pocahontas, the daughter Powhatan, an Algonquin
chief. In 2003 archeologists believed that they had found the site of
Werowocomoco, where Powhatan resided from 1607-1609.
(HN, 5/24/99)(SFC, 5/7/03, p.A2)(Arch, 1/06, p.27)
1607 May 26, Some 200 Indian
warriors stormed the unfinished stockade at Jamestown, Va. 2 settlers
were killed and 10 seriously wounded before they were repulsed by
cannon fire from the colonists’ 3 moored ships.
(ON, 2/07, p.7)
1607 Jun 15, Colonists in North
America completed James Fort in Jamestown. Hostilities with the Indians
ended as ambassadors said their emperor, Powhatan, had commanded local
chiefs to live in peace with the English.
(HN, 6/15/98)(ON, 2/07, p.7)
1607 Jun 21, The Church of England
Episcopal Church, the 1st Protestant Episcopal parish in America, was
established at Jamestown, Va. The 39 articles of the Episcopal Faith
included the statement: "There is but one living and true God,
everlasting, without body, parts, or passions; of infinite power,
wisdom and goodness; the Maker, and Preserver of all things both
visible and invisible."
(SFC, 7/21/97, p.A11)(MC, 6/21/02)(WSJ, 6/20/03,
p.W15)
1607 Jul 7, "God Save the King"
was 1st sung.
(MC, 7/7/02)
1607 Aug 14, The Popham expedition
reached the Sagadahoc River in the northeastern North America (Maine),
and settled there.
(HN, 8/14/98)
1607 Sep 28, Samuel de Champlain
and his colonists returned to France from Port Royal Nova Scotia.
(HN, 9/28/98)
1607 Nov 26, This day is believed
to be the birth date of London-born clergyman John Harvard, the
principal benefactor of the original Harvard College in Cambridge, Mass.
(AP, 11/26/07)
1607 “The Knight of the Burning
Pestle,” a play by Francis Beaumont (1584-1616), was first performed.
It was first published in a quarto in 1613.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Knight_of_the_Burning_Pestle)
1607 In Aceh Sultan Iskandar Muda
fielded the largest fighting force of the region with an army that had
Persian horses an elephant corps and 800-man galleys to control the
seas.
(SFC, 1/20/00, p.A12)
1607 In China the Great Wall’s
largest stone tower, Zhenbeitai, was built at Yulin, near the border of
Inner Mongolia.
(SSFC, 9/1/02, p.C6)
1607 Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla
(d.c1660), Spanish dramatist, was born at Toledo. He became a knight of
Santiago in 1644. The exact date of his death is unknown.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_de_Rojas_Zorrilla)
1607-1677 Wenceslaus Hollar, Bohemian artist. He made
an engraving of old St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.14)
1608 Jan 7, An accidental fire
devastated the Jamestown settlement in the Virginia Colony.
(AP, 1/7/08)
1608 Jan 28, Giovanni Alfonso
Borelli, mathematician, astronomer, was born in Naples.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1608 Jan, John Smith met with the
Indian emperor Powhatan at Werocomoco on the Pamunkey River. He studied
the Powhattan language and culture. The Powhattans were an aggressive
tribe and under Chief Powhatan’s leadership, they had conquered and
subjugated more than 20 other tribes. Pocahontas was a Powhattan Indian
girl of 10-11 years when she new Smith in Virginia. Records of the
colony were kept by William Strachey, its official historian. The
Powhattans were an aggressive tribe and under Chief Powhattan’s
leadership, they conquered and subjugated more than 20 other tribes.
Before coming to Virginia, John Smith had served as a mercenary in
Hungary and was wounded, captured and sold into slavery by his Turkish
adversaries; he escaped by killing his owner.
(WSJ, 6/13/95, p.A-18)(ON, 2/07, p.8)
1608 May 19, The Protestant states
formed the Evangelical Union of Lutherans and Calvinists under the
direction of the elector of Brandenburg.
(HN, 5/19/99)
1608 May 28, Claudio Monteverdi's
"Arianna," premiered in Mantua.
(MC, 5/28/02)
1608 Jun 4, Francesco Caracciolo
(44), Italian religious founder, saint, died.
(MC, 6/4/02)
1608 Jul 3, The city of Quebec was
founded as a trading post by Samuel de Champlain. The French adventurer
Etienne Brule accompanied Champlain to North America and was reportedly
eaten by the Huron Indians.
(AP,
7/3/97)(www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1608champlain.html)
1608 Aug 13, John Smith's story of
Jamestown's 1st days was submitted for publication.
(MC, 8/13/02)
1608 Sep 1, Giacomo Torelli,
composer, was born.
(MC, 9/1/02)
1608 Sep 10, John Smith was
elected president of the Jamestown colony council in Virginia. Records
of the colony were kept by William Strachey, its official historian.
(WSJ, 6/13/95, p.A-18)(AP, 9/10/97)
1608 Sep 25, Hans Lipperhey
applied to the government of Zeeland for a patent for the telescope. In
2005 Fred Watson authored “Stargazer: The Life and Times of the
Telescope.”
(SSFC, 8/14/05, p.F2)(http://tinyurl.com/93lb6)
1608 Oct 1, Some 200 new settlers
arrived at the Jamestown colony, including Dutch and Polish
glass-makers, artisans and the first European women in the colony.
(http://spuscizna.org/spuscizna/1608.html)(AH, 6/07,
p.27)
1608 Oct 2, Jan Lippershey,
spectacle maker, formally offered to the Estates of Holland his new
spyglass for warfare. He was the 1st to file a patent claim for a
spyglass.
(www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9048449)(CW,
Spring ‘99, p.33)
1608 Dec 6, George Monck (Monk),
English general and gov. of Scotland, was born.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1608 Dec 9, English blind poet and
polemical pamphleteer John Milton (1608-1674) was born in London. His
work included "Paradise Lost," Paradise Regained," and "Samson
Agonistes." Milton lost one eye at 36 and the other when he was 44. In
1996 Paul West wrote a novel: "Sporting with Amaryllis," that begins in
1626 and gives a fictional account of his life. In 1997 Peter Levy
wrote a biography of Milton titled: "Eden Renewed."
(WUD, '94, p.911)(WSJ, 5/6/97, p.A20)(AP, 12/9/97)
1608 Rubens painted "Adoration of
the Shepherds."
(WSJ, 2/8/00, p.A20)
1608 Shakespeare wrote his play
"Pericles." It was about a prince who journeys through evil kingdoms
until he meets his bride and then loses her at sea.
(WSJ, 11/11/98, p.A21)
1608 Monteverdi wrote his opera
"Arianna." It was based on a libretto by Ottavio Rinuccini. Only
fragments survived into the 20th century when Alexander Goehr composed
a contemporary version that premiered in 1998 in St. Louis.
(WSJ, 7/2/98, p.A20)
1608 Bowling in Jamestown was
banned after workers were found bowling instead of building the fort.
(SFC, 7/28/97, p.A3)
1608 Capt. John Smith seeking
passage to the Pacific and the South Seas sailed through a Chesapeake
Bay tributary and was amazed at Indian skill in building log canoes.
(NG, Sept. 1939, J. Maloney p.357)
1608 Settlers in Jamestown,
Virginia, shipped distilled tar back to its sponsors in England, the
first manufactured item exported from the US.
(SFEC, 7/6/97, Z1 p.6)
1608 Robert Hunt (b.1568), the 1st
chaplain at Jamestown, Va., died.
(http://tinyurl.com/2jv6qq)
1608 Bushmills Distillery in
Northern Ireland acquired a license for whiskey production. They had
been producing whiskey since the 1100s.
(SFEC, 1/10/99, p.T8)
1608 Shakespeare’s theater group,
The King’s Men, incorporated technical changes in their plays with the
acquisition of the indoor Blackfriars theater.
(WSJ, 5/1/97, p.A16)
1608 Inigo Jones built an
oak-paneled hall for Queen Elizabeth’s ambassador to France. The room
was later bought intact by William Randolph Hearst and shipped to New
York. It was later purchased by the developer of the SF Cannery and
shipped to SF. It was set up as the interior of Jack’s.
(SFEC, 7/12/98, DB p.32)
1608 In England Bess of Hardwick
died at age 80. Know as the Dowager Countess of Shrewsbury, she built
the Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire. Bess had married and disposed of four
husbands, each leaving her richer than the last. She had been a
moneylender, property dealer, exploiter of iron works, coal mines, and
glass works, and ended up the richest woman in England after the Queen.
She only had children by her second husband, Sir William Cavendish. Her
fortune was divided between two sons, William and Charles.
(NG, Nov. 1985, M. Girouard, p.662,671)(SFEM,
10/11/98, p.20)
1608 Shogun Ieyasu ordered Will
Adams to go to the Philippines to invite the Spanish Gov. Don Diego
Vevero y Velasco to compete with the Portuguese for trade with Japan.
(ON, 11/02, p.10)
1609 Feb 7, Ferdinand I, cardinal,
ruler of Tuscany, died.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1609 Feb 10, John Suckling,
English Cavalier poet, dramatist, courtier, was born.
(MC, 2/10/02)
1609 Feb 28, Paul Sartorius (39),
composer, died.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1609 Mar 21, Jan II Kazimierz,
cardinal, King of Poland (1648-68), was born.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1609 Mar 25, Henry Hudson embarked
on an exploration for Dutch East India Co.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1609 Jul, Emperor Rudolf II
granted Bohemia freedom of religion with his Letter of Majesty
(Majestatsbrief).
