1630s

• February 22 – Native American Quadequine introduces popcorn to English colonists.
• March – Fedorovych Uprising: Zaporozhian Cossacks rebel against the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and occupy a large part of modern-day Ukraine. After a number of indecisive skirmishes with a Polish army sent to pacify the region, the Treaty of Pereyaslav is signed, ending the uprising.
• March 3 – A fleet sent by the Dutch West India Company captures Recife from the Portuguese, establishing Dutch Brazil.
• March 9 – The 1630 Crete earthquake occurs.
• April 8 – Puritan migration to New England (1620-1640): Winthrop Fleet – The ship Arbella and three others set sail from the Solent in England, with 400 passengers under the leadership of John Winthrop, headed for the Massachusetts Bay Colony in America; seven more, with another 300 aboard, follow in the next few weeks.
• June – Scottish-born Presbyterian (and former physician) Alexander Leighton is brought before Archbishop William Laud's Star Chamber court in London for publishing the seditious pamphlet An Appeale to the Parliament, or, Sions Plea Against the Prelacy, an attack on Anglican bishops (printed in the Netherlands, 1628). He is sentenced to be pilloried and whipped, have his ears cropped, one side of his nose slit, and his face branded with "SS" (for "sower of sedition"), to be imprisoned, and be degraded from holy orders.[1]
• June 6 – Swedish warships depart from Stockholm, Sweden for Central Europe.
• June 12 – Massachusetts Bay Colony founded, John Winthrop governor.[2]
• June 14 – Passengers of the Arbella, including Anne Bradstreet, America's first poet of significance, finally set foot in the New World at Salem, Massachusetts.
• September 7 – Governor John Winthrop passed a resolution declaring "that Trimontaine" on Shawmut peninsula shall be called Boston from now on.[2]

• July – The Italian plague of 1629–31 reaches Venice.
• July 6
  • The Success, last ship of the Winthrop Fleet, lands safely at Salem harbor, Massachusetts Bay Colony.
  • Swedish intervention in the Thirty Years' War begins when King Gustav Adolf of Sweden, leading an army of 13,000 on the Protestant side, makes landfall at Peenemünde, Pomerania.
• July 9 – Thirty Years' War: Stettin is taken by Swedish forces.
• July 18 – War of the Mantuan Succession: Mantua is sacked by an army of the Holy Roman Empire, led by Count Johann von Aldringen.
• July 30 – John Winthrop helps in founding a church in Massachusetts, which will later become known as First Church in Boston.
• August – Thirty Years' War: As a result of heavy pressure from the Prince-electors, Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor, dismisses general Albrecht von Wallenstein from command of the Imperial Army.
• September 4 – Thirty Years' War: the Treaty of Stettin is signed by Sweden and the Duchy of Pomerania, forming a close alliance between them, as well as giving Sweden full military control over Pomerania.
• September 17 (September 7 Old Style) – The settlement of Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony is founded.[3]
• September 24 – The first ship of de Sauce's emigrants arrive at Southampton Hundred, on the James River in Virginia.
• October 13 – War of the Mantuan Succession: the Peace of Regensburg is signed. Charles Gonzaga is confirmed as Duke of Mantua.
• October 18 – Frendraught Castle in Scotland, the home of James Crichton of Frendraught, burns down.[4]
• November 10–12 – Day of the Dupes: Marie de' Medici unsuccessfully attempts to oust Cardinal Richelieu from the French Court.[5]

• Paramaribo (in modern-day Suriname) is first settled by the English.
• The Deccan Famine of 1630–32 in India begins; it will kill some two million.
• In the Mughal Empire, Shah Jahan's Pearl Mosque at Lahore Fort is consecrated (completed 1635).
• The central square of Covent Garden in London is laid out, and a market begins to develop there.
• Johann Heinrich Alsted's Encyclopaedia septem tomis distincta is published.
• Settlers leave Pannaway Plantation and begin to settle in Strawbery Banke which in 1653 is renamed Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

