istoryworld
All Events
A German burgomaster, Otto von Guericke, devises an air pump capable of creating a vacuum
The Dalai Lama declares that his teacher is also an incarnation of a future Buddha, and that he is to be known as Panchen
The poems of Massachusetts author Anne Bradstreet are published in London under the title The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America
Charles II returns to Scotland and is crowned king of Scots in the traditional manner at Scone
Parliament in England passes the first of several Navigation Acts designed to reserve international trade for English ships
Charles II is defeated by Cromwell at Worcester and escapes in disguise to France
Nikon becomes patriarch of all Russia and introduces reforms which cause the Old Believers to form a breakaway sect
Scotland and England are merged under English parliamentary rule, in a forced union which lasts eight years
Jan van Riebeeck establishes a Dutch settlement at the Cape of Good Hope
A clash at sea between English and Dutch fleets begins the first of three Anglo-Dutch wars
The first coffee house opens In London and Londoners soon find such places useful to meet in and do business
Turenne defeats Condé in a battle in the Paris suburbs, hastening the decline of the Fronde
Cromwell uses troops to turn the members out of the House of Commons and locks the door behind them
The 14-year-old Louis XIV dances in a court ballet as Apollo, wearing a glorious sun costume, and finds that he likes the role
Cromwell is appointed Lord Protector of the Commonwealth for life, under legislation entitled the Instrument of Government
Jan Vermeer marries and begins a quiet career as a painter and art dealer in his home town of Delft
The English admiral Robert Blake introduces a system of signalling at sea by means of flags
John Bunyan joins a Nonconformist church in Bedford and becomes one of their preachers
Devoted fisherman Izaak Walton publishes the classic work on the subject, The Compleat Angler
Queen Christina, a secret convert to Catholicism, abdicates in Sweden and travels to Rome
Otto von Guericke uses sixteen horses to demonstrate in Regensburg the power of a vacuum
A correspondence between Pascal and Fermat on probability lays the groundwork for the probability theory
The painter Pieter de Hooch is a friendly guide through the welcoming spaces of the seventeenth-century Dutch courtyard and home
Diego Velazquez paints his only surviving female nude, The Toilet of Venus (known as the Rokeby Venus)