(www.historylearningsite.co.uk/Bohemia_30YW.htm)
1609 Jul 10, The Catholic states
in Germany set up a league under the leadership of Maximillian of
Bavaria.
(HN, 7/10/98)
1609 Jul 25, Admiral William
Somers, head of a 7-ship fleet enroute to Virginia, spied land after
being blown off course and soon drove his ship, the Sea Venture, onto
the reefs of Bermuda. William Strachey (1572-1621), was also aboard the
Sea Venture and later sent a letter to England that described the
event. The letter is thought by many to have been the inspiration for
Shakespeare’s "Tempest." Strachey became secretary of the colony at
Jamestown, Virginia, after his arrival there on May 23, 1610. In 2009
Hobson Woodward authored: A Brave Vessel: The True Tale of the
Castaways Who Rescued Jamestown and Inspired Shakespeare’s “The
Tempest.”
(AM, May/Jun 97 p.29)(SFC, 8/18/09,
p.E2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Venture)
1609 Aug 25, Galileo demonstrated
his 1st telescope to Venetian lawmakers. Galileo Galilei had improved
the newly invented telescope and pointed it at the moon.
(V.D.-H.K.p.200)(Econ, 8/15/09,
p.12)
1609 Aug 28, Henry Hudson
discovered Delaware Bay.
(AP, 8/28/97)
1609 Sep 3-4, Henry Hudson
discovered the island of Manhattan. The exact date is not known.
(MC, 9/3/01)(www.hudsonriver.com)
1609 Sep 12, English
explorer Henry Hudson sailed his ship, the Half Moon, into the river
that later took his name. Hudson sailed for the Dutch East India
Company in search of the Northwest Passage, a water route linking the
Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
(AP, 9/12/97)(Econ, 7/4/09, p.28)
1609 Oct 12, The song "Three Blind
Mice" was published in London, believed to be the earliest printed
secular song.
(HN, 10/12/00)
1609 Nov 30, Galileo began
observing the moon with his perspicullum from Padua, Italy.
(CW, Spring ‘99, p.34)
1609 Caravaggio (1571-1610)
completed his "Adoration of the Shepherds," during a brief stay in
Messina, Sicily.
(AP, 10/7/09)
c1609 Peter Paul Rubens painted
“Samson and Delilah.”
(SFC, 3/5/05, p.E1)
c1609 Rubens painted "The Head of
St. John the Baptist." In 1998 it sold for $5.5 mil to Alfred Bader.
(SFC, 2/3/98, p.E3)
1609 Ben Johnson wrote his play
"The Silent Woman."
(WSJ, 2/7/03, p.W2)
1609 Johannes Kepler (1571-1630),
German astronomer and mathematician, authored “Astronomia Nova.”
Written in 1605, but not published until 1609, it discussed how Mars
moves in an elliptical orbit.
(SFC, 10/25/99, p.A4)(Econ, 8/15/09,
p.75)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Kepler)
1609 Shakespeare wrote his play
"Cymbeline." It was based on the story of Cymbeline, king of Britain
during the reign of Augustus Caesar in Rome.
(WSJ, 6/10/98, p.A16)(WSJ, 8/19/98, p.A16)
1609 The original text of
Shakespeare's 154 sonnets was published. In 1997 a poem-by-poem
commentary was published by Helen Vendler: "The Art of Shakespeare's
Sonnets." A new Arden edition: "Shakespeare’s Sonnets" to elucidate the
context of the poems was also published in 1997.
(WSJ, 11/12/97, p.A20)
1609 The song "Three Blind Mice"
was published in London.
(SFC,12/5/97, p.C3)
1609 The British attempted to
settle Grenada.
(http://worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/namerica/caribb/gd.htm)
1609 Henry Hudson gave brandy to
the local Indians and their chief passed out. The place was renamed
"Manahachtanienk," meaning "where everybody got drunk." Authorities say
that "Manhattan" came form an Indian word meaning "high island."
(SFEC, 1/25/98, Z1 p.8)
1609 Capt. John Smith returned to
England from Jamestown (Virginia) after being wounded in an accidental
explosion of gunpowder.
(ON, 2/07, p.9)
1609 The 1st newspaper was
published in Germany.
(SFC, 7/26/04, p.F4)
1609 Forces from the Japanese
feudal domain of Satsuma invaded the Ryukyu Islands and took the king
hostage. Heavy tribute was soon demanded.
(NH, 9/01, p.56)
1609 Rabbi Loew (b.1525), also
known as the Maharal of Prague, died. He became well-remembered for a
legend about him creating a clay figure known as Golem, which he is
said to have brought to life to protect Prague's Jewish community from
attacks.
(AP, 8/5/09)
1609 Sultan Ahmet commissioned the
Blue Mosque to rival the other mosques of Istanbul, Turkey.
(CAM, Nov. Dec. '95, p.29)
1609 Don Alonzo Perez de Guzman el
Bueno, the Duke of Medina Sedonia and head of the failed Spanish
Armada, died.
(ON, 3/02, p.6)
1609-1610 A dry spell that began in 1606 was
responsible for "the starving time" at the Jamestown colony. Nearly
half of the 350 colonists alive in June, 1610, were dead by the end of
the summer.
(SFC, 4/24/98, p.A17)
1609-1611 The painting "The Massacre of the
Innocents" was attributed to Peter Paul Rubens in 2002 and expected to
sell for $5.7-8.5 million.
(SFC, 3/7/02, p.D12)
1610 Jan 7, The astronomer Galileo
Galilei sighted four of Jupiter's moons. Galileo discovered the 1st 3
Jupiter satellites, Io, Europa & Ganymede. He discovered mountains
and valleys on the moon, that Jupiter has a moon of its own, and that
the sun has spots which change. Galileo discovered multiple moons
around Jupiter. He also observed Mars.
(V.D.-H.K.p.200)(SFC, 11/5/96, p.A4)(SFC, 11/29/96,
p.A16)(AP, 1/7/98)(MC, 1/7/02)
1610 Feb 14, Polish king Sigismund
III forced Dimitri #2 and the Romanov family to sign covenant against
Czar Vasili Shuishki (sequel to story of "Boris Godunov").
(MC, 2/14/02)
1610 Feb 28, Thomas West, Baron de
La Mar, was appointed governor of Virginia.
(HN, 2/28/98)(MC, 2/28/02)
1610 Mar 13, Galileo published his
observations of the night sky under the title “Siderius Nuncius”
(Starry Messenger).
(CW, Spring ‘99, p.36)
1610 Mar 21, King James I
addressed the English House of Commons.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1610 Apr 18, Robert Parsons (63),
English Jesuit leader, plotter, died.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1610 Apr 22, Alexander VIII,
[Pietro Ottoboni], Italian lawyer, Pope (1689-91), was born.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1610 May 11, Matteo Ricci, Italian
Jesuit missionary (China), died.
(MC, 5/11/02)
1610 May 14, King Henri IV, Henri
de Navarre (56), Bourbon King of France (1572, 89-1610) was
assassinated by a fanatical monk, François Ravillac. Henri IV
was succeeded by 11-year-old Louis XIII, under the eye of Cardinal
Richelieu. Henry’s legacy included straight roads flanked by arbres
d’alignement on both sides.
(SFEM, 3/15/98, p.17)(HN, 5/14/99)(MC,
5/14/02)(Econ, 2/14/04, p.48)
1610 May 15, Parliament of Paris
appointed Louis XIII (8) as French king.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1610 May 24, Sir Thomas Gates
instituted "laws divine moral and marshal, " a harsh civil code for
Jamestown, Va.
(HN, 5/24/99)
1610 Jun 3, Jacob Neefs, Flemish
engraver, publisher, was baptized.
(MC, 6/3/02)
1610 Jun 10, The 1st Dutch
settlers arrived from NJ to colonize Manhattan Island.
(MC, 6/10/02)
1610 Jun 10, English Lord De La
Ware and his supply ships arrived at Jamestown allowing the colony to
recover and survive.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_West,_3rd_Baron_De_La_Warr)
1610 Jul 4, Battle at Klushino:
King Sigismund II [III] of Poland beat Russia & Sweden.
(Maggio)
1610 Jul 18, Michelangelo Merisi
da Caravaggio (b.1571), Italian artist, died in Porto Ercole at age 38.
His paintings included “David With the Head of Goliath,” in which he
used his own image for Goliath. In 1999 Helen Langdon authored the
biography: "Caravaggio: A Life." In 2000 Peter Robb authored the
biography: "M: The Man Who Became Caravaggio."
(Econ, 2/26/05, p.82)(WSJ, 5/4/05,
p.D8)(http://tinyurl.com/8jjs6)
1610 Aug 3, Henry Hudson of
England discovered a great bay on the east coast of Canada and named it
for himself.
(HN, 8/3/98)(HNQ, 7/23/00)
1610 Aug 27, Polish King Wladyslaw
was crowned king of Russia.
(MC, 8/27/01)
1610 Ben Jonson wrote his
satirical play: "The Alchemist." It was about 3 creative crooks in
London bilking everyone in sight.
(SFC, 4/26/97, p.E3)
1610 Shakespeare’s play “The
Winter’s Tale” was first performed.
(www.william-shakespeare.info/shakespeare-play-the-winters-tale.htm)
1610 Spanish colonists founded
Santa Fe. They built the block long adobe El Palacio as a seat for the
governor-general.
(SFEC, 7/6/97, p.T7)(SSFC, 6/10/01, p.T9)
1610 Galileo observed Saturn and
noted that it appeared to be triple-bodied.
(NH, 10/1/04, p.28)
1610 In France Henri IV was killed
by an assassin. He was succeeded by 11-year-old Louis XIII, under the
eye of Cardinal Richelieu.
