One hundred years, from 1601 to 1700
The 17th century lasted from January 1,
1601 (represented by the
Roman numerals MDCI), to December 31,
1700 (MDCC).
It falls into the
early modern period of Europe and in that continent (whose impact on the world was increasing) was characterized by the
Baroque cultural movement, the latter part of the
Spanish Golden Age , the
Dutch Golden Age ,
[1] the French
Grand Siècle dominated by
Louis XIV , the
Scientific Revolution , the world's first public company and
megacorporation known as the
Dutch East India Company , and according to some historians,
the General Crisis .
From the mid-17th century, European politics were increasingly dominated by the
Kingdom of France of
Louis XIV , where royal power was solidified domestically in the
civil war of
the Fronde . The semi-feudal territorial
French nobility was weakened and subjugated to the power of an
absolute monarchy through the reinvention of the
Palace of Versailles from a hunting lodge to a gilded prison, in which a greatly expanded royal court could be more easily kept under surveillance. With domestic peace assured, Louis XIV caused the borders of France to be expanded. It was during this century that the
English monarch became increasingly involved in conflicts with the
Parliament - this would culminate in the English civil war and an end to the dominance of the English monarchy.
A scene on the ice,
Dutch Republic , first half of the 17th century By the end of the century, Europeans were masters of
logarithms ,
electricity , the
telescope and
microscope ,
calculus ,
universal gravitation ,
Newton's Laws of Motion ,
air pressure , and
calculating machines due to the work of the first scientists of the
Scientific Revolution , including
Galileo Galilei ,
Johannes Kepler ,
René Descartes ,
Pierre Fermat ,
Blaise Pascal ,
Robert Boyle ,
Christiaan Huygens ,
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek ,
Robert Hooke ,
Isaac Newton , and
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz . It was also a period of development of culture in general (especially theater, music, visual arts and philosophy). Some of the greatest inventions took place in this century.
It was during this period that the
European colonization of the Americas began in earnest, including the exploitation of the silver deposits, which resulted in bouts of inflation as wealth was drawn into Europe.
[2] Also during this period, there would be a more intense European presence in Southeast Asia and East Asia (such as the
colonization of Taiwan ). These foreign elements would contribute to a
revolution in
Ayutthaya . While the
Mataram Sultanate and the
Aceh Sultanate would be the major powers of the region, especially during the first half of the century.
[2]
In the
Islamic world , the
gunpowder empires – the
Ottoman ,
Safavid , and
Mughal – grew in strength as well. The southern half of India would see the decline of the
Deccan Sultanates and extinction of the
Vijayanagara Empire . The
Dutch would
colonize Ceylon and endure hostilities with
Kandy . The end of the 17th century saw the first major surrender of Ottoman territory in Europe when the
Treaty of Karlowitz ceded most of Hungary to the
Habsburgs in 1699.
Qing China spent decades of this century with economic problems (results of civil wars between the Qing and former Ming dynasty loyalists), only recovering well at the end of the century. In Japan,
Tokugawa Ieyasu established the
Tokugawa shogunate at the beginning of the century, beginning the
Edo period ; the isolationist
Sakoku policy began in the 1630s and lasted until the 19th century. In China, the collapsing
Ming dynasty was challenged by a series of conquests led by the
Manchu warlord
Nurhaci , which were consolidated by his son
Hong Taiji and finally consummated by his grandson, the
Shunzhi Emperor , founder of the
Qing dynasty .
[3]
The greatest military conflicts of the century were the
Thirty Years' War ,
[4]
Dutch–Portuguese War ,
[5] the
Great Turkish War , the
Nine Years' War ,
Mughal–Safavid Wars , and the
Qing annexation of the Ming .
Events
1601–1650
Persian Ambassador during his entry into
Kraków for the wedding ceremonies of King
Sigismund III of Poland in 1605.
1601 : In the
Battle of Kinsale , England defeats Irish and Spanish forces, driving the Gaelic aristocracy out of Ireland and destroying the Gaelic clan system.
1601 –
1603 : The
Russian famine of 1601–1603 kills perhaps one-third of Russia.
