text:
1682

January–March

 * January 7 – The Republic of Genoa forbids the unauthorized printing of newspapers and all handwritten newssheets; the ban is lifted after three months.
 * January 12 – Scottish minister James Renwick, one of the Covenanters resisting the Scottish government's suppression of alternate religious views, publishes the Declaration of Lanark.
 * January 21 – The Ottoman Empire army is mobilized in preparation for a war against Austria that culminates with the 1683 Battle of Vienna.
 * January 24 – The first public theater in Brussels, the Opéra du Quai au Foin, is opened.
 * February 5 – In Japan, on the 28th day of the 12th month in the year Tenna 1, a major fire sweeps through Edo (now Tokyo).
 * February 9 – Thomas Otway's classic play Venice Preserv'd or A Plot Discover'd is given its first performance, premiering at the Duke's Theatre.
 * March 11 – Work begins on construction of the Royal Hospital Chelsea for old soldiers in London, England.
 * March 22 – A fire breaks out in Newmarket, Suffolk, consuming half the town and spreading into sections of surrounding Cambridgeshire. Historian Laurence Echard describes it later as "A Providential Fire", noting that King Charles II "by the approach of the fury of the flames was immediately driven out of his own palace", and, after moving to safety in another section of town, was forced to flee again "when the wind, as conducted by an invisible power, suddenly changed about, and blew the smoke and cinders directly on his new lodgings, and in a moment made them as untenable as the other."

April–June

 * April 7 – René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, exploring rivers in America, reaches the mouth of the Mississippi River.
 * April 9 – At the mouth of the Mississippi River, near modern Venice, Louisiana, Robert de La Salle buries an engraved plate and a cross, claiming the territory as La Louisiane for France.
 * May 6 – Louis XIV of France moves his court to Versailles.
 * May 7 (April 27 O.S.) – Upon the death of the Tsar Feodor III of Russia, Feodor's younger brother, 15-year-old Ivan is passed over in favor of a half-brother, 10-year-old Peter.
 * May 11 – The Moscow Uprising of 1682 occurs when a mob, outraged by the rejection of Prince Ivan and upset over rumors that Ivan has been strangled, invades the Kremlin and lynches the leading boyars and military commanders. Ivan V and Peter I are named co-rulers of Russia as a result of a compromise between Peter's mother Natalya Naryshkina and Ivan's mother Maria Miloslavskaya and both are crowned a month later.
 * June 8 – The English trading freighter Johanna is wrecked off of the coast of South Africa with the loss of 10 of her 114 crew, becoming the first of Britain's East India Company fleet to be lost.
 * June 17 – The Indonesian city of Bandar Lampung is founded on the island of Sumatra.
 * June 25 (June 15 O.S.) – Ivan V and Peter I are crowned as joint Tsars of Russia at the Cathedral of the Dormition in Moscow, with actual power exercised by their older sister, Sophia Alekseyevna for the next seven years.

July–September

 * July 19 – Iyasus succeeds his father Yohannes I as Emperor of Ethiopia.
 * August 6 – The Ottoman Empire declares war on the Holy Roman Empire and makes plans to attack Vienna.
 * August 12 – Vesuvius begins a period of volcanic activity lasting for 10 days.
 * August 23 – A comet that will later become known as Comet Halley, is observed from several locations on Earth after reaching magnitude 2 and becoming visible to the naked eye. Arthur Storer sees it from the North American colony of Maryland, while German astronomer Johannes Hevelius measures it from Danzig (now Gdansk in Poland).  Edmond Halley successfully predicts that it will return in 1758.
 * August 25 – Following the Bideford witch trial, three women (probably) become the penultimate known to be hanged for witchcraft in England, at Exeter.
 * September 14 – Bishop Gore School is founded in Swansea, Wales.
 * September 24 – Trinh Can becomes the new ruler of Tonkin (located in the northern part of Vietnam as far south as the Ha Tinh province upon the death of his father, Trinh Tac, and begins a program of reforms.

October–December

 * October 12 – Sultan Mehmed IV departs Istanbul for Adrianople.
 * October 19 – Kara Mustafa departs with the Ottoman army to Adrianople.
 * October 27 – The city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is founded by William Penn.
 * November 22 – Nearly 1,000 houses in Wapping, London are destroyed in a fire.
 * December 11 – William Penn meets with Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore for the first discussion of the boundary between the colonies of Pennsylvania and Maryland, fixed at 40 degrees north. Recognizing that 40° north would remove Pennsylvania's access to the sea, Penn proposes a purchase of some of Maryland's territory.
 * December 27 – Colonists from the German electorate of Brandenburg arrive at Akwidaa on the Brandenburger Gold Coast at what is now Ghana and, five days later, begin building a fort at what is now Princes Town.

Date unknown

 * Celia Fiennes, noblewoman and traveller, begins her journeys across Britain, in a venture that will prove to be her life's work. Her aim is to chronicle the towns, cities and great houses of the country. Her travels continue until at least 1712, and will take her to every county in England, though the main body of her journal is not written until the year 1702.
 * The Richard Wall House, believed to be the longest continuously inhabited residence in the US, is built in Pennsylvania.

Births

 * February 25 – Giovanni Battista Morgagni, Italian anatomist (d. 1771)
 * April 16 – John Hadley, English inventor (d. 1744)
 * May 17 – Bartholomew Roberts, a.k.a. Black Bart, Welsh pirate (d. 1722)
 * June 17 – King Charles XII of Sweden (d. 1718)
 * July 10 – Roger Cotes, English mathematician (d. 1716)
 * August 16 – Louis, duc de Bourgogne, heir to the throne of France (d. 1712)
 * October 29 – Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix, French historian (d. 1761)
 * date unknown – Margareta Capsia, Finnish artist (d. 1759)

Deaths
date unknown
 * January 1 – Jacob Kettler, German noble (b. 1610)
 * January 3 – Olaus Verelius, scholar of Old Norse and Scandinavian studies (b. 1618)
 * February 2 – Jean Le Pautre, French designer and engraver (b. 1618)
 * February 10 – Sir William Hickman, 2nd Baronet, Member of the House of Commons of England (b. 1629)
 * February 15
 * Claude de la Colombière, French Jesuit priest and saint (b. 1641)
 * Gu Yanwu, Chinese philologist and geographer (b. 1613)
 * February 18 – Pierre Dupuis, French painter (b. 1610)
 * February 19 – Frederick of Hesse-Darmstadt, German Catholic cardinal (b. 1616)
 * February 25
 * Robert Packer, English politician (b. 1614)
 * Alessandro Stradella, Italian composer (b. 1639)
 * March 13 – Dorothea Augusta of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp, German duchess (b. 1602)
 * March 14 – Jacob Isaakszoon van Ruisdael, Dutch painter (b. c. 1628)
 * March 24 – Frederick, Duke of Württemberg-Neuenstadt, German duke (b. 1615)
 * March 31 – John Frescheville, 1st Baron Frescheville, English politician (b. 1607)
 * April 1 – Franz Egon of Fürstenberg, German politician and Archbishop of Strasbourg (b. 1625)
 * April 3 – Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Spanish painter (b. 1618)
 * April 6 – Johann von Hoverbeck, Prussian diplomat (b. 1606)
 * April 8 – François Perrochel, French cleric (b. 1602)
 * April 27 – Heo Mok, Korean politician, poet and scholar (b. 1595)
 * May 7 – Tsar Feodor III of Russia (b. 1661)
 * May 28 – Henri, Duke of Verneuil, French bishop (b. 1601)
 * July 12 – Jean Picard, French astronomer (b. 1620)
 * July 19 – Yohannes I, Emperor of Ethiopia (b. c. 1640)
 * August 12 – Jean-Louis Raduit de Souches, German Imperial field marshal (b. 1608)
 * August 24
 * John Maitland, 1st Duke of Lauderdale (b. 1616)
 * Marie Charlotte de la Trémoille, French noble (b. 1632)
 * August 26 – William Wirich, Count of Daun-Falkenstein, German nobleman (b. 1613)
 * September 8 – Juan Caramuel y Lobkowitz, Spanish writer (b. 1606)
 * September 16 – Yamazaki Ansai, Japanese philosopher (b. 1619)
 * October 19 – Sir Thomas Browne, English author, physician and philosopher (b. 1605)
 * October 20 – António das Chagas, Portuguese Franciscan friar and ascetical writer (b. 1631)
 * November 2 – Francis Browne, 3rd Viscount Montagu in the Peerage of England (b. 1610)
 * November 4 – Dirck Rembrantsz van Nierop, Dutch astronomer and cartographer (b. 1610)
 * November 14 – Rijcklof van Goens, Dutch colonial governor (b. 1619)
 * November 23 – Claude Lorrain, Lorraine-born landscape painter (b. c. 1600)
 * November 28 – Valentine Greatrakes, Irish faith healer (b. 1628)
 * November 29 – Prince Rupert of the Rhine, German soldier, Royalist commander in the English Civil War (b. 1619)
 * December 18
 * Heneage Finch, 1st Earl of Nottingham, English politician (b. 1621)
 * Guðríður Símonardóttir, Icelandic woman victim of the Turkish abductions (b. 1598)
 * Phillip Calvert, Colonial governor of Maryland (b. c. 1626)
 * Mariam Dadiani, Queen Dowager of Kartli (b. 1599/1609)
 * The Great 5th Dalai Lama of Tibet (b. 1617)

title: 1682


text:
1681

January–March

 * January 1 – Prince Muhammad Akbar, son of the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, initiates a civil war in India. With the support of troops from the Rajput states, Akbar declares himself the new Mughal Emperor and prepares to fight his father, but is ultimately defeated.
 * January 3 – The Treaty of Bakhchisarai is signed, between the Ottoman vassal Crimean Khanate and the Russian Empire.
 * January 18 – The "Exclusion Bill Parliament", summoned by King Charles II of England in October, is dissolved after three months, with directions that new elections be held, and that a new parliament be convened in March in Oxford.
 * February 2 – In India, the Mughal Empire city of Burhanpur (now in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh) is sacked and looted by troops of the Maratha Empire on orders of the Maratha emperor, the Chhatrapati Sambhaji. General Hambirrao Mohite began the pillaging three days earlier.
 * March 4 – In order to settle a debt of £16,000, King Charles II of England grants a land charter to William Penn, for territory west of Delaware River in America between 40° N and 42° N, later to be called Pennsylvania.
 * March 21 – The "Oxford Parliament" is summoned in England by King Charles II and meets in Oxford rather than in Westminster, but is dissolved seven days later. No further sessions of parliament are held until after the death of Charles in 1685.

April–June

 * April 11 – Following the death of its last count, the Palatinate-Landsberg passes to the King of Sweden.
 * May 15 – The Canal du Midi in France is opened officially, as the Canal Royal de Languedoc.
 * June 23 – The Church of the East, an Eastern Orthodox rite in Mesopotamia (now Iraq), already split between two patriarchs in the Eliya line and the Shimun line, is split along a third line by the Roman Catholic Church when Mar Yousip of the Archdiocese of Amid (now Diyarbakır in Turkey) is proclaimed by Pope Innocent XI as Joseph I, "Patriarch of the Chaldean nation deprived of its patriarch", creating the "Josephite line" of the Chaldean Catholic Church.