(SFEM, 3/15/98, p.17)
1610 In Ireland the settlement at
Derry was colonized by the English, who built a fortress surrounded by
stone walls and renamed it Londonderry.
(SFC, 12/1/97, p.A14)
1610 Retired-Japanese Samurai
Hachirobei Mitsui pawned a couple of his swords and started a ribbon
and kimono shop. It grew to become the world’s oldest department store,
Tokyo’s Mitsukoshi.
(SFC, 7/7/96, zone 1 p.5)
1610 The Dutch ousted the
Portuguese from Indonesia by this time, but the Portuguese retained the
eastern half of Timor.
(SFC, 9/8/99, p.A17)
1610 The first cargo of Asian tea
arrived in Amsterdam
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R49)
1610 Leon, Nicaragua, was buried
by the Mombotombo volcano.
(SSFC, 4/10/05, p.F5)
1610 In Cracow (Krakow), Poland,
bagels were listed in the community regulations as a suitable gift for
pregnant women.
(SFC, 10/16/96, zz1 p.6)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)
1610 Sigismund III ruled Poland.
(AM, Jul/Aug ‘97 p.29)
c1610-1615 Orazio Gentileschi, the father of
Artemisia (one of the most gifted women painters of all time), painted
"Judith and her Maidservant With the head of Holofernes." The 1998 film
"Artemisia" was based on the life of Artemisia.
(WSJ, 4/28/98, p.A16)(SFEC, 5/10/98, DB p.48)
1610-1643 Louis XIII (1601-1643) was King of France.
He was the son of Henry IV of Navarre. He started the fashion of men’s
wigs do to loss of hair.
(WUD, 1994, p.524)(SFC, 12/29/96, zone 1 p.2)
1610-1650 In the Netherlands painters from Utrecht
worked in the style of Caravaggio.
(WSJ, 10/20/97, p.A19)
1610-1664 The Chinese painter Hong Ren. His work
included "Peaks and Ravines at Jiuqi."
(WSJ, 2/19/98, p.A20)
1610-1680 Baldassare Ferri, the first of the famous
Castrato vocalists. Some of them had ranges of four octaves, up to A or
even B above high C in full voice. Some of them could sustain a note
for well over a minute.
(LGC-HCS, p.42)
1611 Mar 4, George Abbot was
appointed archbishop of Canterbury.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1611 Apr 1, Gillis van Valkenborch
(~72), Flemish painter, was buried.
(MC, 4/1/02)
1611 Apr 14, Word "telescope" was
1st used by Prince Federico Cesi.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1611 May 23, Matthias von Habsburg
was chosen king of Bohemia.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1611 Jun 22, English explorer
Henry Hudson, his son and several other people were set adrift in
present-day Hudson Bay by mutineers. The starving crew of the
Discovery, which had spent the winter trapped by ice in Hudson
Bay, mutinied against Hudson, who was never seen again.
(AP, 6/22/97)(SFEM, 11/15/98, p.26)(MC, 6/23/02)
1611 Nov 1, Shakespeare's romantic
comedy "The Tempest" was first presented at Whitehall.
(AP, 11/1/99)
1611 Nov 3, Henry Ireton, English
general and MP (Edgehill), was born.
(MC, 11/3/01)
1611 Dutch artist Joachim Wtewael
painted "Andromeda." He and Bloemaert helped transmit the Italian
mannerist influence and a preference for figure painting over landscape
(SFC, 9/12/97, p.C8)
1611 The Aqua Paola aqueduct was
built in Rome.
(SFEC, 7/2/00, p.T5)
1611 The Jamestown settlement in
Virginia pushed west with the establishment of Henricus (later Henrico)
on the James River.
(AH, 6/07, p.27)
1611 Don Diego de Molina, a
Spanish spy, was taken prisoner in Jamestown. Molina managed to send
reports about the colony to agents in London. When he eventually
returned to Spain, Molina urged King Philip to eliminate the English
presence in Virginia, but Philip again demurred.
(AH, 6/07, p.31)
1611 Galileo went to Rome to
describe his observations to the pontifical court.
(V.D.-H.K.p.200)
1611 The authorized version of the
King James Bible was published and it incorporated the translation of
William Tyndale. In 2001 Alister McGrath authored "In the Beginning:
The Story of the King James Bible and How It Changed a Nation, a
Language and a Culture." In 2003 Adam Nicolson authored "God's
Secretaries," which covered the tumult behind the creation of the King
James Bible.
(WSJ, 12/22/94, A-20)(SSFC, 6/3/01, DB p.71)(WSJ,
5/9/03, p.W10)
1611 Matthias, brother of Rudolf
II, occupied Prague and captured Rudolf II.
(WSJ, 1/8/99, p.C13)
1611-1670 Antonio de Pareda, Spanish allegorist
painter. His work included "El Sueño del Caballero" (The
Gentleman’s Dream).
(WSJ, 1/09/00, p.A20)
1612 Jan 20, Rudolf II von
Habsburg (59), emperor of Germany (1576-1612), died in Prague and
Matthias became Holy Roman Emperor. In 1912 an enigmatic manuscript,
once owned by Rudolf II, was acquired by Wilfrid Voynich and came to be
known as the Voynich manuscript. In 2006 Peter Marshall authored “The
Magic Circle of Rudolf II.”
(WSJ, 1/8/99,
p.C13)(www.historylearningsite.co)(Econ, 1/10/04, p.71)(WSJ, 9/9/06,
p.P9)
1612 Feb 7, Thomas Killigrew,
English humorist, playwright, leader (King's Men), was born.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1612 Feb 8, Samuel Butler
(d.1680), England, poet, satirist (Hudibras) was baptized.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1612 Feb 17, Ernst of Bayern (57),
prince, bishop of Luik, archbishop of Cologne, died.
(MC, 2/17/02)
1612 Aug 12, Giovanni Gabrieli
(60), Italian composer (Madrigals), died.
(MC, 8/12/02)
1612 Sep 12, Russia’s Tsar Vasili
IV (b.1552) died.
(www.etoile.co.uk/Romanov/Timeline.html)
1612 Oct 22, Russian forces,
inspired by a vision of the captive Greek Archbishop Arsenios, won a
sweeping victory and took the Chinese quarter, and two days later, the
Kremlin itself.
(www.oca.org)
1612 Oct 27, A Polish army which
invaded Russia capitulated to Prince Dimitri Pojarski and his Cossacks.
(HN, 10/27/98)
1612 Nov 4, Russia drove Catholic
Poles and Lithuanians out of Moscow. This marked the end of the "Time
of Troubles," a period of popular uprisings and fighting between
noblemen and pretenders to the throne. Russian Orthodox Church
celebrated this day as the victory of the forces of Eastern Orthodoxy
over the forces of Western Catholicism. In 2005 Russia chose this day
for the new “People’s Unity Day” holiday.
(http://bildt.blogspot.com/2005/11/meaning-of-1612.html)(Econ,
11/12/05, p.56)(Econ, 3/17/07, p.65)
1612 John Webster, English
playwright, wrote his play "The White Devil." It was a tale of
treachery, revenge, sexual corruption and murder.
(WSJ, 1/09/00, p.A20)
1612 "Le Carrousel du Roi," an
equestrian ballet, was choreographed by Antoine de Pluvinel and scored
by Robert Ballard. It was performed as part of an engagement ceremony
for Louis XIII of France to Anne of Austria, princess of Spain. An
estimated 200,000 people viewed the performance in Paris’ Place Royale
(later the Place des Vosges).
(SFEC, 6/4/00, DB p.38)(SFEC, 6/11/00, p.D9)
1612 Shakespeare was commissioned
to write a serious play about Henry VIII. The commission was probably
made to celebrate the marriage of one of King James’ daughters.
(WSJ, 6/27/97, p.A13)
1612 Shakespeare handed over the
role of scriptwriter for the King’s Men to John Fletcher and retired to
his hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon.
(WSJ, 5/1/97, p.A16)
1612 The French explorer Etienne
Brule (1592-1632) is believed to be the first European to see the Great
Lakes. Brule journeyed to North America with Samuel de Champlain in
1608 and helped found Quebec. Brule explored Lake Huron in 1612 and is
believed to have also explored Lakes Ontario, Erie and Superior after
1615. Brule is the first European to live among the Indians and was
probably the first European to set foot in what is now Pennsylvania.
(HNQ, 6/29/98)
1612 In France the Pavillon du
Roi, begun under Henri IV, was completed. It was occupied by the king’s
court and then the Duc de Sully, after which it was called the Hotel de
Sully.
(SFEM, 3/15/98, p.17)
1612 The square of Esfanan,
Persia, was built.
(SSFC, 1/14/07, p.G5)
1612-1626 Johannes Kepler, the Imperial Court
Mathematician of the Habsburgs, taught at the provincial academy of
Linz. Here he published his famous work Harmonices Mundi.
(StuAus, April '95, p.79)
1612-1656 Harmen Van Steenwijck, Dutch painter,
included skulls in his paintings of objects of everyday life.
(NH, 10/96, p.38)
1612-1672 Anne Bradstreet, American poet: "Authority
without wisdom is like a heavy ax without an edge, fitter to bruise
than polish."
(AP, 2/22/99)
1612-1759 The French dominated the interior of
America.
(SFC, 7/7/96, BR p.7)
1613 Jan 28, Thomas Bodley
(b.1545), English diplomatist and scholar, died in London. He founded
the Bodleian Library at Oxford.