[6]
1602 :
Matteo Ricci produces the
Map of the Myriad Countries of the World (坤輿萬國全圖, Kūnyú Wànguó Quántú ), a world map that will be used throughout East Asia for centuries.
1602 : The
Dutch East India Company (VOC) is established by merging competing
Dutch trading companies.
[7] Its success contributes to the
Dutch Golden Age .
1603 :
Elizabeth I of England dies and is succeeded by her cousin King
James VI of Scotland , uniting the crowns of Scotland and England.
1603 :
Tokugawa Ieyasu takes the title of
shōgun , establishing the
Tokugawa shogunate . This begins the
Edo period , which will last until 1868.
1603 : In
Nagasaki , the Portuguese Jesuit missionary
João Rodrigues publishes
Nippo Jisho , the first dictionary of Japanese to a European (Portuguese) language.
1605 : The King of
Gowa , a
Makassarese kingdom in
South Sulawesi , converts to Islam.
Tsar Michael I of Russia reigned 1613–1645
1605 –
1627 : The reign of
Mughal emperor
Jahangir after the death of emperor
Akbar .
1606 : The
Long Turkish War between the
Ottoman Empire and
Austria is ended with the
Peace of Zsitvatorok —Austria abandons
Transylvania .
1606 :
Treaty of Vienna ends an anti-Habsburg uprising in
Royal Hungary .
1606 :
Willem Janszoon captained the first recorded European landing on the
Australian continent, sailing from
Bantam ,
Java , in the
Duyfken .
1607 :
Flight of the Earls (the fleeing of most of the native
Gaelic
aristocracy ) occurs from
County Donegal in the west of
Ulster in Ireland.
1607 :
Iskandar Muda becomes the Sultan of
Aceh for 30 years. He will launch a series of naval conquests that will transform Aceh into a great power in the western
Malay Archipelago .
1610 : The
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth army defeats combined Russian–Swedish forces at the
Battle of Klushino and conquers Moscow.
1610 :
King Henry IV of France is assassinated by
François Ravaillac .
1611 : The Pontifical and Royal
University of Santo Tomas , the oldest existing university in Asia, is established by the
Dominican Order in Manila
[8]
1611 : The first publication of the
King James Bible .
1612 : The first
Cotswold Olympic Games , an annual public celebration of games and sports begins in the
Cotswolds , England.
1613 : The
Time of Troubles in Russia ends with the establishment of the
House of Romanov , which rules until 1917.
1613 –
1617 :
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth is invaded by the
Tatars dozens of times.
[9]
James I of England and VI of Scotland ruled in the first quarter of the 17th century
1613 : The
Dutch East India Company is forced to evacuate
Gresik due to the
Mataram siege in neighboring
Surabaya . The dutch negotiates with Mataram and is allowed to set up a trading post in
Jepara .
1614 –
1615 : The
Siege of Osaka (last major threat to
Tokugawa shogunate ) ends.
1616 : The last remaining
Moriscos (Moors who had nominally
converted to Christianity ) in Spain are expelled.
1616 : English poet and playwright
William Shakespeare dies.
1618 :
The Defenestration of Prague .
1618 : The
Bohemian Revolt precipitates the
Thirty Years' War , which devastates Europe in the years 1618–48.
1618 : The
Manchus start invading China. Their
conquest eventually topples the
Ming dynasty .
1619 : European slaving reaches America when the first Africans are brought to the present-day United States.
1619 : The
Dutch East India Company storm
Jayakarta and withstand a months-long siege by the combined
English ,
Bantenese and Jayakartan forces. They are relieved by
Jan Pieterszoon Coen and a fleet of ships from
Ambon . The dutch destroys
Jayakarta and builds its new headquarters,
Batavia , on top of it.
1620 –
1621 :
Polish–Ottoman War over
Moldavia .
1620 :
Bethlen Gabor allies with the Ottomans and an invasion of
Moldavia takes place. The Polish suffer a disaster at
Cecora on the River
Prut .
1620 : The
Mayflower sets sail from
Plymouth, England to what became the
Plymouth Colony in
New England .
The
1622 massacre was instrumental in causing English colonists to view all natives as enemies
1621 : The
Battle of Chocim : Poles and
Cossacks under
Jan Karol Chodkiewicz defeat the Ottomans.