July–September

 * July 1 – Oliver Plunkett, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, falsely convicted in June of treason, is hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn, London, the last Catholic martyr to die in England; he is canonised in 1975.
 * July 23 – The Bombardment of Chios during the French-Tripolitania War (1681-1685) is part of a wider campaign by France against the Barbary Pirates in the 1680s.
 * August 10 – English sea captain Robert Knox of the East India Company publishes his book An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon, about his adventures, 20-years imprisonment and escape from Ceylon.
 * August 12 – Ahom King Gadadhar Singha (or Gadapani), who takes the Tai name Supaatphaa, ascends the throne.
 * August 31 – English perjurer Titus Oates is told to leave his state apartments in Whitehall; his fame begins to wane, and he is soon arrested and imprisoned for sedition.
 * September 30 – France annexes the city of Strasbourg (German: Strassburg), previously a free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire.

October–December

 * October 27 – Sir John Child of England becomes the new Governor of Bombay province and, unofficially, Governor-General of all of the settlements of the East India Company in India. With the exception of a rebellion by Captain Richard Keigwin during the year 1684, Child expands British control until involving the British in a war with the Mughal Empire.
 * November 20 – Don Melchor de Navarra, Duke of Palata arrives in Lima after a voyage of almost 10 months from Spain and becomes the new Viceroy of Peru, succeeding the Archbishop of Lima, Melchor Liñán y Cisneros, who had administered the area since 1678.
 * November 25 – Cornelis Speelman of the Netherlands becomes the new Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) and concludes an alliance with the Sultan Amangkurat II of the Mataram Sultanate on the island of Java, then uses the Dutch Army to suppress the rebellion started by the Sultan's half-brother, Prince Puger. Puger surrenders on November 28 to the ranking Dutch officer, Jacob Couper.
 * November 29 – A storm strikes the Isthmus of Panama and overwhelms the Spanish Navy's Flota de Tierra Firma, sinking the ship Nuestra Señora de Encarnación in the Chagres River. The Encarnación wreckage is not found until almost 340 years later, in 2011, mostly intact and still loaded with most of its cargo.
 * December 3 – Another ship in the Flota de Terra Firma, Nuestra Señora de la Soledad, sinks in the Chagres River with the loss of its 280 crew.
 * December 7 – Wu Shifan, grandson of Chinese general Wu Sangui, commits suicide at Kunming in Yunnan province, ending the 8-year Revolt of the Three Feudatories against the Kangxi Emperor and the Qing dynasty in China.
 * December 22 – King Charles II of England signs a warrant for the building of the Royal Hospital Chelsea in London for wounded and retired soldiers.

Date unknown

 * Collections are made in England for needy French refugees.
 * Havertown and Bryn Mawr are founded in Pennsylvania by Welsh Quakers.
 * The bell Emmanuel in Notre-Dame de Paris is recast.
 * The Port of Honfleur, France, is re-modelled by Abraham Duquesne.
 * The basilica of Santa Maria della Salute in Venice, designed by Baldassare Longhena in 1631, is dedicated.
 * Dodo becomes extinct.

Births

 * March 24 – Georg Philipp Telemann, German composer (d. 1767)
 * June 26 – Hedvig Sophia of Sweden, Swedish princess (d. 1708)
 * August 5 – Vitus Bering, Danish-born Russian explorer (d. 1741)
 * September 11 – Johann Gottlieb Heineccius, German jurist (d. 1741)
 * September 28 – Johann Mattheson, German composer (d. 1764)
 * October 1 – Giulia Lama, Italian painter (d. 1747)
 * November 17 – Pierre François le Courayer, French theologian (d. 1776)
 * November 28 – Jean Cavalier, French Protestant rebel leader (d. 1740)

Deaths

 * January 5 – Pietro Vidoni, Italian Catholic cardinal (b. 1610)
 * January 7 – Magdalena Sibylla of Saxe-Weissenfels, German noblewoman (b. 1648)
 * January 27 – Edmund Bowyer, English politician (b. 1613)
 * January 28 – Richard Allestree, English royalist churchman (b. c. 1621)
 * March 6 – Michel de Marolles, French translator and churchman (b. 1600)
 * March 12 – Frans van Mieris the Elder, Dutch painter (b. 1635)
 * March 17 – Zheng Jing, Chinese pirate (b. 1642)
 * April 3 – Lucas Franchoys the Younger, Flemish painter (b. 1616)
 * April 8 – Gabriel Druillettes, French missionary (b. 1610)
 * April 10 – Philip I, Count of Schaumburg-Lippe (1640–1681) (b. 1601)
 * April 11 – Frederick Louis, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken (b. 1619)
 * April 12 – Pietro Paolini, Italian painter (b. 1603)
 * April 22
 * Jeffrey Daniel, English politician (b. 1626)
 * Marie Fouquet, French medical writer and philanthropist (b. 1590)
 * April 23 – Justus Sustermans, Flemish painter (b. 1597)
 * April 26 – Charles Howard, 3rd Earl of Nottingham, son of Charles Howard (b. 1610)
 * May 4 – Johannes Musaeus, German theologian (b. 1613)
 * May 6 – Catherine Trianon, French fortune teller and poisoner (b. 1627)
 * May 6 – Sir Philip Wodehouse, 3rd Baronet, English baronet (b. 1608)
 * May 24 – Nicodemus Tessin the Elder, Swedish architect (b. 1615)
 * May 25 – Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Spanish dramatist and poet (b. 1600)
 * June 9 – William Lilly, English astrologer (b. 1602)
 * June 12 – Sigmund von Birken, German Baroque poet (b. 1626)
 * July 1 – Oliver Plunkett, Irish saint (b. 1629)
 * July 8 – Georg Neumark, German poet and composer of hymns (b. 1621)
 * July 10 – Christian Lupus, Flemish historian (b. 1612)
 * July 20 – Louis Günther II, Count of Schwarzburg-Ebeleben (1642–1681) (b. 1621)
 * July 25 – Urian Oakes, English-born president of Harvard University (b. 1631)
 * July 31 – Sir Baynham Throckmorton, 3rd Baronet, English Member of Parliament (b. 1629)
 * August 12 – Sir George Wharton, 1st Baronet, English baronet (b. 1617)
 * August 17 – Patriarch Nikon of Moscow, Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church (b. 1605)
 * August 18 – Thomas Allen, English politician (b. 1603)
 * August 22 – Philippe Delano, Dutch Plymouth Colony settler (b. 1602)
 * August 27 – William Christoph, Landgrave of Hesse-Homburg (b. 1625)
 * September 11
 * Dirk van Bleiswijk, Dutch politician, writer (b. 1639)
 * Godfrey Henschen, Jesuit hagiographer (b. 1601)
 * September 16 – Jahanara Begum, Mughal princess (b. 1614)
 * September 27 – Jacob Masen, German poet (b. 1606)
 * October 7 – Nicolaas Heinsius the Elder, Dutch scholar (b. 1620)
 * October 15 – Johann Ludwig Schönleben, Carniolan priest (b. 1618)
 * November 2 – Eleanor of Anhalt-Zerbst, duchess consort of Schleswig-Holstein-Sønderburg-Norburg (b. 1608)
 * November 13 – Arnold Braemes, English politician (b. 1602)
 * November 17 – Tito Livio Burattini, Italian inventor, Egyptologist and instrument-maker (b. 1617)
 * November 23 – Hedwig of the Palatinate-Sulzbach, Archduchess of Austria, Duchess of Saxe-Lauenburg (b. 1650)
 * November 26
 * Jean Garnier, French historian (b. 1612)
 * Giovanni Paolo Oliva, Italian Jesuit (b. 1600)
 * December 4 – Maurice, Duke of Saxe-Zeitz (b. 1619)
 * December 5 – Agatha Christine of Hanau-Lichtenberg, German noblewoman (b. 1632)
 * December 8 – Gerard ter Borch, Dutch painter (b. 1617)
 * December 12 – Hermann Conring, German philosopher (b. 1606)
 * December 15 – James Compton, 3rd Earl of Northampton, English politician (b. 1622)
 * December 16 – François Vavasseur, French writer (b. 1605)
 * December 18 – Olimpia Aldobrandini, Italian Aldobrandini family member, heiress (b. 1623)
 * December 21 – Lacuzon, Franche-Comté military leader (b. 1607)
 * December 22 – Richard Alleine, English Puritan clergyman (b. 1611)
 * c. December – John Pordage, Anglican vicar (b. 1607)
 * date unknown – Fatima Soltan, sovereign queen of the Qasim Khanate

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: 1681


text:
1678

January–March

 * January 10 – England and the Dutch Republic sign a mutual defense treaty in order to fight against France.
 * January 27 – The first fire engine company in North America goes into service in Boston.
 * February 18 – The first part of English nonconformist preacher John Bunyan's Christian allegory The Pilgrim's Progress is published in London.
 * March 21 – Thomas Shadwell's comedy A True Widow is given its first performance, at The Duke's Theatre in London, staged by the Duke's Company.
 * March 23 – Revolt of the Three Feudatories in southern China: rebel general Wu Sangui, lord of the Yunnan fief, takes the imperial crown, names himself monarch of "The Great Zhou", based in the Hunan province, with Hengyang as his capital. He contracts dysentery over the summer and dies on October 2, ending the rebellion against the Kangxi Emperor.
 * March 25 – The Spanish Netherlands city of Ypres falls after a seven-day siege by the French Army. It is later returned to the Netherlands and eventually becomes part of Belgium.
 * March 28 – The nova V529 Orionis is discovered by Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius (Jan Heweliusz).

April–June

 * April 2 – Ignatius Gregory Peter VI Shahbaddin is enthroned as the Patriarch of the Syriac Catholic Church in Aleppo, after receiving recognition by Ottoman Sultan Mehmed IV and by Pope Innocent XI.
 * April 12 – The Treaty of Casco Bay is signed between officials of the Province of New York and the Penobscot tribe and the Wabanaki Confederacy, bringing an end to further fighting that has happened in the two years since the end of King Philip's War in the modern-day U.S. state of Maine. Under the terms of the treaty, English settlers pay rent to the Penobscots and are given back farm land that had been confiscated in the war, while the English settlers agree to respect the Penobscot land rights.
 * May 11 – French admiral Jean d'Estrees runs his whole fleet aground in either the Las Aves Archipelago or Isla de Aves, intending to reach Curaçao.
 * June 10 – French buccaneer Michel de Grammont arrives at Spanish-held Venezuela with six pirate ships, 13 smaller craft, and 2,000 men in a daring raid on the South American territory, then leads half of his force inward toward Maracaibo, which he takes on June 14. During the rest of the month, he and his soldiers march inland as far as Trujillo. Grammont and his pirates finally depart on December 3.
 * June 25 – Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia becomes the first woman to be awarded a university degree, a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Padua.