(www.nndb.com/people/859/000094577/)
1613 Jan 28, Galileo may have
unknowingly viewed the undiscovered planet Neptune.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1613 Feb 21, Mikhail Romanov (17),
son of Patriarch of Moscow, was elected czar of Russia. He was crowned
Jun 22. The Romanovs began to rule over Russia and lasted until 1917.
(PCh, 1992, p.220)(SFC, 4/19/97,
p.A3)(http://eefy.editme.com/L18b)
1613 Apr 7, Gerard Dou, Dutch
painter (Night School), was born.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1613 Jun 29, Shakespeare's Globe
Theater burned down in London.
(USAT, 8/16/96, p.8D)(MC, 6/29/02)
1613 Jun, Susanna Hall,
Shakespeare’s daughter, married Stratford doctor and herbalist John
Hall.
(WSJ, 12/5/00, p.A24)
1613 Sep 8, Don Carlo Gesauldo
(b.1560), Italian composer and murderer, died.
(WUD, 1994 p.594)(MC, 9/8/01)
1613 Sep 15, Francois, duc de la
Rochefoucauld (d.1680), writer (Memoires), was born in Paris, France.
"When we cannot find contentment in ourselves it is useless to seek it
elsewhere."
(AP, 12/2/98)(www.bookrags.com)
1613 Sep 15, Thomas Overbury
(b.1581), Elizabethan poet, died in London. He was murdered by his
wife, Florence Maybrick, who used an enema of arsenic. The murder was
arranged by Frances Howard, Lady Essex, who felt attacked by Overbury’s
poem “A Wife.”
(WSJ, 6/24/05,
p.W9)(http://search.eb.com/shakespeare/micro/445/8.html)
1613 Jan Breughel (1568-1625), the
Elder, a son of Pieter Breughel, painted the "A Village Street with
Carts, Villagers and Gentlefolk."
(WSJ, 2/18/00, p.W12)
1613 The colonists at Jamestown
kidnapped Pocahontas and held her for ransom to force her father to
free some English hostages and to return some stolen tools.
(ON, 2/07, p.9)(AH, 6/07, p.27)
1613 The American Indian
Tisquantum, aka Squanto, returned to the New World from England as the
interpreter for John Smith. He was freed by Smith but then kidnapped
with 19 fellow Indians by an Englishman and carried off to Milaga,
Spain. He managed to escape to England.
(SFEM, 11/15/98, p.28)
1613 A fleet of 3 English ships
arrived in Japan in response to letters from Will Adams to the English
East India Company.
(ON, 11/02, p.10)
1613 Giovanni Gabrielli (b.1558),
Italian composer, died. Some sources place his birth in 1554 and his
death in 1612.
(http://tinyurl.com/gbznj)(WSJ, 9/21/06, p.D6)
1613-1675 Gerrit Dou, Dutch artist. He was a student
of Rembrandt.
(SFC, 5/25/00, p.A24)
1613 Khushhal Khan Khattak
(d.1690), Afghan warrior-poet, was born. He initiated a national
uprising against the foreign Moghul government.
(www.afghan-network.net/biographies/khattak.html)
1613-1700 Andre Le Notre, French architect and
landscape designer. He shaped the gardens at Vaux-le-Vicomte,
Versailles, Marly, Chantilly, Saint Germain-en-Laye, Les Tuileries,
saint cloud, Sceaux and Courances.
(WUD, 1994, p.820)(SFEM, 5/18/97, p.26)
1614 Apr 5, American Indian
princess Pocahontas (d.1617) married English Jamestown colonist John
Rolfe in Virginia. Their marriage brought a temporary peace between the
English settlers and the Algonquians.
(AP, 4/5/97)(HN, 5/5/97)(SFEC, 10/15/00, p.T12)
1614 Apr 5, 2nd parliament of King
James I began session (no enactments).
(MC, 4/5/02)
1614 Apr 7, El Greco (b.1541),
Cretan born Spanish painter (View of Toledo), died in Toledo. His
paintings included "The Resurrection" (1597).
(WSJ, 6/18/01, p.A16)(MC, 4/7/02)
1614 May 15, An aristocratic
uprising in France ended with the treaty of St. Menehould.
(HN, 5/15/98)
1614 Jun 7, The 2nd parliament of
King James I dissolved passing no legislation.
(SC, 6/7/02)
1614 Jul 14, Camillus de Lellis
(64), Italian soldier, monastery founder, saint, died.
(MC, 7/14/02)
1614 Aug 22, Trades people under
Vincent Fettmilch chased and plunder Jews out of ghetto in Frankfurt.
(MC, 8/22/02)
1614 Sep 1, Vincent Fettmich
expelled Jews from Frankfurt-on-Main, Germany.
(SC, 9/1/02)
1614 Crispijn de Passe the Younger
published "Hortus Floridus" in Holland.
(WSJ, 7/7/98, p.A14)
1614 John Webster, English
playwright, wrote his play "The Duchess of Malfi." It is a "Jacobean
melodrama set in an Italy that was viewed as a hotbed of sexual and
political depravity."
(WSJ, 12/14/95, p.A-12)
1614 Portuguese writer Diego do
Couto wrote of a king in Cambodia who discovered an abandoned city
during an elephant hunt in the middle of the 16th century. The report
did not get published until 1958.
(SFEC, 7/26/98, p.T6)
1614 Inigo Jones (1573-1652),
British architect, traveled to Italy and bought a trunk full of
Palladio’s architectural drawings. In 1894 they ended up at the Royal
Institute of British Architects.
(Econ, 9/27/08,
p.100)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inigo_Jones)
1614 King Louis XIII (13) gave
Christophe Marie and his partners the go-ahead to build the Pont Marie
linking Paris’ Right Bank to the Ile Saint Louis.
(SFCM, 10/14/01, p.33)
1614 English Jamestown colonist
John Rolfe successfully cultivated tobacco for export to England. This
guaranteed the colony’s economic survival.
(AH, 6/07, p.27)
1614 Father Tommaso Caccini
denounced the opinions of Galileo on the motion of the Earth from the
pulpit of Santa Maria Novella, judging them to be erroneous. Galileo
went to Rome and defended himself against charges that had been made
against him. In 1616, he was admonished by Cardinal Bellarmino and told
that he could not defend Copernican astronomy because it went against
the doctrine of the Church. Later, in 1632 he was summoned by the Holy
Office to Rome. The tribunal passed a sentence condemning him and
compelled Galileo to solemnly abjure his theory. He was sent to exile
in Siena.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1614 Sulayman Pasha, a Turkish
general, named the Tehran (later Tirana) as the capital of Albania
after the capital of Iran.
(SSFC, 12/17/06, p.G5)
1614 Shogun Ieyasu ordered all
Christian missionaries to leave Japan. All Christian churches were
closed and Japanese people were forbidden to practice Christianity on
pain of death.
(ON, 11/02, p.10)
1614 The Don Cossacks made a pact
with the Russian Czar and gained self-government in exchange for
military service.
(SFC,10/28/97, p.A8)
1615 Feb 23, The Estates-General
in Paris was dissolved, having been in session since October 1614.
(HN, 2/23/99)
1615 Mar 13, Innocent XII, Roman
Catholic Pope, was born.
(HN, 3/13/98)
1615 Jun 4, The Tokugawa Shogun
captured Osaka Castle and eliminated Hide-yoshi's heirs. The fortress
of Osaka, Japan, fell to shogun Leyasu after a six month siege.
(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 215)(HN, 6/4/98)
1615 Jul 28, French explorer
Samuel de Champlain discovered Lake Huron on his seventh voyage to the
New World.
(HN, 7/28/98)
c1615 Artemisia Gentileschi
created her painting "Female Martyr." In 1989 Mary D. Garrard authored
a book on her life and art. In 2002 Susan Vreeland authored "The
Passion of Artemisia," a novel based on the artist’s life.
(SSFC, 1/13/02, p.M3)
1615 Dutch artist Joachim Wtewael
painted the "Judgement of Paris."
(SFC, 9/12/97, p.C8)
1615 In India prince Shah Jahan,
son of Jehangir, returned home after a successful military campaign.
(WSJ, 12/16/97, p.A16)
1615 In Japan Shogun Tokugawa
Ieyasu granted land to Hon’ami Koetsu, a calligraphy artist. The
property was named Takagamine and became a colony for artists united by
their adherence to Buddhism.
(SFC, 8/21/00, p.D3)
1615-1680 Nicolas Fouquet, treasurer to Louis XIV of
France. He used embezzled funds to build his chateau Vaux le Vicomte.
[see 1661]
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R8)
1616 Jan 20, The French explorer
Samuel de Champlain arrived to winter in a Huron Indian village after
being wounded in a battle with Iroquois in New France.
(HN, 1/20/99)
1616 Feb 24, Qualifiers of the
Holy Office concluded that a sun-centered theory was “foolish and
absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical, inasmuch as it expressly
contradicts the teachings of many passages of Holy scriptures.”
(SSFC, 10/31/04, p.B6)
1616 Feb 26, Spanish Inquisition
delivered an injunction to Galileo.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1616 Mar 5, Copernicus' "de
Revolutionibus" was placed on Catholic Forbidden index.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1616 Mar 6, Francis Beaumont
(b.1584), Elizabethan playwright, died.
(WUD, 1994 p.131)(MC, 3/6/02)
1616 Mar 20, Walter Raleigh was
released from Tower of London to seek gold in Guiana. He took along his
son Wat (22), who was killed during an attack on a Spanish outpost.
(MC, 3/20/02)(WSJ, 1/6/04, p.D10)
1616 Apr 23, Miguel de Cervantes
(b.1547), Spanish poet and novelist, died in Madrid.