1622 :
Jamestown massacre :
Algonquian natives kill 347 English settlers outside
Jamestown, Virginia (approximately one-third of the colony's population)
[10]
[11] and burn the
Henricus settlement.
1624 –
1642 : As chief minister,
Cardinal Richelieu centralises power in
France .
1626 :
St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican completed.
1627 :
Aurochs go extinct.
[12]
1628 –
1629 :
Sultan Agung of
Mataram launches a failed campaign to
conquer Dutch Batavia .
1629 :
Abbas I , the
Safavids king, died.
1629 :
Cardinal Richelieu allies with Swedish Protestant forces in the
Thirty Years' War to counter
Ferdinand II's expansion.
1630 : Birth of
Shivaji at
Shivneri fort , in present day Maharashtra, India, who later founded
Maratha Empire in year 1674.
[13]
1631 :
Mount Vesuvius erupts.
1632 :
Battle of Lützen , death of king of
Sweden
Gustav II Adolf .
Battle of Nördlingen (1634) . The Catholic
Imperial army, bolstered by professional
Habsburg Spanish troops won a great victory in the battle over the combined Protestant armies of
Sweden and their German allies
1632 :
Taj Mahal building work started in
Agra, India .
1633 :
Galileo Galilei arrives in Rome for his trial before the
Inquisition .
1633 –
1639 : Japan transforms into
"locked country" .
1634 :
Battle of Nördlingen results in Catholic victory.
1636 :
Harvard University is founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
1637 :
Shimabara Rebellion of Japanese Christians,
rōnin and peasants against Edo.
1637 : The first opera house,
Teatro San Cassiano , opens in Venice.
1637 :
Qing dynasty attacked the Joseon dynasty.
1639 : Naval
Battle of the Downs –
Republic of the United Provinces fleet decisively defeats a Spanish fleet in English waters.
1639 : Disagreements between the
Farnese and
Barberini
Pope Urban VIII escalate into the
Wars of Castro and last until 1649.
1639 –
1651 :
Wars of the Three Kingdoms , civil wars throughout Scotland, Ireland, and
England .
1640 –
1668 : The
Portuguese Restoration War led to the end of the
Iberian Union .
The inauguration of the
Royal Academy of Turku in 1640.
1641 : The
Irish Rebellion , by Irish Catholics who wanted an end to discrimination, greater self-governance, and reverse ownership of the
plantations of Ireland .
1641 :
René Descartes publishes Meditationes de prima philosophia
Meditations on First Philosophy .
1642 : Beginning of
English Civil War , conflict will end in 1649 with the execution of
King Charles I , the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of the supremacy of Parliament over the king.
1643 :
L'incoronazione di Poppea ,
Monterverdi
1644 : The
Manchu conquer China ending the
Ming dynasty . The subsequent
Qing dynasty rules until 1912.
1644 –
1674 : The
Mauritanian Thirty-Year War .
1645 –
1669 : Ottoman war with
Venice . The Ottomans invade
Crete and capture
Canea .
1647 –
1652 : The
Great Plague of Seville .
1648 : The
Peace of Westphalia ends the
Thirty Years' War and the
Eighty Years' War and marks the ends of
Spain and the
Holy Roman Empire as major European powers.
Map of Europe in 1648 at the end of the
Thirty Years' War
1648 –
1653 :
Fronde civil war in
France .
1648 –
1657 : The
Khmelnytsky Uprising – a Cossack rebellion in
Ukraine which turned into a Ukrainian war of liberation from
Poland .
1648 –
1667 :
The Deluge wars leave
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in ruins.
1648 –
1669 : The
Ottomans capture
Crete from the
Venetians after the
Siege of Candia .
1649 :
King Charles I is executed for high treason, the first and only English king to be subjected to legal proceedings in a
High Court of Justice and put to death.
1649 –
1653 : The
Cromwellian conquest of Ireland .
1651–1700
The Night Watch or The Militia Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq , 1642. Oil on canvas; on display at the
Rijksmuseum ,
Amsterdam
1651 :
English Civil War ends with the Parliamentarian victory at the
Battle of Worcester .
1656 –
1661 :
Mehmed Köprülü is
Grand Vizier .