July–September

 * July 23 – The Battle of Ortenbach, one of the last major engagements of the Franco-Dutch War, takes place near Offenburg at the Rhine river in southwestern Germany, as French forces under the command of François de Créquy overwhelm a larger force of Holy Roman Empire troops commanded by the Duke of Lorraine, Karl V Leopold.
 * July 29 – Muhammad Azam Shah is appointed as the Mughal Governor of Bengal by his father, the Emperor Aurangzeb, but serves for a little more than a year before being recalled from Dhaka.
 * August 10 – The Treaties of Nijmegen end the Franco-Dutch War. The County of Burgundy is ceded to the Kingdom of France.
 * August 14–15 – The Battle of Saint-Denis is fought after the signing of peace in the Franco-Dutch War.
 * August 21 – On the island of Java in modern-day Indonesia, the Kediri campaign begins as Mataram Sultanate and Dutch East India Company (VOC) forces under the command of VOC Captain François Tack begin marching from Jepara toward Kediri to suppress the Trunajaya rebellion that had driven out the Mataram Sultan. They are joined by two other columns of troops over the next fortnight.
 * September 5 – Sultan Amangkurat II of Mataram sets off from Jepara with the main force in the Kediri campaign, leading native troops, along with VOC forces under the command of Anthonio Hurdt, leader of the campaign.
 * September 6 – Titus Oates begins to present allegations of the "Popish Plot", a supposed Roman Catholic conspiracy to assassinate king Charles II of England. Oates applies the term Tory to those who disbelieve his allegations.
 * September 17 – The Franco-Dutch War between the Kingdom of France and the Dutch Republic (and its allies) comes to an end after more than six years as the Treaties of Nijmegen bring about a ceasefire.

October–December

 * October 17 – English magistrate Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey is found murdered in Primrose Hill, London. His death is seen as proof of the "Popish Plot" to the public.
 * November 11 (November 1 O.S.) – England's House of Commons votes to begin impeachment proceedings against five Roman Catholic members of the House of Lords, Viscount Stafford, the Marquess of Powis, Baron Arundell, Baron Petre and Baron Belasyse accused by Protestant members as participating in a "Popish Plot". Viscount Stafford is convicted and executed, while the other four are imprisoned in the Tower of London for more than five years.
 * November 25 – The Kediri campaign is successfully concluded in Indonesia as Anthonio Hurdt and Sultan Amangkurat II capture Kediri and force the rebel Prince Trunajaya to flee.
 * November 26 – William Staley, an English banker and a Roman Catholic, becomes the first person to be executed in connection with the "Popish Plot" arrests.
 * December 1 – The Test Act provides that members of both the House of Lords and House of Commons of England must swear an anti-Catholic oath, before taking office.

Date unknown

 * About 1,200 Irish families sail from Barbados to Virginia and the Carolinas.
 * In Ireland, the vacant Bishopric of Leighlin is given to the Bishop of Kildare in commendam; it will later be formed into the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin.

Births

 * March 4 – Antonio Vivaldi, Italian composer (d. 1741)
 * March 7 – Filippo Juvarra, Italian architect (d. 1736)
 * April 14 – Abraham Darby I, one of the English fathers of the Industrial Revolution (d. 1717)
 * May 3 – Amaro Pargo, Spanish corsair (d. 1747)
 * May 16 – Andreas Silbermann, German organ builder (d. 1734)
 * July 26 – Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1711)
 * September 16 – Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, English statesman and philosopher (d. 1751)
 * September 29 – Adrien-Maurice, 3rd duc de Noailles, French soldier (d. 1766)
 * October 10 – John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll, Scottish soldier (d. 1743)
 * October 16 – Anna Waser, Swiss painter (d. 1714)
 * November 26 – Jean Jacques d'Ortous de Mairan, French geophysicist (d. 1771)
 * December 8 – Horatio Walpole, 1st Baron Walpole of Wolterton, English diplomat (d. 1757)
 * December 13 – Yongzheng Emperor of China (d. 1735)
 * December 14 – Daniel Neal, English historian (d. 1743)
 * December 30 – William Croft, English composer (d. 1727)
 * date unknown
 * George Farquhar, Irish dramatist (d. 1707)
 * Joachim Ludwig Schultheiss von Unfriedt, German architect (d. 1753)
 * John Senex, British geographer (d. 1740)
 * Maria Faxell, Swedish vicar's wife and war heroine (d. 1738),
 * Pierre Fauchard, French physician and author, considered The father of modern dentistry (d. 1761)
 * Thomas Micklethwaite, Lord Commissioner of the Treasury (d. 1718)

Deaths

 * January 4 – Joan Maetsuycker, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies (b. 1606)
 * January 11 – Ferrante III Gonzaga, Duke of Guastalla, Italian noble (b. 1618)
 * January 12 – Robert Ellison, English politician (b. 1614)
 * January 23 – Sir William Curtius FRS, German magistrate and English baronet (b. 1599)
 * January 27 – Maria Overlander van Purmerland, Dutch noble (b. 1603)
 * January 29 – Jeronimo Lobo, Portuguese Jesuit missionary (b. 1593)
 * February 7 – Sir Philip Musgrave, 2nd Baronet, English politician (b. 1607)
 * November 20 – Daniel Clasen, German academic (b. 1622)
 * March 3 – Philip Bell, British colonial governor (b. 1590)
 * March 10 – Jean de Launoy, French historian (b. 1603)
 * March 27 – Juan de Leyva de la Cerda, conde de Baños, Spanish noble (b. 1604)
 * April 12 – Mary Rich, Countess of Warwick, 7th daughter of Richard Boyle (b. 1625)
 * April 23 – Walter Aston, 2nd Lord Aston of Forfar, second and eldest surviving son of Walter Aston (b. 1609)
 * April 24 – Louis VI, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt (1661–1678) (b. 1630)
 * April 27 – Nicolas Roland, French priest and founder (b. 1642)
 * May 2 – Willem Nieupoort, Dutch politician, and diplomat (b. 1607)
 * May 3 – Bernhard II, Duke of Saxe-Jena, German noble (b. 1638)
 * May 4 or May 14 – Anna Maria van Schurman, Dutch poet and scholar (b. 1607)
 * May 16 – Tamura Muneyoshi, Japanese daimyō of the Iwanuma Domain (b. 1637)
 * May 18 – Miyamoto Iori, Japanese samurai (b. 1612)
 * June 2 – Pieter de Groot, Dutch diplomat (b. 1615)
 * June 17 – Giacomo Torelli, Italian stage designer, engineer, and architect (b. 1608)
 * June 19 – Benedict Arnold, Rhode Island colonial governor (b. 1615)
 * June 24 – Charles de Lorme, French physician (b. 1584)
 * August 5 – Juan García de Zéspedes, Mexican musician and composer (b. 1619)
 * August 16 – Andrew Marvell, English writer (b. 1621)
 * August 17 – Guillaume Herincx, Flemish theologian, Bishop of Ypres (b. 1621)
 * August 28 – John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton, English soldier (b. 1602)
 * August 31 – Louis VII, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt (b. 1658)
 * September 1 – Jan Brueghel the Younger, Flemish painter (b. 1601)
 * September 8 – Pietro della Vecchia, Italian painter (b. 1603)
 * September 19 – Christoph Bernhard von Galen, Westphalian Catholic prince-bishop of Münster and military leader (b. 1606)
 * September 18 – Maurizio Cazzati, Italian composer (b. 1616)
 * October 5 – Hedevig Ulfeldt, daughter of King Christian IV of Denmark and Kirsten Munk (b. 1626)
 * October 11 – Sir Peter Leycester, 1st Baronet, British historian (b. 1614)
 * October 12
 * Pieter Codde, Dutch painter (b. 1599)
 * Edmund Berry Godfrey, English magistrate (b. 1621)
 * October 14 – Sir Richard Newdigate, 1st Baronet, English politician (b. 1602)
 * October 16 – Cornelis HrR Ridder de Graeff, Dutch nobleman and chief landholder of the Zijpe and Haze Polder (b. 1650)
 * October 18 – Jacob Jordaens, Flemish painter (b. 1593)
 * October 19 – Samuel Dirksz van Hoogstraten, Dutch painter (b. c. 1627)
 * November 1 – William Coddington, first Governor of Rhode Island (b. 1601)
 * November 4 – Solomon Swale, English politician (b. 1610)
 * November 5 – Giovan Battista Nani, Italian historian and diplomat (b. 1616)
 * November 10 – Daniel Zwicker, German physician (b. 1612)
 * November 30 – Andries de Graeff, Dutch politician (b. 1611)
 * December 3 – Edward Colman, English Catholic courtier under Charles II (b. 1636)
 * December 20 – Matthew Marvin, Sr., Connecticut settler (b. 1600)

title: 1678


text:
1679

January–March

 * January 24 – King Charles II of England dissolves the "Cavalier Parliament", after nearly 18 years.
 * February 3 – Moroccan troops from Fez are killed, along with their commander Moussa ben Ahmed ben Youssef, in a battle against rebels in the Jbel Saghro mountain range, but Moroccan Sultan Ismail Ibn Sharif is able to negotiate a ceasefire allowing his remaining troops safe passage back home.
 * February 5 – The Treaty of Celle is signed between France and Sweden on one side, and the Holy Roman Empire, at the town of Celle in Saxony (in modern-day Germany). Sweden's sovereignty over Bremen-Verden is confirmed and Sweden cedes control of Thedinghausen and Dörverden to the Germans.
 * February 19 – Ajit Singh Rathore becomes the new Maharaja of the Jodhpur State a principality in India also known as Marwar, located in the modern-day Rajasthan state.
 * March 6 – In England, the "Habeas Corpus Parliament" (or "First Exclusion Parliament") is opened.
 * March 12 – Catherine Deshayes Monvoisin, commonly called "La Voisin" and the suspected killer of over 1,000 people in France by poisoning, is arrested outside of the Church of Notre-Dame-de-Bonne-Nouvelle in Paris and imprisoned at Vincennes for the next 11 months. After her conviction, she is publicly burned at the stake on February 22, 1680.

April–June

 * April 3 – Aurangazeb, the Muslim ruler of the Mughal Empire in India, decrees the imposition of the jizya, an annual tax upon non-Muslims under Mughal jurisdiction, primarily Hindus. The tax had been abolished by Aurangazeb's great grandfather, Akbar.
 * April 8 – In the Italian region of Piedmont, a landslide causes the village of Bosia to sink into the ground and then get buried, killing 200 inhabitants. The village is then rebuilt at another site and continues to exist.
 * April 10 – A total eclipse of the Sun takes place over North America, with its peak over the region occupied by the Lakota Sioux people in modern-day South Dakota.
 * May 3 – James Sharp, the Church of Scotland's Archbishop of St Andrews, is assassinated at Magus Muir in Fife, when his coach is ambushed by a group of nine of the Scottish Covenanters. Only two of the assassins, David Hackston and Andrew Guillan, are captured.
 * May 27 – The Parliament of England passes the Habeas Corpus Act, "for the better securing the liberty of the subject" and then adjourns.
 * June 1 – Battle of Drumclog: A group of 200 Scottish Covenanters overwhelm a small Scottish Army unit, that had been pursuing them for the murder of Archbishop Sharp. The Covenanters, led by 19-year-old William Cleland, kill 36 of the Scottish soldiers.
 * June 4 – A 6.4 magnitude earthquake in Armenia strikes near Yerevan, at the time part of the Persian Empire.
 * June 22 – Battle of Bothwell Bridge in Scotland: Royal forces led by James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth and John Graham of Claverhouse subdue the Scottish Covenanters.