(AP, 4/23/97)
1616 Apr 23, William Shakespeare
(b.1564), poet and playwright, died in Stratford-on-Avon, England. In
2004 Stephen Greenblatt authored “Will In the World.” In 2006 Colin
McGinn authored “Discovering the Meaning Behind the Plays.”
(AP, 4/23/97)(WSJ, 9/24/04, p.W7)(SSFC, 12/24/06,
p.M1)
1616 Jul 25, Andreas Libavius,
German alchemist, died.
(SC, 7/25/02)
1616 Nov 20, Bishop Richelieu
became French minister of Foreign affairs and War.
(MC, 11/20/01)
1616 Dec 25, Nathaniel Courthope,
a British merchant-adventurer under direct orders from James I, landed
his ship Swan at the Banda Island of Run. He persuaded the islanders to
enter an alliance with the British for nutmeg. He fortified the 1 by 2
mile island and with 30 men proceeded to hold off a Dutch siege for
1,540 days.
(WSJ, 5/21/99, p.W7)
1616 John Smith authored “A
Description of New England.” It described his exploration of new
England following his departure from Virginia in 1614.
(WSJ, 11/22/08, p.W11)
1616 The collection, "Poems," by
William Drummond (b.1585), Scottish laird of Hawthornden, appeared.
(HN, 12/13/99)
1616 London’s Phoenix Theater in
Drury Lane was converted from a cockpit.
(Econ, 5/21/05, p.88)
1616 Galileo was forbidden from
continuing his scientific work by the Roman Catholic Church.
(NG, March 1990, J. Boslough p. 117)
1616 The Scornful Lady, a play by
Beaumont and Fletcher that features a serving maid named Abigail.
(AHD, 1971, p.3)
1616 Capt. Samuel Argall, deputy
governor of Jamestown and known as the kidnapper of Pocahontas, was
appointed to run the colony. Within 2 years the public estate was gone,
though his own plantation thrived. The Earl of Warwick sent a ship and
Argall loaded his plunder and absconded to England. Argall was knighted
2 years after his return to England and later served as an adviser on
the governance of Jamestown.
(SSFC, 7/14/02, p.G2)
1616 In a letter to Queen Anne,
Capt. John Smith recalled that Pocahontas had saved the colony at
Jamestown from "death, famine, and utter confusion."
(WSJ, 6/13/95, p.A-18)
1616 American Indian princess
Pocahontas and her husband, Jamestown colonist John Rolfe, sailed to
England with their infant son.
(ON, 2/07, p.9)
1616 The Fuerte de San Diego was
built to protect the port of Acapulco, Mexico, from Dutch and English
pirates.
(SSFC, 11/2/03, p.C6)
1616 Shogun Ieyasu (b.1642),
Japanese general and statesman, died.
(WUD, 1994 p.759)(ON, 11/02, p.10)
1616 The Dutch became the first to
establish colonies in Guyana with Essequibo. Berbice followed in 1627,
and then Demerara in 1752.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guyana)
1616-1619 An epidemic, possibly viral hepatitis from
contact with Europeans, ravaged the Wampanoag confederacy in
Massachusetts. This helped to make possible the Pilgrim settlement in
1620.
(Econ, 8/11/07, p.49)
1617 Jan 6, Pocahontas, American
Indian princess, attended a court masque with King James I and Queen
Anne.
(ON, 2/07, p.9)
1617 Feb 4, Louis Elsevier (~76),
Dutch publisher, died.
(MC, 2/4/02)
1617 Feb 9, Hans Christoph Haiden
(44), composer, died.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1617 Mar 9, The Treaty of Stolbovo
ended the occupation of Northern Russia by Swedish troops.
(HN, 3/9/99)
1617 Mar 21, Pocahontas (Rebecca
Rolfe) was buried at the parish church of St. George in Gravesend,
England. As Pocahontas and John Rolfe prepared to sail back to
Virginia, she died reportedly of either small pox or pneumonia. In 2003
Paula Gunn Allen authored "Pocahontas "Medicine Woman, Spy,
entrepreneur, Diplomat."
(AP, 4/5/97)(HN, 5/5/97)(SFEC, 10/15/00, p.T12)(HN,
3/21/01)(SSFC, 10/19/03, p.M5)
1617 Apr 4, John Napier, Scottish
mathematician, inventor (logarithms), died.
(MC, 4/4/02)
1617 May 7, David Fabricius (53),
German astronomer, died.
(MC, 5/7/02)
1617 Aug 23, The 1st one-way
streets opened in London.
(MC, 8/23/02)
1617 Aug 30, Rosa de Lima of Peru
became the first American saint to be canonized.
(HN, 8/30/98)
1617 Simon Vouet painted "The
Fortune Teller."
(WSJ, 4/28/98, p.A16)
1617 Fort San Diego was built to
protect Acapulco, a major port for Spanish galleons, against buccaneers.
(Hem, Dec. 94, p.25)
1617 The Pilgrims decided to leave
the Netherlands. They formed a partnership in a joint-stock company
with a group of London merchants in a company called John Pierce &
Assoc. They received a grant for a plantation in the Virginia colony
but ended up landing in Massachusetts. Each adult was to receive a
share in the company but earnings would not be divided for 7 years.
(WSJ, 11/26/97, p.A14)
1617 James VI of Scotland, aka
James I of England, made a homecoming to Edinburgh Castle.
(SFEC, 11/8/98, p.T3)
1617-1618 Mustafa I succeeded Ahmed I in the Ottoman
House of Osman.
(Ot, 1993, xvii)
1618 Jan 7, Francis Bacon became
English lord chancellor.
(MC, 1/7/02)
1618 Mar 8, Johannes Kepler came
up with his Third Law of Planetary Motion.
(SFC, 6/16/96, PM p.5)(HN, 3/8/98)
1618 Apr 2, Francesco M. Grimaldi,
mathematician, physicist (light diffraction), was born.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1618 May 15, Johannes Kepler
discovered his harmonics law.
(HN, 5/15/98)
1618 May 23, The Thirty Years War
(1618-1648) ravaged Germany. It began when three opponents of the
Reformation were thrown through a window. The "official" Defenestration
of Prague was the "official" trigger for the Thirty Year’s War. Local
Protestants became enraged when Catholic King Ferdinand reneged on
promises of religious freedom and stormed Hradcany Castle and threw 3
Catholic councilors out of the window and into the moat. The conflict
spread across Europe with most of the fighting taking place in Germany.
The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 brought the war to an end and ended the
emperor‘s authority over Germany outside the Hapsburg domain. The 1939
play "Mother Courage and Her Children" by Bertolt Brecht was set in
this period (1624).
(V.D.-H.K.p.90)(NH, 9/96, p.18,22)(HN, 5/23/98)(HNQ,
2/28/00)(WSJ, 10/23/01, p.A24)
1618 Aug, Hugo Grotius, attorney
general of Holland, was arrested on the orders of Prince Maurice of
Nassau, ruler of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, for
conspiring to undermine the authority of the government.
(ON, 10/04, p.1)
1618 Oct 29, Sir Walter Raleigh,
English scholar, poet and historian, was executed for treason. After
the death of Queen Elizabeth, Raleigh's enemies had spread rumors that
he opposed the accession of King James. In 2003 Raleigh Trevelyan
authored "Sir Walter Raleigh," and Anna Beer authored "My Just Desire,"
a biography of Raleigh's wife, Elizabeth Throckmorton.
(HN, 10/29/98)(MC, 10/29/01)(WSJ, 1/6/04, p.D10)
1618 Diego Velazquez painted "Old
Woman Cooking," a still life on frying eggs.
(WSJ, 7/27/95, p.A-10)
1618 Pietro da Cortona, artist,
made an atlas of human anatomy: "Tabulae Anatomicae."
(NH, 10/96, p.37)
1618 In London the play "Swetnam
the Woman-Hater" introduced the term "misogynist" into the English
language.
(SFEC, 7/25/99, p.A2)
1618 In France one of the first
manuals of conversation was published: “Maximes de la Bienséance
en la Conversation.”
(Econ, 12/23/06, p.80)
1618 In Merida, Mexico, the
Iglesia de Jesus was built by Jesuits.
(SSFC, 5/6/01, p.T6)
1618 Michael Sweerts (d.1664),
artist, was born in Brussels. He did much of his important work in
Rome, moved to the Netherlands, traveled in Asia with a band of
missionaries and died in Goa.
(SSFC, 12/24/00, DB p.39)(WSJ, 7/2/02, p.D7)
1618 Hendrick Goltzius (b.1558),
Dutch Master painter, died. His work included "Danaë."
(WSJ, 8/14/03, p.D8)
1618 Kana Takanobu (b.1571),
Japanese artist, died.
(NYT, 10/8/04, p.B35)
1618-1622 Osman II took rule in the Ottoman House of
Osman.
(Ot, 1993, xvii)
1618-1680 Sir Peter Lely, English court painter.
(Ind, 12/26/98, p.5A)
1618-1689 The Chinese painter Gong Xian. His work
included "Summer Mountains After Rain."
(WSJ, 2/19/98, p.A20)
1618-1707 Aurangzeb, Moghul ruler of India. His
wealth was said to be 10 times that of Louis XIV. The empire reached
its greatest size during his rule but his persecution of Hindu subjects
weakened Muslim Moghul control.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R8)
1618-1945 The Dutch ruled Indonesia. They were drawn
to Jakarta, a fishing village which they called Batavia, for the spice
trade.
(SFEC, 4/27/97, p.T7)
1619 Feb 24, Charles Le Brun,
painter, designer, was born in Paris.
