The Pilgrims on the Mayflower select a place for their settlement, and give it the name of Plymouth, their port of departure in England

William Bradford begins a journal of the Pilgrims' experience in New England, subsequently published (in 1856) as History of Plymouth Plantation

The Mayflower settlers in Plymouth offer thanksgiving for their first harvest, eating turkeys in a celebration shared by local Indians

William Bradford, one of the Pilgrims from the Mayflower, is elected governor of the new Plymouth Colony

The Dutch West India Company is chartered to trade and found colonies anywhere along the entire American coast

A sudden attack by Powhatan Indians, led by their chieftain Opechancanough against the English colony at Jamestown, results in the death of more than 300 settlers

The Dutch gradually exclude the Portuguese from the immensely lucrative trade in cloves from the Spice Islands (or Moluccas)

Peter Minuit purchases the island of Manhattan from local Indians and calls the place New Amsterdam

A British colony is founded in Barbados and within fifteen years has 18,000 settlers

Rival Dutch, English and French colonies are established in Guiana, the northeast coast of south America

John Winthrop, appointed governor of the new Massachusetts Bay Company, sails from England with 700 settlers

John Winthrop selects the site of Boston for the first Massachusetts settlement

John Winthrop, arriving in Massachusetts, begins the journal that is eventually published as The History Of New England

Maryland is granted to Lord Baltimore as a haven for English Roman Catholics

Williamsburg, first known as Middle Plantation, is founded in Virginia

Rhode Island is founded by Roger Williams as a colony based on the principle of religious tolerance

War between English colonists and Pequot Indians brings disaster to the Pequots but safeguards the settlement of Connecticut

The French build a trading station on the estuary of the Senegal river in west Africa

The Dutch expel the Portuguese from their trading posts in Malacca

The British East India Company completes the construction of Fort St George in Madras

Peter Stuyvesant begins a 17-year spell as director-general of the Dutch colony of New Netherland in North America

The Russian empire, expanding eastwards through Siberia, reaches the Pacific coast

Cromwell captures the royalist stronghold of Drogheda and massacres some 2800 people

To protect their market, the Dutch destroy all clove trees in the Moluccas except on two islands, Amboina and Ternate

Jan van Riebeeck establishes a Dutch settlement at the Cape of Good Hope