July–September

 * July 12 – In England, the "Habeas Corpus Parliament" (or "First Exclusion Parliament") is dissolved, while in recess, by King Charles II. The King exercises his royal prerogative of dissolution to prevent the parliament from passing a bill that would exclude non-Anglicans from the succession to the English throne, specifically the king's Roman Catholic brother, James, Duke of York, as part of the Exclusion Crisis.
 * August 7 – The brigantine Le Griffon, commissioned by René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, is towed to the southern end of the Niagara River, to become the first ship to sail the upper Great Lakes of North America.
 * September 2 – The 8.0 magnitude Sanhe-Pinggu earthquake devastates Beijing and Hebei in China.
 * September 18 – The Province of New Hampshire is separated from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

October–December

 * October 4 – Bil'arab bin Sultan becomes the new Imam of Oman upon the death of his father, Sultan bin Saif.
 * October 6 – Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb returns control of Bengal to the local Nawab of Murshidabad after removing his son, Prince Qutb-ud-Din Muhammad Azam, from the position of Mughal Governor of Dhaka.
 * October 12 – Representatives of the Dutch Republic and the Kingdom of Sweden sign the last of the nine Treaties of Nijmegen, ending the last of the conflicts that began during the Franco-Dutch War.
 * October 18 – A sea battle is fought between England's Royal Navy and the navy of India's Maratha Empire (under the command of Mai Nayak Bhandari), with English bombardment driving the Maratha occupation of the island fortress at Khanderi (off of the western Indian coast south of Mumbai).
 * November 27 – A fire in Boston, Massachusetts, burns all of the warehouses, 80 houses, and all of the ships in the dockyards.
 * December 3 – French explorers René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle (commonly called "La Salle") and Henri de Tonti set off from their fort near Niagara Falls in North America on the first European expedition to explore the upper Mississippi River.
 * December 10
 * More than 200 captives on the ship The Crown of London, all Scottish Covenanters arrested after the battle of Bothwell Bridge, are killed when the ship is wrecked on the Orkney Islands while transporting the group to exile in North America.
 * A peace treaty is signed between Ali Bey al-Muradi, Bey of Tunis; his brother whom he had overthrown in 1678, Muhammad Bey al-Muradi; and their uncle, Muhammad al-Hafsi al-Muradi, the Pasha of Tunis, after mediation by the Dey of Algiers.
 * December 16 (December 6 O.S.) – Oliver Plunkett, the Roman Catholic Primate of All Ireland and Archbishop of Armagh, is arrested on false charges of plotting to aid a French invasion of the British Isles, the so-called "Popish Plot". Executed in 1681, Plunkett will be canonized as a Roman Catholic saint almost 300 years later in 1975.
 * December 26 – In modern-day Indonesia, the Trunajaya rebellion comes to an end with the surrender of Prince Panembahan Maduretno to the Sultan Amangkurat II of Mataram, ruler of the entire island of Java. While treated with respect as a prisoner of the occupying forces of the Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie or VOC), Panembahan is killed seven days later by Amangkurat after the VOC allows him to attend a ceremonial visit to the sultan's palace.

Date unknown

 * The Tibet–Ladakh–Mughal war (1679–84) begins with the Tibetan invasion of Ladakh.
 * French explorer Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut, explores the Saint Louis River; the city of Duluth, Minnesota, will take its name from him.
 * Malpas Tunnel on the Canal du Midi in Hérault, France, Europe's first navigable canal tunnel, is excavated by Pierre-Paul Riquet (169 m, concrete lined).

Births

 * January 24 – Christian Wolff, German philosopher (d. 1754)
 * March 18 – Matthew Decker, English merchant and writer (d. 1749)
 * March 29 – Benedict Calvert, 4th Baron Baltimore, colonial governor of Maryland (d. 1715)
 * May 29 – Antonio Farnese, Duke of Parma (d. 1731)
 * August 16 – Catharine Trotter Cockburn, English novelist, dramatist, philosopher (d. 1749)
 * August 22 – Pierre Guérin de Tencin, French cardinal (d. 1758)
 * October 13 – Princess Magdalena Augusta of Anhalt-Zerbst, Duchess of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg (d. 1740)
 * October 16 – Jan Dismas Zelenka, Bohemian composer (d. 1745)
 * October 18 – Ann Putnam, Jr., American accuser in the Salem witch trials (d. 1716)
 * November 11 – Firmin Abauzit, French scientist (d. 1767)
 * date unknown
 * James Erskine, Lord Grange, Scottish judge (d. 1754)
 * George Psalmanazar, French-born imposter and essayist (d. 1763)
 * Francesco Zerafa, Maltese architect (d. 1758)

Deaths

 * January 1 – Jan Steen, Dutch painter (b. c. 1626)
 * January 8 – Raymond Breton, French missionary (b. 1609)
 * January 14 – Jacques de Billy, French Jesuit mathematician (b. 1602)
 * January 15 – Pierre Lambert de la Motte, French bishop (b. 1624)
 * January 24
 * Ulderico Carpegna, Italian Catholic cardinal (b. 1595)
 * Maurice Henry, Prince of Nassau-Hadamar (1653–1679) (b. 1626)
 * January 29 – Carlo Ceresa, Italian painter (b. 1609)
 * February 5 – Joost van den Vondel, Dutch dramatist and poet (b. 1587)
 * February 6 – Margherita de' Medici, Italian duchess regent of Parma (b. 1612)
 * February 18 – Lady Anne Finch Conway, English philosopher (b. 1631)
 * February 19 – Henricus Regius, Dutch philosopher (b. 1598)
 * February 19 – Thomas Hales, Connecticut settler (b. 1610)
 * February 22 – Henrik Rysensteen, Dutch military engineer (b. 1624)
 * March 11
 * Sir John Covert, 1st Baronet, English politician (b. 1620)
 * Luise Marie of the Palatinate, German princess (b. 1647)
 * March 16
 * John Leverett, Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (b. 1616)
 * Johan Frederik von Marschalck, German-born landowner, Chancellor of Norway (b. 1618)
 * Johannes Schefferus, Alsatian-born humanist (b. 1621)
 * March 27 – Abraham Mignon, Dutch golden age painter (b. 1640)
 * April – Thomas Notley, Colonial governor of Maryland (b. 1632)
 * April 5 – Anne Geneviève de Bourbon, French princess and political activist (b. 1619)
 * May 3 – James Sharp, Scottish archbishop (assassinated) (b. 1613)
 * May 5 – Magnus Celsius, Swedish astronomer and mathematician (b. 1621)
 * May 6 – Peregrine Hoby, English politician (b. 1602)
 * May 10 – Dorothy, Lady Pakington, English religious writer (b. 1623)
 * May 14 – August of Legnica, Silesian nobleman (b. 1627)
 * May 26 – Ferdinand Maria, Elector of Bavaria (b. 1636)
 * June 3 – Francisque Millet, Flemish-French painter (b. 1642)
 * June 7 – Princess Christine Elisabeth of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg, German noblewoman (b. 1638)
 * June 15 – Guillaume Courtois, French painter (b. 1628)
 * June 27 – Pablo Bruna, blind Spanish composer and organist (b. 1611)
 * July 4 – Antoine Garaby de La Luzerne, French poet (b. 1617)
 * July 11 – William Chamberlayne, English poet (b. 1619)
 * July 19 – Francis Anderson, English politician (b. 1614)
 * July 26 – Edward Bayntun, English politician (b. 1618)
 * August – Catherine Lepère, French midwife (b. 1601)
 * August 6 – John Snell, English royalist (b. 1629)
 * August 12 – Marie de Rohan, French courtier and political activist (b. 1600)
 * August 20 – Jacob Alting, Dutch linguist (b. 1618)
 * August 24 – Jean François Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz, French churchman and agitator (b. 1614)
 * August 28 – Alfonso Litta, Cardinal, Archbishop of Milan (b. 1608)
 * August 29 – Margaret Mostyn, English Carmelite nun (b. 1625)
 * September 9 – John Gurdon, English politician (b. 1595)
 * September 11 – Nicolaes Visscher I (buried), Dutch engraver, cartographer and publisher (b. 1618)
 * September 17 – John of Austria the Younger, Spanish general (b. 1629)
 * September 25 – Philips Augustijn Immenraet, Flemish painter (b. 1627)
 * September 29 – John Manners, 8th Earl of Rutland, English politician when he inherited the peerage (b. 1604)
 * October 1 – Antonia of Württemberg, princess, literary figure, patron, and Christian Kabbalist (b. 1613)
 * October 2 – Sir William Bowyer, 1st Baronet, English politician (b. 1612)
 * October 3 – Hugh Bethell, English Member of Parliament and High Sheriff (b. 1615)
 * October 12 – William Gurnall, English writer (b. 1617)
 * October 26 – Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery, British soldier, statesman, and dramatist (b. 1621)
 * November 11 – Rosina Schnorr, German businessperson (b. 1618)
 * November 19 – Roger Conant, Massachusetts governor, founder of Salem, Massachusetts (b. 1592)
 * November 27 – Archibald Primrose, Lord Carrington, Scottish judge (b. 1616)
 * December 4 – Thomas Hobbes, English philosopher (b. 1588)
 * December 10 – Francesco Barberini, Italian Catholic cardinal (b. 1597)
 * December 20 – John Maurice, Prince of Nassau-Siegen (b. 1604)
 * December 18 – John Frederick, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Duke of Brunswick-Calenberg (1665–1679) (b. 1625)
 * December 21 – Claude Lamoral, 3rd Prince of Ligne, Spanish general and prince (b. 1618)
 * December 28
 * Peder Winstrup, Bishop of Lund (b. 1605)
 * Andrzej Trzebicki, nobleman and priest in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (b. 1607)
 * December 31 – Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, Italian physiologist and physicist (b. 1608)

title: 1679


text:
1676

January–March

 * January 29 – Feodor III becomes Tsar of Russia.
 * January 31 – Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala, the oldest institution of higher education in Central America, is founded.
 * January – Six months into King Philip's War, Metacomet (King Philip), leader of the Algonquian tribe known as the Wampanoag, travels westward to the Mohawk nation, seeking an alliance with the Mohawks against the English colonists of New England; his efforts in creating such an alliance are a failure.
 * February 10 – After the Nipmuc tribe attacks Lancaster, Massachusetts, colonist Mary Rowlandson is taken captive, and lives with the Indians until May.
 * February 14 – Metacomet and his Wampanoags attack Northampton, Massachusetts; meanwhile, the Massachusetts Council debates whether a wall should be erected around Boston.
 * February 23 – While the Massachusetts Council debates how to handle the Christian Indians they had exiled to Deer Island on October 13, 1675, a coalition of Indians led by Metacomet attacks colonial settlements just 16 km outside of Boston.
 * March 29 – Providence, Rhode Island is attacked and destroyed by Native Americans.