(MC, 2/24/02)
1619 Mar 1, Thomas Campion (53),
English physician, composer, poet (Poemata), died.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1619 Mar 6, Cyrano de Bergerac
(d.1655), French poet, playwright (Voyage to the Moon), swordsman, was
born. His radical writings prefigured Voltaire and Diderot. His noted
nose was an invention of the poet Theophile Gautier introduced in an
1844 book. Edmond Rostand’s play on Cyrano was unveiled in 1897.
(SFEC, 4/27/97, DB p.3)(MC, 3/6/02)
1619 Apr 16, Denijs Calvaert
(Caluwaert), [Dionisio Fiamingo], Flemish painter, died.
(MC, 4/16/02)
1619 May 13, Johan van
Oldenbarnevelt (b.1547), Dutch lands advocate, was beheaded.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1619 May 18, Hugo the Great
(1582-1645), Hugo de Groot or Grotius, Dutch scholar, the "Father of
Int’l. Law" and author of the 1st treatise on the law of the sea, Mare
liberum," was sentenced to life in prison.
(SC, 5/18/02)(Internet)
1619 Jul 30, The first
representative assembly in America the House of Burgesses, became the
first legislative assembly in America when it convened at Jamestown, Va.
(AP, 7/30/97)(HN, 7/30/98)
1619 Aug 20, The 1st African
slaves arrived to North America aboard a Dutch privateer. It docked in
Jamestown, Virginia, with twenty human captives among its cargo.
(SFC, 12/18/96, p.A25)(HN, 8/20/98)(PC, 1992, p.224)
1619 Dec 4, A group of settlers
from Bristol, England, arrived at Berkeley Hundred in present-day
Charles City County, Va., where they held a service thanking God for
their safe arrival. Some suggest this was the true first Thanksgiving
in America, ahead of the Pilgrims' arrival in Massachusetts.
(AP, 12/4/08)
1619 The first election in America
was held to elect the members of the Virginia assembly.
(BD emp. letter, 9/27/96)
1619 The Virginia Company of
London, sponsor of the Jamestown settlement, built a blast furnace for
working iron. Ruins of the furnace were found in 2007 along Falling
Creek in Chesterfield County, Va.
(AH, 6/07, p.16)
1619 In England Tisquantum joined
a new exploratory mission to the New England coast and returned to find
that his tribe had been wiped out by the plague. It was he who later
communicated with the first Pilgrims at Plymouth.
(SFEM, 11/15/98, p.29)
1619 Amsterdam opened a stock
exchange.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)
1619 Catholic Hapsburg Ferdinand
became Holy Roman Emperor as Ferdinand II. [see 1620]
(HNQ, 2/28/00)
1620 Jan 31, Virginia colony
leaders wrote to the Virginia Company in England, asking for more
orphaned apprentices for employment.
(HN, 1/31/99)
1620 Feb 10, Supporters of Marie
de Medici, the queen mother, who had been exiled to Blois, were
defeated by the king’s troops at Ponts de Ce, France.
(AP, 2/10/99)
1620 Feb 15, Francois Charpentier,
French scholar, archaeologist, was born.
(MC, 2/15/02)
1620 Feb 16, Frederick William,
founder of Brandenburg-Prussia, was born.
(HN, 2/16/98)
1620 Mar 9, Aegidius Albertinus
(59), German writer (Lucifer's Kingdom), died.
(MC, 3/9/02)
1620 Apr 24, John Graunt,
statistician, founder of science of demography, was born.
(HN, 4/24/98)
1620 May 17, The 1st
merry-go-round was seen at a fair in Philippapolis, Turkey.
(MC, 5/17/02)
1620 Jul 21, Jean Picard, French
astronomer, was born.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1620 Jul 22, The Pilgrims set out
from Holland destined for the New World. The Speedwell sailed to
England from the Netherlands with members of the English Separatist
congregation that had been living in Leiden, Holland. Joining the
larger Mayflower at Southampton, the two ships set sail together in
August, but the Speedwell soon proved unseaworthy and was abandoned at
Plymouth, England. The entire company then crowded aboard the
Mayflower, setting sail for North America on September 16, 1620.
(HNQ, 3/4/00)(MC, 7/22/02)
1620 Jul 29, New Mexico’s Gov. Don
Juan de Eulate passed by the sandstone bluff of El Morro on return from
the pueblos of Zuni. He left his mark in the stone.
(SSFC, 4/10/05, p.F9)
1620 Aug 7, Kepler's mother was
arrested for witchcraft.
(MC, 8/7/02)
1620 Aug 7, French king Louis XIII
beat his mother Marie de Medici at the Battle at Ponts-the-Ca, Poitou.
(MC, 8/7/02)
1620 Sep 16, The Pilgrims sailed
from England on the Mayflower, finally settling at Plymouth, Mass. The
Pilgrims were actually Separatists because they had left the Church of
England. The 4 children of William Brewster, who arrived on the
Mayflower, were named: Love, Wrestling, Patience, and Fear. In 2006
Nathaniel Philbrick authored “Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community
and War.”
(HN, 9/16/98)(SFEM, 11/15/98, p.23)(SFC, 3/20/99,
p.B4)(SFC, 7/26/06, p.E2)
1620 Oct 31, John Evelyn (d.1706),
British diarist (Life of Mrs. Godolphin), was born. He was a meditative
and sententious English diarist.
(WSJ, 6/2/99, p.A24)(MC, 10/31/01)
1620 Nov 8, The King of Bohemia
was defeated at the Battle of White Mountain, Prague. With Hapsburg
support in Bohemia the Catholics defeated the Protestants at the Battle
of the White Mountain. Weeks of plunder and pillage followed in Prague
and after a few months the victors tortured and executed 27 nobles and
other citizens and hung 12 heads on iron hooks from the Bridge Tower.
(NH, 9/96, p.24)(HN, 11/6/98)(MC, 11/8/01)
1620 Nov 11, Pilgrims aboard the
Mayflower, anchored off Massachusetts, signed a compact calling for a
"body politick." 102 Pilgrims stepped ashore. 41 men signed the compact
calling themselves Saints and others Strangers. One passenger died
enroute and 2 were born during the passage. Their military commander
was Miles Standish. In 2006 Nathaniel Philbrick authored “Mayflower: A
Story of Courage, Community and War.”
(AP, 11/11/97)(SFEM, 11/15/98, p.8,23)(Econ, 5/6/06,
p.82)
1620 Nov 19, The Pilgrims reached
Cape Cod.
(HN, 11/19/98)
1620 Nov 20, Peregrine White was
born aboard the Mayflower in Massachusetts Bay -- the first child born
of English parents in present-day New England.
(AP, 11/20/97)
1620 Nov 21, Leaders of the
Mayflower expedition framed the "Mayflower Compact," designed to
bolster unity among the settlers. The Pilgrims reached Provincetown
Harbor, Mass.
(HN, 11/21/98)(MC, 11/21/01)
1620 Dec 2, An English newspaper
headline read: “The new tidings out of Italie are not yet come.” In
2006 this was reported to be the world’s oldest headline.
(Econ, 12/23/06, p.103)
1620 Dec 6, A group of passengers
and crew left the Mayflower in a shallop to search for a suitable
harbor and place to settle.
(AM, 11/00, p.18)
1620 Dec 11, 103 Mayflower
pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.
(MC, 12/11/01)
1620 Dec 16, The Mayflower dropped
anchor in Plymouth Harbor.
(AM, 11/00, p.18)
1620 Dec 18, The Captain of the
Mayflower 1st went on land at Plymouth Harbor with 3 to 4 sailors.
(AM, 11/00, p.18)
1620 Dec 21, The Mayflower reached
Plymouth, Mass. after a 63-day voyage. Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower
went ashore for the first time at present-day Plymouth, Mass. The crew
of the ship did not have enough beer to get to Virginia and back to
England so they dropped the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock to preserve their
beer stock.
(HFA, '96, p.44)(AP, 12/20/97)(Hem., 8/96,
p.115)(MC, 12/21/01)
1620 Dec 23, French Huguenots
declared war on King Louis XIII.
(MC, 12/23/01)
1620 Georges de La Tour began his
painting "The Hurdy Gurdy Player With a Dog." It was completed about
1622.
(WSJ, 11/13/96, p.A20)
1620 "The chronicle of the
Pilgrims voyage to and settlement in America was begun by Nathanial
Morton, keeper of the records of Plymouth Colony, based on the account
of William Bradford, sometime governor thereof..." From the two
editorials titled: "The Desolate Wilderness" and "And the Fair Land,"
published annually in the WSJ since 1961.
(WSJ, 11/22/95, p.A-10)
1620 Bacon published his "Novum
Organon." Francis Bacon was said to have noted the striking fit of the
opposing coastlines of South America and western Africa.
(V.D.-H.K.p.139)(DD-EVTT, p.192)
1620 The Wampanoag Confederacy of
some 50 Algonquin bands stretched across southeastern Massachusetts.
(AH, 6/02, p.44)
1620 Ferdinand II became emperor
of the Holy Roman Empire after the death of Rudolf II and moved the
Imperial Court back to Vienna. He sold dozens of paintings collected by
Rudolf II that he found "lewd."
(WSJ, 7/10/97, p.A13)(WUD, 1994, p.524)
c1620 In Canada a settlement was
established at Cupers Cove (now Cupids) in Newfoundland.