1655 –
1661 : The
Northern Wars cement
Sweden's rise as a
Great Power .
1657 :
Sambhaji , the second King of Maratha Empire and eldest son of King Shivaji was born at
Purandar Fort on 14 May.
[14]
1658 : After his father
Shah Jahan completes the
Taj Mahal , his son
Aurangzeb deposes him as ruler of the
Mughal Empire .
1659 : King
Shivaji killed
Adil Shahi dynasty's general
Afzal Khan at
Pratapgad fort on 9 November.
[15]
1660 : The
Commonwealth of England ends and the monarchy is brought back during the
English Restoration .
1660 : The
Royal Society is founded.
1661 : The reign of the
Kangxi Emperor of China begins.
1663 :
Ottoman war against
Habsburg Hungary .
1664 : The
Battle of St. Gotthard : count
Raimondo Montecuccoli defeats the Ottomans. The
Peace of Vasvar – intended to keep the peace for 20 years.
1665 :
Maratha King
Shivaji signed the
Treaty of Purandar with Mughal general
Jai Singh I after
Battle of Purandar .
[14]
1665 :
Robert Hooke discovers cells using a microscope.
1665 :
Portugal defeats the
Kongo Empire at the
Battle of Mbwila .
Taj Mahal , completed by 1653 and commissioned by
Shah Jahan , one of the
Wonders of the World
1665 –
1667 : The
Second Anglo-Dutch War fought between
England and the
United Provinces .
1666 : The
Great Fire of London .
1666 :
Shivaji visited
Aurangzeb at
Agra Fort and forced him into house arrest. Shivaji later escaped and returned to the
Maratha kingdom .
[14]
1667 : The
Raid on the Medway during the
Second Anglo-Dutch War .
1667 –
1668 : The
War of Devolution : France invades the Netherlands. The
Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle (1668) brings this to a halt.
1667 –
1699 : The
Great Turkish War halts the
Ottoman Empire 's expansion into Europe.
1672 –
1673 : Ottoman campaign to help the
Ukrainian Cossacks .
John Sobieski defeats the Ottomans at the second
battle of Khotyn (1673) .
1672 –
1674 : The
Third Anglo-Dutch War fought between
England and the
United Provinces
1672 –
1676 :
Polish–Ottoman War .
French invasion of the Netherlands, which
Louis XIV initiated in 1672, starting the
Franco-Dutch War
1672 –
1678 :
Franco-Dutch War .
1674 :
Shivaji founded the
Maratha Empire and crowned himself as first
Chatrapati of the empire.
1676 –
1681 : Russia and the
Ottoman Empire commence the
Russo-Turkish Wars .
1678 : The
Treaty of Nijmegen ends various interconnected wars among France, the Dutch Republic, Spain, Brandenburg, Sweden, Denmark, the Prince-Bishopric of Münster, and the Holy Roman Empire.
Claiming
Louisiana for France in 1682
1680 : The
Pueblo Revolt drives the Spanish out of
New Mexico until 1692.
1680 : Prince
Sambhaji crowned himself as the second
Chatrapati of
Maratha Empire 20 July.
[14]
1682 : French explorer
Robert La Salle claims all the land east of the Mississippi River.
[16]
1683 :
China conquers the
Kingdom of Tungning and annexes
Taiwan .
1683 : The Ottoman Empire is defeated in the second
Siege of Vienna .
1683 –
1699 : The
Great Turkish War leads to the conquest of most of
Ottoman Hungary by the Habsburgs.
1687 :
Isaac Newton publishes
Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica .
1688 : The
Siege of Derry , the first major event in the
Williamite War in Ireland .
1688 :
Siamese revolution of 1688 ousted French influence and virtually severed all ties with the West until the 19th century.
1688 –
1689 : The
Glorious Revolution starts with the
Dutch Republic invading England, England becomes a
constitutional monarchy .
1688 –
1691 :
The War of the Two Kings in Ireland.
1688 –
1697 : The
Grand Alliance sought to stop French expansion during the
Nine Years' War .
1689 : The
Battle of Killiecrankie is fought between
Jacobite and
Williamite forces in Highland
Perthshire .