April–June

 * April 2 – Chief Canonchet of the Narragansett people is captured by mercenaries of the Pequot, Mohegan and Niantic nations who have been hired by English settlers. He is offered a chance to live if he makes peace with the English, refuses, and is executed the next day in Stonington, Connecticut.
 * April 12 – Richard Raynsford becomes the new Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales.
 * April 21 – Sudbury Fight: The village of Sudbury, Massachusetts is attacked by Metacom's Wampanoag Confederation as one of the last major battles of King Phillip's War. Captain Samuel Wadworth and 28 of his men are killed in the defense of the town.
 * April 22 – The Battle of Augusta is fought in the Mediterranean Sea off of the coast of Sicily during the Franco-Dutch War. The French Navy and the combined Dutch Republic and Spanish forces each lose over 500 men.
 * May 2 – Mary Rowlandson is ransomed from captivity by Native Americans by a subscription raised by women of Boston.
 * May 19 – Peskeomskut Massacre: Battle of Turner's Falls – Captain William Turner leads a raid at first light on an encampment consisting mainly of women and children. An estimated 300-400 lives are taken in less than half an hour, first from gunshot directly into the sleeping tents, then by sword and by drowning as the victims try to flee. This incident happens on the west bank of the Connecticut River, just above the falls known as Turner's Falls in Gill, Massachusetts.
 * May 26 – A fire destroys the town hall and 624 houses in Southwark, London.
 * May 31 – The Massachusetts Council finally decides to move the Christian Indians from Deer Island to Cambridge, Massachusetts (approximate date).
 * June 1 – Scanian War: Battle of Öland – A combined fleet of the Dutch Republic and Denmark–Norway decisively defeats the Swedish Navy, which loses its flagship Kronan.
 * June 12 – The Indian coalition attacks Hadley, Massachusetts, but are repelled by Connecticut troops.
 * June 19 – Massachusetts issues a declaration of amnesty to any Indian who surrenders.
 * June – Bacon's Rebellion begins in the Virginia Colony. On July 30, Nathaniel Bacon and his followers issue the Declaration of the People of Virginia.

July–September

 * July 2 – Major John Talcott and his troops begin sweeping Connecticut and Rhode Island, capturing large numbers of Native Americans from Algonquian tribes and exporting them out of the English colonies as slaves.
 * July 4 – Captain Benjamin Church and his soldiers begin sweeping Plymouth Colony, for any remaining Wampanoag tribesmen.
 * July 11 – The Wampanoags attack Taunton, Massachusetts, but are repelled by colonists.
 * July 17 – In France, Madame de Brinvilliers is executed for poisoning her father and brothers. The case also scares King Louis XIV into starting a series of investigations about possible poisonings and witchcraft (later called the Affair of the Poisons).
 * July 27 – Nearly 200 Nipmuc tribesmen surrender to the English colonists in Boston.
 * July 30 – Virginia colonist Nathaniel Bacon and his makeshift army issue a Declaration of the People of Virginia, instigating Bacon's Rebellion against the rule of Governor William Berkeley.
 * August 2 – Captain Benjamin Church captures Metacomet's wife and son.
 * August 12 – King Philip (Metacomet), chief of the Wampanoags that had waged a war throughout southern New England that bore his name, is killed by an Indian named Alderman, a soldier led by Captain Benjamin Church.
 * August 17 – Battle of Halmstad (fought at Fyllebro): Sweden gains a decisive victory over Denmark–Norway.
 * August 28 – The Irish Donation of 1676 is shipped from Dublin, to relieve Boston in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
 * September 19
 * The Russo-Turkish War (1676–1681) begins, with Russo-Ukrainian troops forcing pro-Ottoman Hetman Ivan Samoylovych to surrender Chyhyryn.
 * Bacon's Rebellion: Jamestown is burned to the ground by the forces of Nathaniel Bacon.
 * September 21 – Pope Innocent XI succeeds Pope Clement X, as the 240th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church.

October–December

 * October 13 – Battle of Gegodog: Trunajaya defeats the Mataram Sultanate.
 * October 17 – The Treaty of Żurawno is signed, between the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire and Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
 * November 16 – A prison is founded on Nantucket Island, in the English colony of Massachusetts.
 * November 27 – A fire in Boston, Massachusetts, is accidentally set by a careless and sleepy apprentice, who drops a lighted candle, or leaves it too near some combustible substance; this is the largest fire known at this time in the district. The Rev. Increase Mather’s church, dwelling and a portion of his personal library are destroyed.
 * December 4 – Scanian War – Battle of Lund: Sweden defeats the forces of Denmark.
 * December 7 – Ole Rømer makes the first quantitative measurements of the speed of light.
 * December 21 – Sands baronets created in the Baronetage of Ireland.

Date unknown

 * Emperor Yohannes I of Ethiopia decrees that Muslims must live separately from Christians throughout his realm.
 * Anton van Leeuwenhoek discovers microorganisms.
 * An Åbo Lantdag (assembly) meets in Turku, Finland.
 * The French East India Company founds its principal Indian base at Pondicherry, on the Coromandel Coast.
 * The first coffeehouse in North America opens in Boston.

Births

 * March 17 – Thomas Boston, Scottish church leader (d. 1732)
 * March 27 – Francis II Rákóczi, Hungarian rebel against the Habsburgs (d. 1735)
 * April 23 – King Frederick I of Sweden (d. 1751)
 * May 26 – Maria Clara Eimmart, German astronomer, engraver and designer (d. 1707)
 * May 28 – Jacopo Riccati, Italian mathematician (d. 1754)
 * June 17 – Louise de Maisonblanche, illegitimate daughter of Louis XIV of France (d. 1718)
 * June 21 – Anthony Collins, English philosopher (d. 1729)
 * July 3 – Leopold I, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau, Prussian field marshal (d. 1747)
 * July 14 – Caspar Abel, German theologian, historian, poet (d. 1763)
 * August 26 – Robert Walpole, first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1745)
 * September 13 – Élisabeth Charlotte d'Orléans, duchess and regent of Lorraine (d. 1744)
 * September 18 – Eberhard Louis, Duke of Württemberg (d. 1733)
 * October 8 – Benito Jerónimo Feijóo y Montenegro, Spanish scholar (d. 1764)
 * October 19 – Rodrigo Anes de Sá Almeida e Meneses, 1st Marquis of Abrantes, Portuguese diplomat (d. 1733)
 * November 8 – Louise Bénédicte de Bourbon, duchess of Maine, daughter in law of Louis XIV (d.1753)
 * date unknown – Alexander Selkirk, Scottish sailor (d. 1721)

Deaths

 * January 7 – Marco Faustini, Italian opera manager (b. 1606)
 * January 13 – Isaac Commelin, Dutch historian (b. 1598)
 * January 14 – Francesco Cavalli, Italian composer (b. 1602)
 * January 16 – Georg Arnold, Austrian musician (b. 1621)
 * January 29 – Tsar Alexis of Russia (b. 1629)
 * February 3 – François Chauveau, French painter (b. 1613)
 * February 14 – Abraham Bosse, French engraver and artist (b. c. 1604)
 * February 20 – Hugh Forth, English politician (b. 1610)
 * March 2 – Juan de Almoguera, Roman Catholic prelate who served as Archbishop of Lima (1673–1676) and Bishop of Arequipa (1659–1673) (b. 1605)
 * March 21 – Henri Sauval, French historian (b. 1623)
 * March 22 – Lady Anne Clifford, 14th Baroness de Clifford (b. 1590)
 * March 23 – Paul Würtz, Swedish general (b. 1612)
 * March 27 – Bernardino de Rebolledo, Spanish poet, soldier and diplomat (b. 1597)
 * April 5 – John Winthrop the Younger, Governor of Connecticut (b. 1606)
 * April 8 – Claudia Felicitas of Austria, Holy Roman Empress (b. 1653)
 * April 20 – John Clarke, English physician (b. 1609)
 * April 29 – Michiel de Ruyter, Dutch admiral (b. 1607)
 * May 5 – Sir Richard Lloyd, English politician (b. 1606)
 * May 7 – Henri Valois, French historian (b. 1603)
 * May 25 – Johann Rahn, Swiss mathematician (b. 1622)
 * May 26 – Thomas Rouse, English politician (b. 1608)
 * June 1 – Karl Kaspar von der Leyen, German Catholic archbishop (b. 1618)
 * June 7 – Paul Gerhardt, German hymnist (b. 1606)
 * June 13 – Princess Henriette Adelaide of Savoy, wife of Ferdinand Maria (b. 1636)
 * June 16 – Nathaniel Dickinson, American settler (b. 1601)
 * June 29 – Hendrik van der Borcht II, German painter (b. 1614)
 * July – Jesse Wharton colonial governor of Maryland
 * July 5 – Carl Gustaf Wrangel, Swedish soldier (b. 1613)
 * July 8 – Francis I Rákóczi, Hungarian prince of Transylvania (b. 1645)
 * July 12 – Duchess Elisabeth Sophie of Mecklenburg, German poet composer and (by marriage) Duchess of Brunswick-Lüneburg (b. 1613)
 * July 22 – Pope Clement X (b. 1590)
 * July 25 – François Hédelin, abbé d'Aubignac, French writer (b. 1604)
 * July 17 – Madame de Brinvilliers, French murderer (b. 1630)
 * August 11 – Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen, German writer (b. 1621)
 * August 14 – Nicolò Sagredo, 105th Doge of Venice (b. 1606)
 * August 28 – Margravine Louise Charlotte of Brandenburg, Duchess of Courland by marriage (1645–1676) (b. 1617)
 * August 31 – Lars Stigzelius, Swedish Lutheran archbishop (b. 1598)
 * September 4 – John Ogilby, Scottish-born impresario and cartographer active in Dublin and London (b. 1600)
 * September 9 – Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, French military officer, founder of Montreal in New France (b. 1612)
 * September 10 – Gerrard Winstanley, English religious reformer (b. 1609)
 * September 11 – Anna de' Medici, Archduchess of Austria (b. 1616)
 * September 17 – Sabbatai Zevi, Montenegrin rabbi, kabbalist and founder of the Jewish Sabbatean movement (b. 1626)
 * September 28 – Anna Maria Antigó, Spanish Catholic nun (b. 1602)
 * October 6 – Claudia Rusca, Italian composer, singer, and organist (b. 1593)
 * October 7 – Richard Neville, English soldier and MP (b. 1615)
 * October 10 – Sebastian Knüpfer, German composer (b. 1633)
 * October 13 – Juan de Arellano, Spanish artist (b. 1614)
 * October 15 – Simon de Vos, Flemish painter (b. 1603)
 * October 26 – Nathaniel Bacon, Virginian colonist and instigator of Bacon's Rebellion (b. circa 1640s)
 * October 28 – Jean Desmarets, French writer (b. 1595)
 * November 1 – Gisbertus Voetius, Dutch theologian (b. 1589)
 * November 9 – Allart Pieter van Jongestall, Dutch jurist, politician, and diplomat (b. 1612)
 * November 12 – Shang Kexi, Chinese general (b. 1604)
 * December 11 – Roland Fréart de Chambray, French writer (b. 1606)
 * December 12 – William Morice, English politician (b. 1602)
 * December 18 – Edward Benlowes, English poet (b. 1603)
 * December 19 – Adolph, Prince of Nassau-Schaumburg and Count of Nassau-Schaumburg (1653–1676) (b. 1629)
 * December 25
 * Matthew Hale, Lord Chief Justice of England (b. 1609)
 * William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, English soldier, politician, writer (b. 1592)

title: 1676


text:
1675

January–March

 * January 5 – Franco-Dutch War – Battle of Turckheim: The French defeat Austria and Brandenburg.
 * January 29 – John Sassamon, an English-educated Native American Christian, dies at Assawampsett Pond, an event which will trigger a year-long war between the English American colonists of New England, and the Algonquian Native American tribes.
 * February 4 – The Italian opera La divisione del mondo, by Giovanni Legrenzi, is performed for the first time, premiering in Venice at the Teatro San Luca.  The new opera, telling the story of the "division of the world" after the battle between the Gods of Olympus and the Titans, becomes known for its elaborate and expensive sets, machinery, and special effects and is revived 325 years later in the year 2000.
 * February 6 – Nicolò Sagredo is elected as the new Doge of Venice and leader of the Venetian Republic, replacing Domenico II Contarini, who had died 10 days earlier.
 * February 11 – French Army Marshal Louis Victor de Rochechouart, Count of Vivonne, reinforces the rebels in the Messina revolt with eight additional warships and three fireships to bring to 20 the number of ships that France has against the 15 warships of Spain, and breaks the Spanish blockade that had prevented food from reaching Messina.
 * February 25 – Netherlands scientist Christiaan Huygens files drawings of his invention of the balance spring, the key component to the accuracy of portable clocks and pocket watches, in a letter to the Journal des Sçavants.
 * February 27 – Matthew Locke's "semi-opera" Psyche premieres at the Duke's Theatre in London.
 * March 4 – John Flamsteed is appointed by King Charles II as England's "astronomical observator", in effect, becoming the first Astronomer Royal.
 * March 25 – England's first royal yacht, HMY Mary, strikes rocks off of the coast of Anglesey while traveling from Dublin to Chester with 74 passengers and crew, and quickly sinks, with the loss of 35 people. The other 39 are able to get to safety. The wreckage is not discovered until almost 300 years later, on July 11, 1971.
 * March 30 – The guild organisation Maîtresses couturières is founded in Paris.