(SFEM, 11/15/98, p.23)
1620 In England Dutch-born
Cornelius Drebbel tested a submarine which cruised 15 feet under the
Thames. Cornelis Drebbel also attempted to air-condition Westminster
Abbey.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)(WSJ, 12/10/99, p.W12)
1620 In India Jehangir, successor
of Akbar, visited the gardens of Kashmir and adopted the "flower style"
as opposed to the previous bestiaries.
(WSJ, 12/16/97, p.A16)
1620 Will Adams,
English-Dutch-Japanese ship pilot, died in Japan.
(ON, 11/02, p.10)
1620 In Spain the Plaza Mayor, a
grand, arcaded square in Madrid, dates to this time.
(SFEC, 5/31/98, p.T9)
1620-1621 Van Dyck made a portrait of "Thomas Howard,
Earl of Arundel."
(WSJ, 3/9/98, p.A16)
c1620-1630 Marquisa de Rambouillet began inviting
acquaintances to her Paris townhouse for weekly conversations giving
birth to the Paris salon culture. In 2002 Benedetta Craveri authored
“The Age of Conversation.” An English translation came out in 2005.
(WSJ, 5/13/05, p.W6)
1620-1637 Ferdinand II, king of Bohemia and Hungary,
ruled as the Holy Roman emperor.
(WUD, 1994, p.524)
1621 Jan 3, William Tucker was
born. He is believed to be first American born African-American. [1624
date also given]
(HN, 1/3/99)(MC, 1/3/02)
1621 Feb 17, Miles Standish was
appointed 1st commander of Plymouth colony.
(MC, 2/17/02)
1621 Mar 4, Jakarta, Java, was
renamed Batavia.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1621 Mar 16 The first Indian
appeared in Plymouth, Mass. Samoset, an English speaking Indian, and
his friend Tisquantum of the Wampanoag tribe, became friends with the
Pilgrims.
(HN, 3/16/98)(SFEM, 11/15/98, p.23)
1621 Mar 31, Andrew Marvell,
English poet and politician, was born.
(HN, 3/31/01)
1621 Apr 1, The Plymouth,
Massachusetts colonists created the first treaty with Native Americans.
(OTD)
1621 Apr 5, The Mayflower sailed
from Plymouth, Mass., on a return trip to England. By this time 44 of
the landing party had died and 54 people, mostly children, were left to
build the colony.
(AP, 4/5/97)(SFEM, 11/15/98, p.23)
1621 May 3, Francis Bacon was
accused of bribery.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1621 May 31, Sir Francis Bacon was
thrown into Tower of London for overnight.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1621 Jun 3, The Dutch West India
Company received a charter for New Netherlands, now known as New York.
The Dutch West India Co. was formed to trade with America and West
Africa.
(AP, 6/3/97)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)
1621 Jul 8, Jean La Fontaine, poet
and author of Fables, was born.
(HN, 7/8/98)
1621 Sep 8, Louis II Conde, [Great
Conde], duke of Bourbon (Rocroi), was born.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1621 Sep 21, King James of England
gave Canada to Sir Alexander Sterling.
(MC, 9/21/01)
1621 Oct 16, Jan Pieterszoon
Sweelinck, organist and composer, died at about 59.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1621 Oct 25, Gov. Bradford of US
Plymouth colony disallowed sport on Christmas Day.
(MC, 10/25/01)
1621 Oct, The first American
Thanksgiving was held in Massachusetts' Plymouth colony in 1621 to give
thanks for a bountiful harvest. 51 Pilgrims served codfish, sea bass
and turkeys while their 90 Wampanoag guests contributed venison to the
feast. After the survival of their first colony through a bitter winter
and the subsequent gathering of the harvest in the autumn, Plymouth
Colony Governor William Bradford issued a thanksgiving proclamation.
During the three-day October thanksgiving the Pilgrims feasted on wild
turkey and venison with their Native American guests. American Indians
introduced cranberries to the white settlers. In 2006 Godfrey Hodgson,
British historian, authored “A Great and Godly Adventure: The Pilgrims
and the Myth of the First Thanksgiving.” American scholars quickly
defied Hodgson’s allegation that there were no turkeys in the region.
(Econ, 12/18/04, p.122)(SSFC, 11/12/06, p.M1)(SFC,
11/22/06, p.A1)
1621 Dec 3, Galileo invented the
telescope. [see Aug 25, 1609]
(MC, 12/3/01)
1621 Dec 13, Emperor Ferdinand II
delegated the 1st anti-Reformation decree.
(MC, 12/13/01)
1621 Dec 18, English parliament
unanimously accepted Protestation.
(MC, 12/18/01)
1621 Dec 25, The governor William
Bradford of New Plymouth prevented newcomers from playing cards. The
queens later depicted on playing cards were said to be: spades
(Pallas), hearts (Judith), diamonds (Rachel), clubs (Elizabeth).
(HN, 12/25/98)(SFC, 3/20/99, p.B4)(MC, 12/25/01)
1621 Georges de La Tour painted
"The Fortune Teller," which showed a young aristocrat getting fleeced
while having his palm read.
(SFC, 10/16/99, p.D3)
1621 Robert Burton authored
"Anatomy of Melancholy." In 2001 Andrew Solomon authored "The Doomday
Demon: An Atlas of Depression."
(NW, 6/11/01, p.56)
1621 A letter from the English
office of the Virginia Company reports that European honeybees (Apis
mellifera) were shipped to America.
(NH, 5/97, p.32)
1621 In England Bacon was accused
of taking bribes in his office of lord chancellor. He was convicted,
sentenced to a large fine and imprisoned for a short time in the Tower
of London.
(V.D.-H.K.p.139)
1621 In Germany potatoes, native
to the Andes, were first planted.
(SFC, 7/14/99, p.3)
1621 In Mexico Agustina Ruiz of
Quertaro was tried for claiming sexual intercourse with saints. She was
sent to a convent by the Inquisition for 3 years of fasting and penance.
(SFC, 9/18/96, p.A11)
1621 Spices bought in the West
Indies for $227 sold for $2 million in Europe.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R49)
1621-1623 Orazio Gentileschi painted "Danaë."
(WSJ, 3/12/02, p.A24)
1621-1623 Gregory XV served as Pope.
(WSJ, 2/8/00, p.A20)
1621-1622 Dutch artist Dirck van Baburen painted "The
Mocking of Christ."
(SFC, 9/12/97, p.C8)
1622 Jan 15, Moliere (d.1673)
[Jean Baptiste Poquelin], French actor and comic dramatist, was born.
He was the author of "Tartuffe" and "The Misanthrope" (1666). He also
did the bilingual experiment "L’Impromptu du Versailles." His last play
was "The Imaginary Invalid." "It is a stupidity second to none, to busy
oneself with the correction of the world."
(WUD, 1994, p.923)(WSJ, 4/5/96, p.A-6)(LSA, Spg/97,
p.14)(WSJ, 4/2/98, p.A20)(AP, 11/10/98)(HN, 1/15/99)
1622 Jan 23, William Baffin (~38),
British explorer, died.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1622 Feb 8, King James I disbanded
the English parliament.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1622 Feb 27, Rembrandt Carel
Fabritius (d.1654), Dutch painter, was born.
(SFC, 4/4/01, p.C1)(MC, 2/27/02)
1622 Mar 12, Ignatius of Loyola
(founder of the Jesuits) was declared a saint.
(MC, 3/12/02)
1622 Mar 22, The Powhattan
Confederacy massacred 347-350 colonists in Virginia, a quarter of the
population. On Good Friday over 300 colonists in and around Jamestown,
Virginia, were massacred by the Powhatan Indians. The massacre was led
by the Powhatan chief Opechancanough and began a costly 22-year war
against the English. Opechancanough hoped that killing one quarter of
Virginia’s colonists would put an end to the European threat. The
result of the massacre was just the opposite, however, as English
survivors regrouped and pushed the Powhattans far into the interior.
Opechancanough launched his final campaign in 1644, when he was nearly
100 years old and almost totally blind. He was then captured and
executed.
(WSJ, 10/19/98, p.A24)(HNPD, 10/23/98)(AP, 3/22/99)
1622 Apr 17, Henry Vaughan
(d.1695), English poet and mystic, was born.
(WUD, 1994, p.1582)(HN, 4/17/98)
1622 Jun 24, The Dutch defeated
Macao.
(HFA, '96, p.32)
1622 Sep 6, A Spanish silver fleet
disappeared off Florida Keys; thousands died. The Santa Margarita,
discovered off of Key West in 1980 by pioneering shipwreck salvor Mel
Fisher, was bound for Spain when it sank in a hurricane in 1622.
(MC, 9/6/01)(AP, 6/18/07)
1622 Oct 18, French King Louis
XIII and the Huguenots signed the treaty of Montpellier.
(MC, 10/18/01)
1622 Dec 28, Francois de Sales
(55), French bishop of Geneva, writer and saint, died.
(MC, 12/28/01)
1622 Dutch artist Dirck van
Baburen painted: "The Procuress."
(SFEM, 8/31/97, p.8)
1622 William Bradford and Edward
Winslow authored “Mourt’s Relation.” It was published in London and
provided an account of the Plymouth colony’s first year.
(WSJ, 11/22/08, p.W11)(AM, 11/00, p.18)
1622 Thomas Middleton and William
Rowley wrote the Jacobean tragedy "The Changeling."
(WSJ, 3/6/97, p.A12)
1622 Paris Lodron, the
Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, founded the Univ. of Salzburg.
(StuAus, April '95, p.87)
1622 Powhattan Indians attacked
the outlying settlements of Jamestown and destroyed the Henricus
settlement.
(www.history.org/foundation/journal/Winter04-05/henricus.cfm)
1622 The Spaten's company name
comes from Munich brewing family Spaeth, which bought a 225 year-old
brewery in 1622 and ran the firm for seven generations.