• January 23 – Thirty Years' War: Sweden and France sign the Treaty of Bärwalde, a military alliance in which France provides funds for the Swedish army invading northern Germany.[6]
• February 5 – Puritan leader Roger Williams arrives in Boston.[7]
• February 16 – The Reval Gymnasium is founded in Tallinn, Estonia, by Swedish king Gustavus II Adolphus.
• February 20 – A fire breaks out in Westminster Hall, but is put out before it can cause serious destruction.[8]
• April 13 – Thirty Years' War: Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden defeats an imperial garrison at the city of Frankfurt an der Oder.
• May 18 – In Dorchester, Massachusetts, John Winthrop takes the oath of office, and becomes the first Governor of Massachusetts.
• May 20 – Thirty Years' War: After a two-month siege, an Imperial army under the command of Tilly storms the German city of Magdeburg, and brutally sacks it, massacring over 20,000 inhabitants. Shocked by the massacre, many Protestant states in the Holy Roman Empire decide to ally with Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, and support his ongoing invasion.
• May 28 – William Claiborne sails from England to establish a trading post on Kent Island, the first English settlement in Maryland.[9]
• May 30
  • Thirty Years' War: Bavaria and France sign the Treaty of Fontainebleau, forming a secret alliance; however, this does not last long.
  • La Gazette, the first French newspaper, is founded.
• June 17 – The death in childbirth of Mumtaz Mahal at Burhanpur causes her husband Shah Jahan to commission the Taj Mahal at Agra, as a mausoleum for her. Construction is started in 1632, and finished in 1653.
• June 19 – War of the Mantuan Succession: The Treaty of Cherasco is signed, ending the War of the Mantuan Succession.
• June 20 – Algerian pirates sack Baltimore, County Cork, in Ireland.

• July 16 – The city of Würzburg is taken by Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, putting an end to the Würzburg witch trials, but not before an estimated 900 people from the city and its environs have been burned at the stake for witchcraft.
• July 22 – Thirty Years' War – Battle of Werben: Tilly defeats Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, but not decisively.
• August – Thirty Years' War: Running out of supplies, Tilly is forced to send his army into the Electorate of Saxony in order to secure supplies, as well as to force a reaction from John George, Elector of Saxony and Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden.
• September 11 – Thirty Years' War: As a result of Tilly's invasion, John George, Elector of Saxony, who has until now stayed neutral, allies with Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, in order to drive the Imperial army out of Saxony.
• September 12–13 – Eighty Years' War – Battle of the Slaak: A Spanish fleet carrying an invasion force is intercepted and almost completely destroyed by a Dutch fleet.
• September 12 – Eighty Years' War – Battle of Albrolhos: A Spanish fleet, under the command of Admiral Antonio de Oquendo, defeats a Dutch fleet off the coast of Brazil.
• September 17 – Thirty Years' War – Battle of Breitenfeld: Tilly's imperial army is decisively defeated by Gustavus II Adolphus of Sweden, shattering the imperial army of the Holy Roman Empire, and marking the first significant victory for the Protestants in the war.
• October 10 – Thirty Years' War: A Saxon army takes over Prague.
• December 16 – A volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius at Pompeii occurs, for the first time in several centuries.[10]
• December 23 – Thirty Years' War: Gustavus II Adolphus of Sweden takes the city of Mainz, without any resistance.

• Publication of
  • Moses Amyraut's Traite des Religions.
  • Antonio Colmenero de Ledesma's Chocolate: or, An Indian Drinke.