1689 : The
Karposh rebellion is crushed in present-day
North Macedonia , Skopje is retaken by the Ottoman Turks. Karposh is killed, and the rebels are defeated.
The
Battle of Vienna (1683) marked the historic end of the
expansion of the Ottoman Empire into Europe
1689 :
Bill of Rights gains royal consent.
1689 :
John Locke publishes
Two Treatises of Government and
A Letter Concerning Toleration .
1690 : The
Battle of the Boyne in Ireland.
1692 :
Port Royal in Jamaica is struck by an earthquake and a tsunami. Approximately 2,000 people die and 2,300 are injured.
1692 –
1694 : Famine in France kills two million.
[17]
1693 :
The College of William and Mary is founded in
Williamsburg, Virginia , by a royal charter.
1694 : The
Bank of England is established.
1695 : The
Mughal Empire nearly bans the
East India Company in response to pirate
Henry Every 's capture of the trading ship
Ganj-i-Sawai .
1696 –
1697 :
Famine in
Finland wipes out almost one-third of the population.
[18]
1697 –
1699 :
Grand Embassy of Peter the Great to Western Europe.
1699 :
Thomas Savery demonstrates his first
steam engine to the
Royal Society .
Gallery
Inventions, discoveries, introductions
Major changes in philosophy and science take place, often characterized as the
Scientific Revolution .
Banknotes reintroduced in Europe.
Ice cream .
Tea and
coffee become popular in Europe.
Central Banking in France and
modern Finance by Scottish economist
John Law .
Minarets ,
Jamé Mosque of Isfahan ,
Isfahan ,
Persia (Iran), are built.
1604 : Supernova
SN 1604 is observed in the
Milky Way .
1605 :
Johannes Kepler starts investigating
elliptical orbits of planets.
1605 :
Johann Carolus of Germany publishes the 'Relation', the first newspaper.
1608 :
Refracting telescopes first appear. Dutch spectacle-maker
Hans Lippershey tries to obtain a patent on one, spreading word of the invention.
1610 : The
Orion Nebula is identified by
Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc of France.
1610 :
Galileo Galilei and
Simon Marius observe
Jupiter 's
Galilean moons .
1611 :
King James Bible or 'Authorized Version' first published.
1612 : The first
flintlock
musket likely created for
Louis XIII of
France by
gunsmith
Marin Bourgeois .
1614 :
John Napier introduces the
logarithm to simplify calculations.
1616 :
Niccolò Zucchi describes experiments with a bronze
parabolic mirror trying to make a
reflecting telescope .
1620 :
Cornelis Drebbel , funded by
James I of England , builds the first '
submarine ' made of wood and greased leather.
1623 : The third English dictionary, English Dictionarie , is published by
Henry Cockeram , listing difficult words with definitions.
1628 :
William Harvey publishes and elucidates his earlier discovery of the
circulatory system .
1637 : Dutch Bible published.
1637 :
Teatro San Cassiano , the first public opera house, opened in Venice.
1637 :
Pierre de Fermat formulates his so-called
Last Theorem , unsolved until 1995.
1637 : Although Chinese
naval mines were earlier described in the 14th century
Huolongjing , the Tian Gong Kai Wu book of
Ming dynasty scholar
Song Yingxing describes naval mines wrapped in a
lacquer bag and ignited by an ambusher pulling a rip cord on the nearby shore that triggers a steel-wheel
flint mechanism.
1642 :
Blaise Pascal invents the mechanical calculator called
Pascal's calculator .
1642 :
Mezzotint engraving introduces grey tones to printed images.
1643 :
Evangelista Torricelli of Italy invents the mercury
barometer .
1645 :
Giacomo Torelli of
Venice , Italy invents the first rotating stage.
1651 :
Giovanni Riccioli renames the
lunar maria .
1656 :
Christiaan Huygens describes the true shape of the
rings of Saturn .
1657 :
Christiaan Huygens develops the first functional
pendulum clock based on the learnings of
Galileo Galilei .
1659 :
Christiaan Huygens first to observe surface details of
Mars .
1662 :
Christopher Merret presents first paper on the production of sparkling wine.
1663 :
James Gregory publishes designs for a reflecting telescope.
1669 : The first known operational reflecting telescope is built by
Isaac Newton .