(http://spatenusa.com/timeline.html)
1622 In Aklmaar [Netherlands] the
cheese market officially opened. [see 1366]
(SFEC, 6/7/98, p.T10)
1622 Safavid Persia ruled Kandahar
[aka Afghanistan].
(www.afghan, 5/25/98)
1622 Queen Nzinga of Matamba
visited Portuguese officials to plead for peace.
(ATC, p.153)
1622-1623 Mustafa I took back the rule in the
Ottoman House of Osman.
(Ot, 1993, xvii)
1622-1623 Nicolas Poussin, French painter, made his
ink and wash drawing "The Death of Chione."
(WSJ, 2/26/96, p.A-10)
1623 Mar 5, The 1st American
temperance law was enacted in Virginia.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1623 Apr 27, Johann Adam Reincken,
composer, was born.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1623 Apr 29, 11 Dutch ships
departed for the conquest of Peru.
(MC, 4/29/02)
1623 Jun 19, Blaise Pascal
(d.1662), French mathematician, physicist, religious writer, was born.
He affirmed that the heart has its reasons, that reason does not
comprehend. The French mathematician invented the roulette wheel in an
effort to create a perpetual motion machine. He formulated the first
laws of atmospheric pressure, equilibrium of liquids and probability."
All the troubles of man come from his not knowing how to sit still."
(V.D.-H.K.p.123)(SFEC, 3/23/97, z1 p.7)(AP,
6/19/98)(AP, 5/28/99)(HN, 6/19/99)
1623 Jul 4, William Byrd (80),
English composer (Ave verum corpus), died.
(MC, 7/4/02)
1623 Aug 6, Anne Hathaway, wife of
William Shakespeare, died.
(MC, 8/6/02)
1623 Sep 10, Lumber and furs were
the first cargo to leave New Plymouth in North America for England.
(HN, 9/10/98)
1623 Nov 9, William Camden (72),
English historian: Brittania Annales, died.
(MC, 11/9/01)
1623 In Prague Adriaen de Vries
created his sculpture, "Laocoon and His Sons." It was the first
reinterpretation of the Greek masterpiece unearthed in Rome in 1506.
(WSJ, 12/7/99, p.A24)
1623 Dutch artist Dirck van
Baburen painted "Prometheus Chained."
(SFC, 9/12/97, p.C1)
1623 Velazquez painted the
portrait: "Gaspar de Guzman, Count-Duke of Olivares."
(WSJ, 12/29/99, p.A12)
1623 Ben Jonson, playwright, wrote
his poem Shakespeare "Sweet Swan of Avon."
(SFC, 4/26/97, p.E3)
1623 The 1st folio edition of
Shakespeare’s plays was published.
(SSFC, 6/3/01, DB p.71)
1623 A volume entitled “Necessary
and Useful Rules for Hunting and the Care of Grazing Animals” was
published.
(Econ, 1/20/07, p.93)
1623 In Massachusetts Gov. William
Bradford instituted private property so that the pilgrims could
cultivate food at a profit. He assigned every family a parcel of land.
(WSJ, 11/26/97, p.A12)
1623 Avedis Zildjian, alchemist,
noted that a particular combination of tin and copper rang very nicely
and began making musical cymbals in Constantinople. In 1929 the firm
moved to Massachusetts.
(WSJ, 5/31/96, p.B1)
1623 The young male caretaker of
cattle was first called a "cowboy."
(SFC, 6/16/96, Zone 1 p.2)
1623 In London the Coopers Arm
pub, now known as The Lamb and Flag at 33 Rose St., went into business.
(SFC, 8/11/96, p.T7)
1623 The 1st case of smallpox in
Russia was reported.
(SFC, 10/19/01, p.A17)
1623-1640 Murad IV succeeded Mustafa I in the Ottoman
House of Osman.
(Ot, 1993, xvii)
1624 Jan 15, The people of Mexico
rioted upon hearing that their churches were to be closed.
(HN, 1/15/99)
1624 Mar 5, Class-based
legislation was passed in the colony of Virginia, exempting the upper
class from punishment by whipping.
(HN, 3/5/99)
1624 Apr 29, Louis XIII appointed
Cardinal Richelieu chief minister of the Royal Council.
(HN, 4/29/98)
1624 May 24, James I revoked
Virginia's charter after years of unprofitable operation and it became
a royal colony.
(HN, 5/24/99)(AH, 6/07, p.27)
1624 Aug 13, French King Louis
XIII named Cardinal Richelieu his first minister.
(AP, 8/13/97)
1624 Sep 12, The 1st submarine was
tested in London.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1624 May 3, Spanish silver fleet
sailed to Panama.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1624 George Fox (d.1691), founder
of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), was born in England.
(SSFC, 8/5/01, p.C10)
1624 In Italy Giovanni Lanfranco
painted the "Council of the Gods" on the ceiling of the Galleria
Borghese.
(WSJ, 9/15/98, p.A20)
1624 Nicolas Poussin, French
painter, left France and went to Rome.
(WSJ, 2/26/96, p.A-10)
1624 Velasquez painted a portrait
of King Philip IV.
(WSJ, 12/16/04, p.D8)
1624 Poet John Donne wrote: "Any
man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; and
therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for
thee…"
(SFC, 7/15/00, p.B3)
1624 Capt. John Smith published
his General Historie of Virginia. His exciting adventures are pictured
in the book’s engravings.
(NG, Sept. 1939, J. Maloney p.359)
1624 Artisans of Louis XIII
completed the 1st generation of the Louvre.
(SFC, 7/15/00, p.B3)
1624 Cafe Chris opened in
Amsterdam and served the construction workers of the nearby Westerkerk.
(SFEC, 3/2/97, p.T5)
1624 The Dutch conquered Salvador,
Brazil.
(SFEC, 8/8/99, p.T8)
1624 Dutchman Cornelius Drebbel
encased a wooden frame in a greased leather sheath and pushed it
underwater to create what’s claimed to be the world’s 1st submarine.
(SFC, 7/15/00, p.B3)
1625 Mar 5, James I (VI), Stuart
king of Scotland (1567), England (1603-25), died.
(MC, 3/5/02)(PCh, 1992, p.228)
1625 Mar 27, Charles I (d.1649)
became the English king. He was King of England, Ireland and Scotland
until he was beheaded.
(AP, 3/27/97)(WSJ, 6/13/96, p.A12)(MC, 3/27/02)
1625 Apr 7, Albrecht von
Wallenstein was appointed German supreme commander.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1625 May 15, In Upper Austria 16
rebellious farmers were hanged in Varcklamarkt.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1625 May 18, Francisco
Gómez de Sandoval y Rojas, Spanish marquis of Denia, died.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1625 Jun 5, Orlando Gibbons (41),
English organist, composer (Silver Swan), died.
(MC, 6/5/02)
1625 Jun 8, Giovanni Domenico
Cassini, discoverer of four satellites of Saturn, was born in
Perinaldo, Italy. Gian Domenico Cassini was an astrologer and then
became an astronomer and was known in France as Jean-Dominique Cassini.
At the Paris observatory he discovered the wide gap in the rings of
Saturn now called the Cassini division, as well as four of the planet’s
moons.
(SFEC, 10/5/97, Z1 p.4)(HN, 6/8/98)(SFCM, 3/17/02,
p.29)
1625 Jul 2, The Spanish army took
Breda, Spain, after nearly a year of siege.
(HN, 7/2/98)
1625 Aug 20, Thomas Corneille,
French playwright, was born.
(MC, 8/20/02)
1625 Sep 13, 16 Rabbis (including
Isiah Horowitz) were imprisoned in Jerusalem.
(MC, 9/13/01)
1625 Sep 24, Dutch Gen’l. Bowdoin
Hendrik and his fleet of 17 ships sailed into San Juan, Puerto Rico,
and attacked El Morro. He held the garrison under siege for 3 weeks and
then set the town to flames. This infuriated the Spanish who attacked
and sent the Dutch fleeing.
(HT, 4/97, p.31-33)(MC, 9/24/01)
1625 Nov 14, Giulio C. Procaccini,
Italian sculptor and painter, died.
(MC, 11/14/01)
1625 Dutch artist Hendrick ter
Brugghen painted "Saint Sebastian Attended by Saint Irene."
(SFC, 9/12/97, p.C8)
1625 Rutilio Manetti painted "Lot
and His Daughters."
(WSJ, 4/28/98, p.A16)
1625 Rembrandt depicted himself as
a bit player in his painting "The Stoning of St. Stephen."
(WSJ, 8/11/99, p.A16)
1625 John Donne, English poet,
wrote his "Westmoreland Manuscript"
(WSJ, 12/15/95, p.A-16)
1625 Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) of
Holland published his influential work "On the Law of War and Peace."
Huig de Groot (Latinized as Hugo Grotius), Dutch jurist and statesman,
is generally regarded as the founder of international law. "It is
lawful to kill who is preparing to kill."
(HN, 4/10/98)(HNQ, 3/15/00)(Econ, 11/22/03, p.25)
1625 The first apple orchard in
the US was planted on Boston’s Beacon Hill.
(T&L, 10/1980, p.40)
1625 An English colonizing group
founded the Mount Wollaston settlement, 25 miles north of Plymouth. It
later became Quincy, Mass. Thomas Morton, a London lawyer, was part of
the group.
(ON, 3/00, p.11)
1625 St. Croix island in the West
Indies was settled by the Dutch and English.
(NG, Jan, 1968, C. Mitchell, p. 83)
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