• January – The Holland's Leguer, a brothel in London, is closed after having been besieged for a month.
• February 22 – Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems is published in Florence.
• March – Thirty Years' War: Gustavus Adolphus invades Bavaria with his army.
• March 9 – Thirty Years' War: Battle of Bamberg – Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly, commander of the Catholic League, defeats the Swedish army under Gustav Horn, and recaptures the town of Bamberg.
• March 29 – The Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye is signed, returning Quebec to French control, after the English had seized it in 1629.[11]
• April 15 – Thirty Years' War: Battle of Rain – Gustavus Adolphus defeats Tilly's Catholic League armies for the second time within a year; Tilly is severely wounded during the battle and dies on April 30.
• May 17 – Thirty Years' War: Munich, capital of Bavaria, is captured by the Swedish army.
• June 15 – Sir Francis Windebank is made chief Secretary of State in England.
• June 17 – Shah Jahan's beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal dies, after giving birth to their 14th child. Soon after, construction of the Taj Mahal, begins.
• June 20 – Charles I of England issues a charter for the colony of Maryland (named in honor of Henrietta Maria), under the control of Lord Baltimore.
• June 20 – Two ships, Saint Jean (250 tons) and L'Esperance-en-Dieu, set sail from La Rochelle in France bound for Acadia in North America.
• June 25 – Fasilides, Emperor of Ethiopia in succession to his father Susenyos, declares the state religion of the country again to be Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity, and confiscates the lands of the Jesuit missionaries, relegating them to Fremona.
• June 30 – The University of Tartu is founded.[12]
• June – Eighty Years' War: Leading a Dutch army, Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange captures in short succession the cities of Venlo, Roermond and Sittard, before besieging the city of Maastricht.

• July 23 – Three hundred colonists for New France depart Dieppe.
• August 22 – Eighty Years' War: A Dutch army, led by Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange, captures the city of Maastricht after a two-month siege.
• September 1 – Battle of Castelnaudary: A rebellion against French king Louis XIII is crushed. The leader of the rebellion, Gaston, Duke of Orléans, the brother of Louis XIII, surrenders.[13]
• September 9 – Thirty Years' War: Battle of the Alte Veste – Besieged by Wallenstein at Nuremberg, Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus attempts to break the siege, but is defeated.
• October 15 – The University of Tartu officially opens, in Swedish Livonia.
• October 30 – Henri II de Montmorency, is executed for his participation in the rebellion of Gaston, Duke of Orléans, against French king Louis XIII.
• November 8 – Wladyslaw IV Waza is elected king of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, after Sigismund III Vasa's death.
• November 16 (November 6 Old Style) – Thirty Years' War: Battle of Lützen[14] in Saxony – Swedish king Gustavus II Adolphus leads an assault on Wallenstein's army, but is killed early in the battle, despite which the Swedish commanders manage to rally the army and eventually defeat Wallenstein, who withdraws from Saxony. Following the death of Gustavus Adolphus, he is succeeded as ruler of Sweden by his six-year-old daughter Christina, while five regents (headed by Axel Oxenstierna) govern the country. On November 17, Gottfried zu Pappenheim, Field Marshal of the Holy Roman Empire, dies from wounds sustained in the battle.
• December 6 – Indians wipe out a new Dutch settlement of Swanadael in New Netherland.[15]

• Antigua and Barbuda is first colonized by England.
• The Portuguese are driven out of Bengal.
• Yakutsk, Russia is founded.
• King Władysław IV Vasa of Poland forbids anti-Semitic books and printings.
• The rural parish of Loppi was founded.[16]
• Construction of the Taj Mahal begins.
• Catharina Stopia succeeds her spouse as Sweden's ambassador to Russia, becoming perhaps the first female diplomat in Europe.[17]
• Approximate date – Last inhabitants leave the original city of Reimerswaal in Zeeland.

• February 13
  • Galileo Galilei arrives in Rome for his trial before the Inquisition.
  • Fire engines are used for the first time in England in order to control and extinguish a fire that breaks out at London Bridge, but not before 43 houses are destroyed.[18]
• March 1 – Samuel de Champlain reclaims his role as commander of New France, on behalf of Cardinal Richelieu.
• April 12 – Galileo Galilei is convicted of heresy by the Roman Catholic Church. [19]
• June 18 – Charles I is crowned King of Scots at St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh, according to Anglican rite in his first visit to Scotland since early childhood, although he has been Scottish monarch since 1625.[20]
• June 22 – The Roman Catholic Church forces Galileo Galilei to recant his heliocentric view of the Solar System. According to legend, he claims Eppur si muove.

