January–March •
January 1 –
Anthony van Diemen takes office as
Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), and will serve until his death in 1645. •
January 18 – ''
The Duke's Mistress'', the last play by
James Shirley, is given its first performance. •
February 21 –
Al Walid ben Zidan,
Sultan of Morocco, is assassinated by French renegades. •
February 26 – Nimi a Lukeni a Nzenze a Ntumba is installed as
King Alvaro VI of
Kongo, in the area now occupied by the African nation of
Angola, and rules until his death on February 22, 1641. •
March 5 (February 24
Old Style) – King
Christian IV of Denmark and Norway gives an order, that all
beggars that are able to work must be sent to Brinholmen, to build ships or to work as
galley rowers. •
March 13 (March 3
Old Style) – A "great charter" to the
University of Oxford establishes the
Oxford University Press, as the second of the
privileged presses in England. •
March 26 –
Utrecht University is founded in the
Dutch Republic.
April–June •
April 30 –
Eighty Years' War: The nine-month
Siege of Schenkenschans ends, when forces of the Dutch Republic recapture the strategically important fort from the Spanish. •
May 14 –
William Pynchon and his men establish the settlement of Agawam Plantation (now
Springfield, Massachusetts) in territory controlled by the
Agawam people, a subset of the
Algonquian peoples, and negotiate for its purchase for Britain's
Connecticut Colony. The Agawams deed the land to Connecticut on
July 15, and the area is later deeded by Connecticut to the
Massachusetts Bay Colony. •
June 20 –
Roger Williams and other Puritan settlers become founders of the colony of
Providence Plantations, which later joins neighbouring territory to become the
colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. The area today is the U.S. state of
Rhode Island. •
June 22 – The
Battle of Tornavento is fought in north-west Italy in the course of the
Thirty Years' War, as France and Savoy respond to an attack by Spain. While the battle is a stalemate, the city of
Castano Primo is heavily damaged.
July–September •
July 10 – The Senate of the Venetian Republic votes, 82 to 4, in favor of renewing the charter of Jewish merchants to sell within the city, after a delay of almost six months. •
July 20 – The Pequot War begins in New England when John Oldham and several of his crew are killed when his ship is attacked and robbed, apparently by allies of the Narragansett Indians at Block Island. •
July 30 – In France,
Cardinal Richelieu persuades King Louis XIII to issue an
ordonnance excusing the French nobility from military service if they pay a tax which allows the hiring of paid cavalry. •
August 15 – The Spanish
capture Corbie,
France. •
August 25 (August 15
Old Style) – The covenant of the Town of
Dedham,
Massachusetts Bay Colony is first signed. •
September 18 (September 8
Old Style) – A vote of the
Great and General Court of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony establishes
New College (
Harvard University), as the first college founded in the
United States.
October–December •
October 4 (September 24
Old Style) –
Thirty Years' War –
Battle of Wittstock: A Swedish-allied army defeats a combined
Imperial-
Saxon army. •
October 28 –
Harvard University was founded. •
November 5 – English theologian
Henry Burton preaches two sermons on Guy Fawkes Day, heavily critical of the Anglican bishops, and is soon summoned before the Star Chamber. •
November 14 – French
recapture Corbie from the Spanish •
December 23 (December 13
Old Style) – The
Massachusetts Bay Colony organizes three
militia regiments to defend the colony against the
Pequot Indians. This organization is recognized today as the founding of the
United States National Guard.
Date unknown •
Thirty Years' War: French intervention starts. •
Manchus occupy the
Liaoning region in north
China, select
Shenyang (
Mukden) as their capital, and proclaim the new
Qing dynasty (
pure). • Establishment of
Kohra (estate) by
Babu Himmat Sah. • The
shōgun forbids Japanese to travel abroad, and those abroad from returning home. • Emperor
Fasilides founds the city of
Gondar, which becomes the capital of
Ethiopia for the next two centuries. • The first American ancestor of
John Adams, Henry Adams, emigrates to
Massachusetts. • The first
synagogue of the
New World,
Kahal Zur Israel Synagogue, is founded in
Recife by the
Dutch. == Births ==