1666 in England

• Monarch – Charles II ==Events==

• 1 February – royal court returns to London as the Great Plague of London subsides. • 1–4 June (11–14 June New Style) – Second Anglo-Dutch War: Four Days' Battle – The Dutch Republic fleet under Michiel de Ruyter defeats the English in the North Sea in one of the longest naval engagements in history. • 6 September – Cestui que Vie Act passed by Parliament to provide for disposal of the property of missing persons. • 10 October – a "day of humiliation and fasting" is held a month after the Great Fire of London. • 23 October – the most intense tornado on record in English history, an F4 storm on the Fujita scale or T8 on the TORRO scale, strikes Lincolnshire with a path of destruction through the villages of Welbourn, Wellingore, Navenby and Boothby Graffoe, with winds of more than . • 27 October – Robert Hubert, a Frenchman who had made a false confession to having started the Great Fire of London, is executed. A royal proclamation banishes Catholic priests. • October – Philosopher John Locke meets his future patron, the statesman Anthony Ashley Cooper, in Oxford and forms an enduring and important friendship. Undated • Isaac Newton uses a prism to split sunlight (Deus phos) into the component colours of the optical spectrum, assisting understanding of the scientific nature of light. He also develops differential calculus. His discoveries this year lead to it being referred to as his Annus mirabilis or Newton's "Year of the Morning Star". • First Burying in Woollen Act requires the dead, except plague victims and the destitute, to be buried in pure English woollen shrouds for the benefit of the home textile industry. ==Publications==

• Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne's Observations upon Experimental Philosophy and proto-science fiction The Blazing World. • Thomas Hobbes' work De principiis et ratiocinatione geometr. ==Births==

• 13 August – William Wotton, scholar (died 1727) • 12 November – Mary Astell, feminist writer (died 1731) • December – Stephen Gray, scientist (died 1736) • Josiah Burchett, Secretary of the Admiralty (died 1746) • John Harris, writer and encyclopaedist (died 1719) • John Quelch, pirate (died 1704) ==Deaths==

• 2 January – John Holles, 2nd Earl of Clare, noble (born 1595) • 16 January – Dudley North, 3rd Baron North, nobleman (born 1581) • 24 February – Nicholas Lanier, composer (born 1588) • 4 June – Sir William Clarke, military administrator and politician (born c. 1623; died of wounds) • c. 10 June – Christopher Myngs, admiral and pirate (born 1625; died of wounds) • 16 June – Sir Richard Fanshawe, 1st Baronet, diplomat and translator (born 1608) • 30 June – Alexander Brome, poet (born 1620) • 10 July – John Fell, churchman (born 1625) • 25 July – Montagu Bertie, 2nd Earl of Lindsey, noble (born 1608) • 29 October • Edmund Calamy the Elder, Presbyterian leader (born 1600) • James Shirley, dramatist (born 1596) • 3 November (bur.) – James Howell, writer (born 1594) ==References==