• July 7 – The Dutch East India Company fleet, led by Hans Putmans, attacks by surprise its ally Zheng Zhilong's base, near Xiamen.
• July 8 – Thirty Years' War: Battle of Oldendorf – The Sweden defeats the Holy Roman Empire near Hessisch Oldendorf.
• July 8 – The epoch of the Javanese calendar, created by Sultan Agung of Mataram. It coincides with the start of the Hijri Year 1043 but the year numbering continues those of the pre-existing Saka calendar, thus making the calendar starts from year 1555 instead of 1.
• August 6 – William Laud becomes Archbishop of Canterbury.
• September 25 – Entry of King Louis XIII of France into Nancy marking the occupation of the Duchy of Lorraine by France.[21]
• September 26 – A group from the Plymouth Colony settles in Windsor, Connecticut, making it the first settlement in the state.
• October 17 – Thirty Years' War: Siege of Rheinfelden – Spain recaptures Rheinfelden from Sweden.
• October 22 – Battle of Liaoluo Bay: A large Ming dynasty fleet under Zheng Zhilong defeats a Dutch East India Company fleet at the island of Quemoy.

• The Jews of Poznań are granted the privilege of forbidding Christians to enter into their city quarter.
• Emperor of Ethiopia Fasilides expels Jesuit missionaries.
• Shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu of Japan issues the Sakoku Edict of 1635 outlawing Christianity, enforcing a policy of extreme isolationism (sakoku) until 1853.
• St Columb's Cathedral, Derry, Ireland, the first post-Reformation Anglican cathedral built in the British Isles and the first Protestant cathedral built in Europe, is completed.[22]
• Mission San Luis de Apalachee is built in the New World by two Spanish friars.
• English colonists settle what will become the town of Hingham, Massachusetts.
• A professorship in Arabic studies is founded at the University of Cambridge in England.

• February 24–25 – Rebel Scots and Irish soldiers kill Bohemian military leader Albrecht von Wallenstein at Cheb.
• March – Belgian scientist Jan Baptist van Helmont is interrogated by the Spanish Inquisition and put on house arrest for his experiments into plant growth.
• March 1 – The Russians vacate their camp, ending the Siege of Smolensk.[23]
• March 25 – Leonard Calvert arrives in Maryland, with Jesuit missionaries Andrew White, John Altham Gravenor, and Thomas Gervase, establishing St. Mary's as the fourth permanent settlement in British North America. In this year they also establish an institution of higher learning there, which later becomes Georgetown University, North America's oldest university.
• June 14 – The Treaty of Polyanovka is signed between the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Tsardom of Russia, concluding the Smolensk War.

• July 4 – The city of Trois-Rivières is founded in New France (the modern-day Canadian province of Quebec).
• August (prob.) – Jean Nicolet becomes the first European to set foot in Wisconsin. He is in search of a water-route to the Pacific, when he lands at Green Bay (Lake Michigan).
• August 18 – Urbain Grandier, accused of wizardry, is burned alive in Loudun, France.
• September 5–6 – The Battle of Nördlingen results in a decisive victory for the Army of the Holy Roman Empire and Habsburg Spain.[24]
• September 12 – A gunpowder factory explodes in Valletta, Malta, killing 22 people and damaging several buildings.
• October 11–12 – The Burchardi flood (also known as the second Grote Mandrenke) strikes the North Sea coast of Germany and Denmark, causing 8,000–12,000 deaths.
• November 11 – The Irish House of Commons passes an Act for the Punishment of the Vice of Buggery.