April–June

 * April 13 – King Charles II of England suspends Parliament after just nine weeks when the members refuse to vote additional funding to him.
 * April 20 – An uprising by the Chahars in the Chinese Empire region of Inner Mongolia, led by brothers Abunai Khan and Lubuzung Khan with 3,000 followers, is harshly put down by Imperial troops of the Manchu dynasty. Survivors of the battle, part of the Revolt of the Three Feudatories, are put to death.
 * April 27 – Lê Hy Tông becomes the new Emperor of Vietnam at the age of 12, after being appointed as a figurehead by the warlord Trịnh Tạc upon the death of Lê Gia Tông.
 * April – English merchant Anthony de la Roché, blown off course after rounding Cape Horn eastabout, makes the first discovery of land south of the Antarctic Convergence, landing on South Georgia and (probably) Gough Island.
 * May 6 – The Siege of Ponda, an action by the Maratha Empire in southern India against the Sultanate of Bijapur, ends after four weeks when the Mughal Empire fails to send reinforcements. Most of the defenders are massacred after Emperor Shivaji's troops storm the fortress in what is now a small city in the Indian state of Goa.
 * May 15 – After an invasion and attempt to take over the German principality of Brandenburg, the army of Sweden makes its first conquest, forcing the surrender of the fortress at Löcknitz.
 * May 18 – Misirliohlu Ibrahim Pasha becomes the new ruler of Tripolitania, a province of the Ottoman Empire at the time and now part of the North African nation of Libya. He reigns for 19 months as the Beylerbey of Tripoli.
 * May 23 – Sujinphaa becomes the new figurehead monarch of the Ahom kingdom in northeastern India, enthroned at the capital at Garhgaon (now in the Indian state of Assam), after Gobar Roja is deposed and executed by order of the nobles who control the nation.
 * June 1 – The Torsåker witch trials is concluded in Sweden with the execution of 71 people (65 of them women) executed on the same day at the village of Häxberget. The condemned prisoners are beheaded and their bodies are then burned.
 * June 8 – John Sassamon's alleged murderers are executed at Plymouth, Massachusetts.
 * June 11 – Armed Wampanoag warriors are reported traveling around Swansea, Massachusetts.
 * June 14 – Colonial authorities of Rhode Island, Plymouth, and Massachusetts attempt a negotiation with Metacomet (King Philip), leader of the Wampanoags, and seek guarantees of fidelity from the Nipmuck and Narragansett tribes. The negotiations end after 11 days, closing on June 25.
 * June 21 – Reconstruction of St Paul's Cathedral begins in London under the direction of Christopher Wren, to replace the portion destroyed by the Great Fire of London nine years earlier.
 * June 24 – King Philip's War breaks out, as the Wampanoags attack Swansea.
 * June 26 – The Wampanoag warriors begin a three-day assault on English colonial towns in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in North America, with an assault on the villages of Rehoboth and Taunton. At the same time, Massachusetts troops march to Swansea, to join the Plymouth Colony troops. The warriors elude colonial troops and leave Mount Hope for Pocasset, Massachusetts. The Mohegan tribe travels to Boston, in order to assist the English colonists against the Wampanoags.
 * June 28 – Brandenburg defeats the Swedish Army in the Battle of Fehrbellin.

July–September

 * July 15 – The Narragansett tribe signs a peace treaty with Connecticut.
 * July 16–24 – An envoy from Massachusetts attempts to negotiate with the Nipmuck tribe.
 * August 2–4 – The Nipmucks attack Massachusetts troops and besiege Brookfield, Massachusetts.
 * August 10 – King Charles II of England places the foundation stone of the Royal Greenwich Observatory near London; construction begins.
 * August 13 – The Massachusetts Council orders that Christian Indians are to be confined to designated praying towns.
 * September 1–2 – While Wampanoags and Nipmucks attack Deerfield, Massachusetts, Captain Samuel Moseley commands Massachusetts troops in an attack on the Pennacook tribe.
 * September 12 – English colonists abandon Deerfield, Squakeag, and Brookfield due to a coalition of Indian attacks.
 * September 15 – The Bremen-Verden Campaign of the Northern Wars begins, with the invasion of Amt Wildeshausen by the Münster army, and their advance on Verden via the city of Bremen.
 * September 18 – The Narragansetts sign a treaty with the English in Boston; meanwhile, Massachusetts troops are ambushed near Northampton, Massachusetts.
 * September 20 – In England, a fire destroys most of the town of Northampton. According to a contemporary account, "the market place (which was a very goodly one), the stately church of Allhallows, 2 other parish churches and above three-fourth parts of the whole town was consumed and laid in ashes.".

October–December

 * October 5 – The Pocomtuc tribe attacks and destroys the English settlement at Springfield, Massachusetts.
 * October 13 – The Massachusetts Council convenes and agrees that all Christian Indians should be ordered to move to Deer Island.
 * October 29 – Gottfried Leibniz makes the first use of the long s (∫) as a symbol of the integral in calculus.
 * November 2 – Commissioners of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Plymouth Colony (which are later merged into Massachusetts) begin a 10-day discussion on organizing a united force to attack the Narragansett tribe.
 * November 11
 * Guru Teg Bahadur, ninth of the Sikh gurus, is executed by Mughal rulers, proclaiming that he prefers death rather than disavowing the right of Hindus to practice their own religion. He is succeeded by Guru Gobind Singh, who becomes the tenth Guru.
 * Gottfried Leibniz makes the earliest known use of infinitesimal calculus in the breaking down of a function.
 * December 11 – Antonio de Vea expedition enters San Rafael Lake in western Patagonia.
 * December 19 – United colonial forces attack the Narragansetts at the Great Swamp Fight.
 * December 24 – 1675–1676 Malta plague epidemic begins.

Date unknown

 * Giovanni Cassini discovers the Cassini Division in the rings of Saturn.
 * Antonie van Leeuwenhoek begins to use a microscope for observing human tissues and liquids.

Births

 * January 16 – Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon, French writer (d. 1755)
 * January 27 – Erik Benzelius the younger, Swedish priest (d. 1743)
 * February 21 – Franz Xaver Josef von Unertl, Bavarian politician (d. 1750)
 * February 28 – Guillaume Delisle, French cartographer (d. 1726)
 * March 31 – Pope Benedict XIV (d. 1758)
 * May 29 – Humphry Ditton, English mathematician (d. 1715)
 * June 1 – Francesco Scipione, marchese di Maffei, Italian archaeologist (d. 1755)
 * July 5 – Mary Walcott, American accuser at the Salem witch trials
 * July 12 – Evaristo Abaco, Italian composer (d. 1742)
 * July 14 – Claude Alexandre de Bonneval, French soldier (d. 1747)
 * September 2 – William Somervile, English poet (d. 1742)
 * September 3 – Paul Dudley, Attorney-General of Massachusetts (d. 1751)
 * September 27 – Dorothea Krag, Danish General Postmaster and noble (d. 1754)
 * October 11 – Samuel Clarke, English philosopher (d. 1729)
 * October 21 – Emperor Higashiyama of Japan (d. 1710)
 * October 24 – Richard Temple, 1st Viscount Cobham, English soldier and politician (d. 1749)
 * date unknown
 * William Jones, Welsh mathematician (d. 1749)
 * Tarabai, Indian queen regent of the Maratha Empire (d. 1761)
 * Cille Gad, Norwegian poet (d. 1711)

Deaths

 * January 9 – Francesco Maria Brancaccio, Catholic cardinal (b. 1592)
 * January 26 – Domenico II Contarini, Doge of Venice (b. 1585)
 * February 8 – Anna Moroni, Italian educator (b. 1613)
 * February 9 – Gerhard Douw, Dutch painter (b. 1613)
 * February 10 – Gervase Holles, English Member of Parliament (b. 1607)
 * March 14 – Francis Davies, British bishop (b. 1605)
 * March 18 – Arthur Chichester, 1st Earl of Donegall, Irish soldier (b. 1606)
 * April 8 – Veit Erbermann, German theologian (b. 1597)
 * April 10 – Dorothea of Saxe-Altenburg, Duchess of Saxe-Altenburg by births and by marriage Duchess of Saxe-Eisenach (b. 1601)
 * April 12 – Richard Bennett, British Colonial Governor of Virginia (b. 1609)
 * May 1 – Jonathan Rashleigh, English politician (b. 1591)
 * May 6 – August Philipp, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Beck, Danish-German prince and member of the House of Oldenburg (b. 1612)
 * May 18
 * Stanisław Lubieniecki, Polish Socinian theologian (b. 1623)
 * Father Jacques Marquette, French missionary and explorer (b. 1636)
 * May 27 – Gaspard Dughet, French painter (b. 1613)
 * June 5 – John Mordaunt, 1st Viscount Mordaunt, English politician (b. 1626)
 * June 11
 * Sir Anthony Cope, 4th Baronet, English Member of Parliament (b. 1632)
 * Dorothea Maria of Saxe-Weimar, Duchess of Saxe-Zeitz, by marriage Duchess of Saxe-Zeitz (b. 1641)
 * June 12 – Charles Emmanuel II, Duke of Savoy (b. 1634)
 * July 14 – Daniel Hallé, French painter (b. 1614)
 * July 20 – Giles Strangways, English politician (b. 1615)
 * July 25 – Johan Stiernhöök, Swedish lawyer (b. 1596)
 * July 27 – Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne, Marshal of France (b. 1611)
 * July 28 – Bulstrode Whitelocke, English lawyer (b. 1605)
 * August 5 – Brynjólfur Sveinsson, Icelandic bishop and scholar (b. 1605)
 * August 16 – António Luís de Meneses, 1st Marquis of Marialva, Portuguese general and noble (b. 1596)
 * August 29 – Joachim Irgens von Westervick, Dano–Norwegian nobleman (b. 1611)
 * September 8
 * Amalia of Solms-Braunfels, Princess consort to Frederick Henry (b. 1602)
 * Frederick, Count of Nassau-Weilburg, ruling Count of Nassau-Weilburg (b. 1640)
 * September 18 – Charles IV, Duke of Lorraine (b. 1604)
 * September 23 – Valentin Conrart, French founder of the Académie française (b. 1603)
 * October 10 – Tommaso Tamburini, Italian theologian (b. 1591)
 * October 15 – William Wadsworth, American colonial pioneer (b. 1594)
 * October 26 – William Sprague, English co-founder of Charlestown, Massachusetts (b. 1609)
 * October 27 – Gilles de Roberval, French mathematician (b. 1602)
 * November – Feodosia Morozova, Russian religious dissident martyr (b. 1632)
 * November 1 – Guru Tegh Bahadur, 9th Sikh Guru (b. 1621)
 * November 4 – Remigius van Leemput, painter from the Southern Netherlands (b. 1607)
 * November 10 – Leopoldo de' Medici, Italian Catholic cardinal (b. 1617)
 * November 11 – Thomas Willis, English doctor who played an important part in the history of anatomy (b. 1621)
 * November 15 – Preben von Ahnen, German-born civil servant and landowner in Norway (b. 1606)
 * November 21 – George William, Duke of Liegnitz (b. 1660)
 * November 28 – Basil Feilding, 2nd Earl of Denbigh, English Civil War soldier (b. c. 1608)
 * November 28 – Leonard Hoar, American President of Harvard University (b. 1630)
 * November 30
 * Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore, colonial Governor of Maryland (b. 1605)
 * Sir John Lowther, 1st Baronet, of Lowther, English politician (b. 1605)
 * December 6 – John Lightfoot, English churchman, scholar (b. 1602)
 * December 15 (bur.) – Johannes Vermeer, Dutch painter (b. 1632)
 * December 16 – Armand-Nompar de Caumont, duc de La Force, Marshal of France (b. 1580)
 * December 23 – Caesar, duc de Choiseul, French marshal and diplomat (b. 1602)
 * date unknown – Margareta Beijer, director of the Swedish Royal Post Office (b. 1625)