1676 :
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek discovers
Bacteria .
1676 : First measurement of the
speed of light .
1679 :
Binary system developed by
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz .
1684 :
Calculus independently developed by both Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and
Sir Isaac Newton and used to formulate
classical mechanics .
References
^
"Exchange History NL – 400 years: the story" . Exchange History NL .
Archived from the original on 6 October 2022. Retrieved 6 October 2022 .
^
a
b
"The Seventeenth-Century Decline" . The Library of Iberian resources online. Retrieved 13 August 2008 .
^
"5 of the 10 Deadliest Wars Began in China" . Business Insider . 6 October 2014.
^
"The Thirty-Years-War" . Western New England College. Archived from
the original on 1999-10-09. Retrieved 2008-05-24 .
^ Ames, Glenn J. (2008). The Globe Encompassed: The Age of European Discovery, 1500–1700 . pp. 102–103.
^ Turchin, Peter (2009). Secular Cycles . Princeton University Press. pp. 256–257.
ISBN
9780691136967 .
^ Ricklefs (1991), page 28
^
History of UST UST.edu.ph. Retrieved December 21, 2008.
^
"The Tatar Khanate of Crimea" . Archived from
the original on 2016-03-23. Retrieved 2008-06-05 .
^ Mark, Joshua J.
"Indian Massacre of 1622" . World History Encyclopedia . Retrieved 2022-09-13 .
^ Campbell, B.C (2008). Disasters, accidents, and crises in American history: A reference guide to the nation's most catastrophic events . Infobase Publishing. pp. 11–12.
^ Rokosz, M. (1995).
"History of the Aurochs (Bos taurus primigenius ) in Poland" (PDF) . Animal Genetics Resources Information . 16 : 5–12.
doi :
10.1017/S1014233900004582 . Archived from
the original (PDF) on 14 January 2013.
^ Itihas इतिहास [History, class fourth ] (in Marathi). Maharashtra, India: Pathyapustak nirmiti madal,
Pune . 2019.
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"Sambhaji..." BYJU'S .
^
"London museum correct record on general disembowelment by Chhatrapati Shivaji" . The Tribune .
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"René-Robert Cavelier, sieur de La Salle" . Britannica . 30 March 2021. Retrieved 21 March 2021 .
^ Alan Macfarlane (1997).
The savage wars of peace: England, Japan and the Malthusian trap . Wiley . p. 64.
ISBN
0-631-18117-2
^ Karen J. Cullen (2010). "
Famine in Scotland: The 'Ill Years' of the 1690s ".
Edinburgh University Press . p. 20.
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Further reading
Detail of a 17th-century Tekke
Turkmen carpet
Chang, Chun-shu, and Shelley Hsueh-lun Chang. Crisis and Transformation in Seventeenth-Century China (1998).
Langer, William. An Encyclopedia of World History (5th ed. 1973); highly detailed outline of events
online free
Reid, A. J. S. Trade and State Power in 16th & 17th Century Southeast Asia (1977).
Spence, J. D. The Death of Woman Wang: Rural Life in China in the 17th Century (1978).
Focus on Europe
Clark, George . The Seventeenth Century (2nd ed. 1945).
Hampshire, Stuart. The Age of Reason the 17th Century Philosophers, Selected, with Introduction and Interpretive Commentary (1961).
Hugon, Cécile (1997) [1911].
"Social Conditions in 17th-Century France (1649-1652)" . In Halsall, Paul (ed.). Social France in the XVII Century .
London :
Methuen . pp. 171–172, 189.
ISBN
9780548161944 .
Archived from the original on 23 August 2016. Retrieved 7 August 2021 .
Lewitter, Lucian Ryszard. "Poland, the Ukraine and Russia in the 17th Century."
The Slavonic and East European Review (1948): 157–171.
in JSTOR
Ogg, David . Europe in the Seventeenth Century (6th ed. 1965).
Rowbotham, Sheila . Hidden from history: Rediscovering women in history from the 17th century to the present (1976).
Trevor-Roper, Hugh R. "The general crisis of the 17th century."
Past & Present 16 (1959): 31–64.
External links
Vistorica : Timelines of 17th century events, science, culture and persons
Millennia Centuries Decades Years