• Curaçao is captured by the Dutch.
• The English establish a settlement at Cochin (modern-day Kochi) on the Malabar Coast.
• Suspecting that Patriarch Afonso Mendes played a part in the Portuguese assault on Mombasa, Emperor Fasilides expels him and several Jesuit missionaries from Ethiopia.
• The Académie Française is formed by Cardinal Richelieu (it will be formally established in 1635).
• The first performance of the Oberammergau Passion Play is held in Bavaria.
• Moses Amyraut's Traité de la predestination is published.
• The Paulaner Brewery is established in Munich, by Minim friars.

• February 22 – The Académie française in Paris is formally constituted, as the national academy for the preservation of the French language.[25]
• April 13 – Druze warlord Fakhr-al-Din II is executed in Constantinople.
• May – France declares war on Spain.
• May 30 – Thirty Years' War – The Peace of Prague is signed, which ends the German civil war aspect of the conflict.[26]

• July 31 – The Royal Mail service is made available to the public, by Charles I of England.
• August 25 – The Great Colonial Hurricane strikes Narragansett Bay as a possible Category 3 hurricane, killing over 46 people.
• September 12 – The Treaty of Sztumska Wieś is signed, between Sweden and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.[27]
• October 9 – Rhode Island founder Roger Williams is banished from Massachusetts Bay Colony as a religious dissident, after speaking out against punishments for religious offenses, and giving away Native American land.
• November 15 – Thomas Parr, dead at the alleged age of 152, is buried in Westminster Abbey.
• November 22 – The Dutch pacification campaign on Formosa, against Taiwanese aborigines, begins.

• Guadeloupe and Martinique are colonized by France.
• Dominica is claimed by France.
• The Ottomans are expelled from Yemen.
• In the Mughal Empire, Shah Jahan's Pearl Mosque at Lahore Fort is completed.
• Nagyszombat University (predecessor of Budapest University) is established.
• Boston Latin School, the oldest school in the United States of America, is founded in Boston, Massachusetts.
• Japan forbids merchants to travel abroad, under penalty of death.
• A Japanese imperial memorandum decrees: "Hereafter entry by the Portuguese galeota is forbidden. If they insist on coming, the ships must be destroyed and anyone aboard those ships must be beheaded."
• Willem and Joan Blaeu publish the first edition of their Atlas Novus, in Amsterdam.

• March 5 (February 24 Old Style) – King Christian of Denmark gives an order, that all beggars that are able to work must be sent to Brinholmen, to build ships or to work as galley rowers.
• March 13 (March 3 Old Style) – A "great charter" to the University of Oxford establishes the Oxford University Press, as the second of the privileged presses in England.[28]
• March 26 – Utrecht University is founded in the Dutch Republic.
• April 30 – Eighty Years' War: The nine-month Siege of Schenkenschans ends, when forces of the Dutch Republic recapture the strategically important fort from the Spanish.
• May 14 – William Pynchon and his men establish the settlement of Springfield, Massachusetts Bay Colony (they will deed the land later that year, on July 15th).

• August 15
  • The Spanish besiege Corbie, France.
• August 25 (August 15 Old Style) – The covenant of the Town of Dedham, Massachusetts Bay Colony is first signed.
• September 18 (September 8 Old Style) – A vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony establishes New College (Harvard University), as the first college founded in North America.[29]
• October 4 (September 24 Old Style) – Thirty Years' War – Battle of Wittstock: A Swedish-allied army defeats a combined Imperial-Saxon army.
• December 23 (December 13 Old Style) – The Massachusetts Bay Colony organizes three militia regiments to defend the colony against the Pequot Indians. This organization is recognized today as the founding of the United States National Guard.

• Thirty Years' War: French intervention starts.[30]
• Manchus occupy the Liaoning region in north China, select Shenyang (Mukden) as their capital, and proclaim the new Qing dynasty (pure).
• The shōgun forbids Japanese to travel abroad, and those abroad from returning home.
• Emperor Fasilides founds the city of Gondar, which becomes the capital of Ethiopia for the next two centuries.
• In the American colonies, Roger Williams (theologian) founds Rhode Island.
• The first American ancestor of John Adams, Henry Adams, emigrates to Massachusetts.
• The first synagogue of the New World, Kahal Zur Israel Synagogue, is founded in Recife by the Dutch.