title: 1675


text:
1674

January–March

 * January 2 – The French West India Company is dissolved after less than 10 years.
 * January 7 – In the Chinese Empire, General Wu Sangui leads troops into the Giuzhou province, and soon takes control of the entire territory without a loss.
 * January 15 – The Earl of Arlington, a member of the English House of Commons, is impeached on charges of popery, but the Commons rejects the motion to remove him from office, 127 votes for and 166 against.
 * January 19 – The tragic opera Alceste, by Jean-Baptiste Lully, is performed for the first time, presented by the Paris Opera company at the Theatre du Palais-Royal in Paris.
 * February 19 – England and the Netherlands sign the Treaty of Westminster, ending the Third Anglo-Dutch War. Its provisions come into effect gradually (see November 10).
 * March 14 – Third Anglo-Dutch War: Battle of Ronas Voe – The English Royal Navy captures the Dutch East India Company ship Wapen van Rotterdam in Shetland.

April–June

 * April 10 – In the Ahom kingdom in what is now the northeastern Indian state of Assam, Chamaguriya Khamjang Konwar is installed by the Chief Minister, the Borbarua Debera, as the figurehead King of Ahom. He takes the regnal name Suhung and makes plans to have Debera killed.  On April 30, Debera, having learned of the King's intentions, succeeds in having the royal physician poison Suhung's medicine, and installs another ruler.
 * April 24 – In India, Shivaji Bhonsale, the Chhatrapati of the Maratha Empire, captures the Kenjalgad Fort in what is now the Maharashtra state.
 * April 26 – In the Netherlands, the jurisdiction of Willem, Prince of Orange, Stadtholder of Holland (on the west coast, including Amsterdam and Rotterdam) and Zeeland (southwest coast, including Middelburg, Zeeland), increases in the Dutch Republic as his followers in the inland States of Utrecht (Utrecht, Gelderland and Overijssel) designate him as the hereditary stadtholder.   In 1689, he becomes the King of England in addition to his role as the Stadtholder of the Netherlands.
 * May 21 – John III Sobieski is elected by the nobility, as King of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (to 1696).
 * June 6 – Shivaji Maharaj is crowned as Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj of the Maratha Empire at Raigad Fort in India.
 * June 12 – The British East India Company arranges a commercial treaty with the Maratha Empire after Henry Oxenden, the company's deputy governor, meets Emperor Shivaji for his recent coronation.

July–September

 * July 4 – A Dutch fleet under Cornelis Tromp Captures the island of Noirmoutier on the French coast. For nearly three weeks, the Dutch occupied the French island and the Dutch fleet captured many French ships in the meantime. The whole coastline from Brest to Bayonne was in turmoil, and French forces gathered to prevent the Dutch from landing. On 23 July the island of Noirmoutier was however abandoned after the Dutch blew up the castle and demolished the coastal batteries.
 * July 7 – The Messina revolt against Spanish rule begins on the island of Sicily as the Italian residents besiege the palace of the Spanish Captain-General and drive out the Spanish garrison.
 * July 16 – In a major battle in the Third Anglo-Dutch War, a large fleet of 18 warships from the Dutch Republic, along with 15 troop transports, nine storeships and 3,400 soldiers, arrives at the island of Martinique in the Caribbean Sea for the purpose of invasion and capture of Martinique from the French colonists. Admiral Michiel de Ruyter, commander of the Dutch forces, waits for four days before coming ashore. The French defenders, under the direction of the Governor, Antoine André de Sainte-Marthe, take advantage of the situation to block the entrances to the harbor and to reinforce troops.  The Dutch invasion force is forced to retreat after sustaining heavy losses.
 * July 17 – Two skeletons of children are discovered by workmen repairing a staircase at the White Tower (Tower of London), and believed at this time to be the remains of the Princes in the Tower. The urns containing the bones are interred in 1678 in Westminster Abbey, with an inscription in Latin that states "Here lie interred the remains of Edward V, King of England, and Richard, Duke of York, whose long desired and much sought after bones, after over a hundred and ninety years, were found interred deep beneath the rubble of the stairs that led up to the Chapel of the White Tower, on the 17 of July in the Year of Our Lord 1674."
 * August 11 – The French army under Louis II de Bourbon, Prince de Condé fights the Dutch–Spanish–Imperial army under William III of Orange at Seneffe in a very bloody, but inconclusive battle.
 * September 17 – Sukjong of the Joseon Dynasty, age 13, becomes the new Emperor of Korea upon the death of his father, the Emperor Hyeonjong. Sukjong reigns for more than 45 years until his death on July 12, 1720.
 * September 27 – French Navy Commander Jean-Baptiste de Valbelle arrives at Sicily during the Messina revolt to help the Messinese expel the last Spanish defenders, taking the fort at Faro in the harbor entrance.

October–December

 * October 4
 * The Battle of Entzheim takes place in France with 35,000 Holy Roman Empire troops and 22,000 French defenders during the Franco-Dutch War, with the forces fighting near Entzheim south of Strasbourg. While the battle is inconclusive, the outnumbered French win a strategic victory by keeping the Germans from entering French territory. Most of the former battlefield now lies beneath the Strasbourg International Airport.
 * A second coronation is held by the Maratha Empire for the Chhatrapati Shivaji Bhonsle, after the Vedic priest Nischal Puri Goswami decides that the June 18 coronation was "held under inauspicious stars".
 * October 15 – The Torsåker witch trials begin in the Torsåker Parish in Sweden, with over 100 men and women accused of witchcraft and the abduction of children. On June 1, 1675, the mass beheading of the 71 people convicted takes place at Häxberget, 65 of whom are women.  The others are two men and four boys.
 * October 27 – The town of Grave surrenders to a Dutch army after a difficult siege.
 * November 10 – As provided in the Treaty of Westminster of February 19, the Dutch Republic cedes its colony of New Netherland to England. This includes the colonial capital, New Orange, which is returned to its English name of New York. The colonies of Surinam, Essequibo and Berbice remain in Dutch hands.
 * December 4 – Father Jacques Marquette, along with Pierre Poteret and Jacque Poteret, sails southward along the shore of Lake Michigan, accompanied by nine canoes of Indians from the Potawatomi tribe, and comes ashore at what is now Chicago. The three missionaries, the first Europeans to explore the area, camp there for the winter.  Marquette notes in his journal "The land bordering it is of now value, except on the prairies," and adds "There are eight to ten quite fine rivers."  A historical marker is now erected on the site of the landing.  Father Marquette founds a mission (which will in time grow into the city of Chicago) on the shores of Lake Michigan, in order to create a Christian ministry to convent native Americans in the Illinois Confederation.

Date unknown

 * The first Dutch West India Company is dissolved.

Births

 * January 12 – Alexis Simon Belle, French portrait painter (d. 1734)
 * January 15 – Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon, French writer (d. 1762)
 * January 24 – Thomas Tanner, English bishop and antiquarian (d. 1735)
 * March – Jethro Tull, English agriculturist (d. 1741)
 * June 3 – Matthias Buchinger, German artist (d. 1740)
 * July 12 – Abigail Williams, American accuser in the Salem witch trials (d. 1765)
 * July 17 – Isaac Watts, English hymnist (d. 1748)
 * August 2 – Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, regent of France (d. 1723)
 * August 9 – František Maxmilián Kaňka, Czech architect (d. 1766)
 * August 16 – Catharine Trotter Cockburn, English novelist, dramatist and philosopher (d. 1749)
 * December 25 – Thomas Halyburton, Scottish theologian (d. 1712)
 * Date unknown
 * Jeremiah Clarke, English baroque composer (suicide 1707)
 * Spencer Compton, 1st Earl of Wilmington, Prime Minister of Great Britain (d. 1743)

Deaths

 * January 3 – Claude Maltret, French Jesuit (b. 1621)
 * January 5 – Ebba Brahe, Swedish countess, landowner, and courtier (b. 1596)
 * January 10 – Jacob de Witt, Mayor of Dordrecht (b. 1589)
 * January 12 – Giacomo Carissimi Italian composer (b. 1605)
 * January 21
 * Cornelis Bisschop, Dutch painter (b. 1630)
 * Henri de La Trémoille, French general and noble (b. 1598)
 * February 13 – Jean de Labadie, 17th-century French pietist (b. 1610)
 * February 14 – Carlo de Tocco, Italian nobleman (b. 1592)
 * February 22
 * Jean Chapelain, French writer (b. 1595)
 * John Wilson, English composer (b. 1595)
 * February 24 – Matthias Weckmann, German composer (b. 1616)
 * February 26 – Jean Pecquet, French anatomist (b. 1622)
 * March 2 – Salomon Sweers, Dutch businessman (b. 1611)
 * March 8 – Charles Sorel, sieur de Souvigny, French writer (b. 1597)
 * March 15 – Edward Digges, English barrister and colonist, Colonial Governor of Virginia (b. 1620)
 * March 19 – Queen Inseon, Korean royal consort (b. 1619)
 * March 23 – Henry Cromwell, 4th son of Oliver Cromwell and Elizabeth Bourchier (b. 1628)
 * March 29 – Ove Bjelke, Norwegian civil servant (b. 1611)
 * April 18 – John Graunt, English demographer (b. 1620)
 * April 24 – Frances Seymour, Duchess of Somerset (b. 1599)
 * June 1 – Beata Rosenhane, Swedish writer (b. 1638)
 * June 4 – Jan Lievens, Dutch painter (b. 1607)
 * June 8 – Henry Hildyard, English Member of Parliament (b. 1610)
 * June 14 – Marin le Roy de Gomberville, French writer (b. 1600)
 * June 16 – Empress Xiaochengren, Chinese Qing Dynasty empress (b. 1653)
 * June 25
 * Sir Orlando Bridgeman, 1st Baronet, of Great Lever (b. 1606)
 * Mauritia Eleonora of Portugal, Princess of Portugal and countess consort of Nassau-Siegen (b. 1609)
 * July 2 – Eberhard III, Duke of Württemberg (b. 1614)
 * July 29 – Eva Krotoa, Khoi translator and interpreter (b. 1643)
 * July 30
 * Hans Conrad Werdmüller, Swiss military commander (b. 1606)
 * Francisco Ignacio Alcina, Jesuit missionary and historian (b. 1610)
 * August 8 – Maeda Toshitsugu, Japanese daimyō of the early Edo period (b. 1617)
 * August 12 – Philippe de Champaigne, French painter (b. 1602)
 * September 12 – Nicolaes Tulp, Dutch anatomist and politician (b. 1593)
 * September 17 – Hyeonjong of Joseon, 18th monarch of the Korean Joseon Dynasty (b. 1641)
 * September 22 – Herman Egon, Prince of Fürstenberg, High Chamberlain of the Elector of Bavaria (b. 1627)
 * September 27 – Robert Arnauld d'Andilly, French writer (b. 1589)
 * September 29 – Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, Dutch painter (b. 1621)
 * October 2 – George Frederick of Nassau-Siegen, officer in the Dutch Army (b. 1606)
 * October 12 – Jeremias van Rensselaer, Dutch colonial governor (b. 1632)
 * October 15 – Robert Herrick, English poet (b. 1591)
 * October 27 – Hallgrímur Pétursson, Icelandic poet (b. 1614)
 * November 8 – John Milton, English Puritan poet (b. 1608)
 * November 16 – Isbrand van Diemerbroeck, Dutch physician (b. 1609)
 * November 18 – Charles Lallemant, French Jesuit (b. 1587)
 * December 9 – Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, English statesman and historian (b. 1609)
 * December 10 – John Vaughan, English judge (b. 1603)
 * December 28 – John Oxenbridge, English Nonconformist divine (b. 1608)
 * Date unknown
 * Hu Zhengyan, Chinese artist, printmaker, calligrapher and publisher (b. c. 1584)
 * Thomas Traherne, English poet (b. c. 1637)

title: 1674


text:
1673

January–March

 * January 22 – Impostor Mary Carleton is hanged at Newgate Prison in London, for multiple thefts and returning from penal transportation.
 * February 10 – Molière's comédie-ballet The Imaginary Invalid premiers in Paris. During the fourth performance, on February 17, the playwright, playing the title rôle, collapses on stage, dying soon after.
 * March 29 – Test Act: Roman Catholics and others who refuse to receive the sacrament of the Church of England cannot vote, hold public office, preach, teach, attend the universities or assemble for meetings in England. On June 12, the king's Catholic brother, James, Duke of York, is forced to resign the office of Lord High Admiral because of the Act.

April–June

 * April 27 – Cadmus et Hermione, the first opera written by Jean-Baptiste Lully, premières at the Paris Opera in France.
 * May 17 – In America, trader Louis Joliet and Jesuit missionary-explorer Jacques Marquette begin exploring the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes.
 * June 7 – First Battle of Schooneveld: In a sea battle of the Third Anglo-Dutch War, fought off the Netherlands coast, the Dutch Republic fleet (commanded by Michiel de Ruyter) defeats the allied Anglo-French fleet, commanded by Prince Rupert of the Rhine.
 * June 14 – Second Battle of Schooneveld: The Dutch fleet again defeats the joint Anglo-French fleet.
 * June 17 – French explorers Father Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet reach the headwaters of the Mississippi River, and descend to Arkansas.

July–September

 * July 6 – French troops conquer Maastricht.
 * July 11 – The Netherlands and Denmark-Norway sign a defense treaty.
 * July 24 – Edmund Halley enters The Queen's College, Oxford, as an undergraduate.
 * August 8 – In the American colonies, a Dutch battle fleet of 23 ships demands the surrender of New York.
 * August 9 – Dutch forces under Admiral Cornelis Evertsen the Youngest recapture New York from the English; the city is known as New Orange until regained by the English in 1674.
 * August 21 – Battle of Texel (Kijkduin): The Dutch fleet under Michiel de Ruyter defeats the English and French fleet. This prevents England's Blackheath Army from landing in Zeeland.
 * August 30 – Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor, Spain, Netherlands and the Lutherans form an anti-French covenant.
 * September 12 – William, Prince of Orange occupies Naarden, Netherlands.

October–December

 * October 3 – Kintai Bridge is officially completed in Iwakuni, Suō Province (modern-day Yamaguchi Prefecture), Japan.
 * November 9 – King Charles II of England removes Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, from his position as Lord Chancellor.
 * November 11 – Battle of Khotyn: Polish and Lithuanian military units, under the command of soon-to-be-king Jan Sobieski, defeat the Turkish army. In this battle, which takes place one day after the death of Poland and Lithuania's monarch, Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki, the rockets invented by Kazimierz Siemienowicz are successfully used.
 * November 13 – Dutch troops commanded by Raimondo Montecuccoli and William, Prince of Orange conquer Bonn.
 * November 14 – Christopher Wren is knighted in England.
 * November 23 – James, Duke of York, marries Mary of Modena; they meet for the first time immediately before the ceremony in Dover.
 * December 8 – Pedro Nuño Colón de Portugal dies only five days after arriving in Mexico City to take office as the new viceroy of New Spain. He is replaced on December 13 by Payo Enríquez de Rivera, the former Roman Catholic Archbishop of Mexico.
 * December 19 – King Louis XIV of France issues a decree recognizing the legitimacy of (and giving royal titles to) the three children whom he had sired through his mistress, the Marquise de Montespan: Louis Auguste, Duke of Maine; Louis César, Count of Vexin; and Louise Françoise de Bourbon, Princess of Condé.
 * December 28 – In China, General Wu Sangui begins the Revolt of the Three Feudatories, a rebellion against the Ming dynasty by killing the Governor of the Yunnan province, Zhu Guozhi. Within 10 days, he leads troops on an expedition to take over the neighboring Guizhou province and by 1676 controls 11 of China's provinces.

Date unknown

 * France begins its expedition against Ceylon.
 * Chelsea Physic Garden, the second oldest botanic garden in England, is founded by the Society of Apothecaries, for the study of medicinal and other plants.
 * The Mitsui family's trading and banking house is founded in Japan.
 * The stalactic grotto of Antiparos (Aegean Sea) is discovered.
 * Archpriest Petrovich Avvakum writes his Zhitie (Life), as the first Russian autobiography.

Births

 * January 31 – St. Louis Maria Grignion de Montfort, French missionary priest (d. 1716)
 * April 27 – Claude Gillot, French artist (d. 1722)
 * July 20 – John Dalrymple, 2nd Earl of Stair, Scottish soldier and diplomat (d. 1747)
 * August 8 – John Ker, Scottish informer (d. 1726)
 * August 10 – Johann Konrad Dippel, German alchemist (d. 1734)
 * August 11 – Richard Mead, English physician (d. 1754)
 * August 18 – Louise Élisabeth de Joybert, politically active Canadian governors' wife (d. 1740)
 * October 26 – Dimitrie Cantemir, Moldavian linguist and scholar (d. 1723)
 * December 30 – Ahmed III, Ottoman Sultan (d. 1736)

Deaths

 * January 11 – Bartholomew Mastrius, Italian theologian (b. 1602)
 * January 22 – Mary Carleton, Englishwoman who used false identities (b. 1642)
 * January 26 – Jérôme Lalemant, French Jesuit priest and missionary to Canada (b. 1593)
 * February 2 – Kaspar Förster, German singer and composer (b. 1616)
 * February 12, – Johann Philipp von Schönborn, Archbishop-Elector of Mainz (1647– (b. 1605)
 * February 17 – Molière, French writer and actor (b. 1622)
 * February 22 – Anna Magdalene of Hanau, German countess (b. 1600)
 * March 6 – Isaack Luttichuys, Dutch Golden Age painter (b. 1616)
 * March 12 – Margaret Theresa of Spain (b. 1651)
 * March 15 – Salvator Rosa, Italian painter and poet (b. 1615)
 * March 20
 * Anna Margareta von Haugwitz, Swedish countess (b. 1622)
 * Augustyn Kordecki, Polish prior (b. 1603)
 * April 21 – Ignace-Gaston Pardies, French physicist (b. 1636)
 * May 14 – Sir Gerrard Napier, 1st Baronet, English politician (b. 1606)
 * May 6 – Werner Rolfinck, German physician, chemist, botanist, philosopher (b. 1599)
 * May 9 – Jacques Vallée, Sieur Des Barreaux, French poet (b. 1599)
 * May 27 – Henry Hungerford, English politician (b. 1611)
 * May 30 – Sir Edward Bagot, 2nd Baronet, English politician (b. 1616)
 * June 6 – Eugene Maurice, Count of Soissons, Italian noble (b. 1635)
 * June 18 – Jeanne Mance, French Canadian settler (b. 1606)
 * June 28 – Johan Schatter, Dutch member of the Haarlem schutterij (b. 1594)
 * June 25 – Charles de Batz-Castelmore d'Artagnan, French soldier (b. 1611)
 * July 4 – Robert Moray, English Freemason (b. 1608 or 1609)
 * July 15 – Helena Fourment, Dutch model, second wife of Peter Paul Rubens (b. 1614)
 * August 17 – Regnier de Graaf, Dutch physician and anatomist (b. 1641)
 * August 21
 * Henry Grey, 1st Earl of Stamford, English soldier (b. c. 1599)
 * Daniel Pawłowski, Polish writer (b. 1627)
 * Isaac Sweers, Dutch admiral (b. 1622)
 * August 25 – Bartram de Fouchier, Dutch painter (b. 1609)
 * September 6 – Jan Thomas van Ieperen, Flemish engraver and painter (b. 1617)
 * September 21 – Lorenzo Imperiali, Italian cardinal (b. 1612)
 * October 5 – Francesco Grue, Italian artist (b. 1618)
 * October 13 – Christoffer Gabel, Danish statesman (b. 1617)
 * October 17 – Thomas Clifford, 1st Baron Clifford of Chudleigh, English statesman (b. 1630)
 * November 6 – Robert Harley, English politician (b. 1626)
 * November 10 – Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki, King of Poland (b. 1640)
 * November 17 – Thomas Wendy, English politician (b. 1614)
 * November 29 – Armand de Gramont, Comte de Guiche, French nobleman (b. 1637)
 * December 15 – Margaret Cavendish, English writer (b. 1623)
 * December 21 – Joan Blaeu, Dutch cartographer (b. 1596)
 * December 29 – Manuel da Câmara III, Portuguese noble (b. 1630)
 * December 31 – Oliver St John, English statesman and judge (b. c. 1598)

title: 1673