• January – Pierre Corneille's tragicomedy Le Cid is first performed, in Paris, France.
• February 3 – Tulip mania collapses in the Dutch Republic.[31]
• February 15 – Ferdinand III becomes Holy Roman Emperor.[32]
• February 18 – Eighty Years' War – Battle off Lizard Point: Off the coast of Cornwall, England, a Spanish fleet intercepts an Anglo-Dutch merchant convoy of 44 vessels escorted by six warships, destroying or capturing 20 of them.
• March 25 – The Blessed Virgin is proclaimed Queen of Genoa.[33]
• April 10 – Plymouth Colony grants the "tenn menn of Saugust" a new settlement on Cape Cod, later named Sandwich, Massachusetts.
• April 30 – King Charles I of England issues a proclamation, attempting to stem emigration to the North American colonies.[34]
• May 26 – Pequot War – Mystic massacre: A band of English settlers under Captain John Mason, and their Narragansett and Mohegan allies, set fire to a fortified village of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe near the Mystic River. Between 400 and 700 people, mostly women, children and old men, are killed.
• May – Chinese encyclopedist Song Yingxing publishes his Tiangong Kaiwu ("Exploitation of the Works of Nature"), considered one of the most valuable encyclopedias of classical China.
• June 27 – The first English venture to China is attempted by Captain John Weddell, who sails into port in Macau and Canton during the late Ming Dynasty, with six ships. The voyages are for trade, which is dominated here by the Portuguese (at this time combined with the power of Spain). He brings 38,421 pairs of eyeglasses, perhaps the first recorded European-made eyeglasses to enter China.[35]
• July 23 – After a court battle, King Charles I of England hands over title to the North American colony of Massachusetts to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, one of the founders of Plymouth Council for New England.
• September 29 – 42-year-old Lorenzo Ruiz dies.
• October 13 – English Royal Navy first-rate ship of the line HMS Sovereign of the Seas is launched at Woolwich Dockyard at a cost of £65,586, adorned from stern to bow with gilded carvings, after a design by Anthony van Dyck.
• December 17 – The Shimabara Rebellion erupts in Japan, when 30,000 peasants in the heavily Catholic area of northern Kyūshū revolt.

• Second Manchu invasion of Korea: The Joseon court reluctantly submits to the Manchu's demands of vassalhood, while continuing to pledge loyalty to the Chinese Ming Dynasty.
• Pierre de Fermat makes a notation, in a document margin, claiming to have proof of what will become known as Fermat's Last Theorem.
• René Descartes promotes intellectual rigour in his Discourse on the Method, and introduces the Cartesian coordinate system in its appendix La Géométrie (published in Leiden).[36]
• France places a few missionaries in the Ivory Coast, a country it will rule more than 200 years later.
• The first opera house, Teatro San Cassiano, opens in Venice.
• Scottish army officer Robert Monro publishes Monro, His Expedition With the Worthy Scots Regiment Called Mac-Keys in London, the first military history in English.[37]
• Elizabeth Poole becomes the first female founder of a town (Taunton, Massachusetts) in the Americas.
• Richard Norwood's book The Seaman's Practice is published for the first time.

• February 28 – The Scottish National Covenant is signed in Edinburgh, Scotland.[38]
• March 3 – Battle of Rheinfelden: A mercenary army under Bernard of Saxe-Weimar, fighting for France, defeats Imperial forces.[39]
• March 5 – Thirty Years' War – The Treaty of Hamburg is signed by France and Sweden.
• March 22 – Anne Hutchinson is banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for heresy, and goes to Rhode Island.
• March 29 – Settlers from Sweden arrive on the ships Kalmar Nyckel and Fogel Grip, to establish the settlement of New Sweden in Delaware, beginning the Swedish colonization of the Americas.
• April 3 – John Wheelwright is banished from Boston, and founds Exeter, New Hampshire.
• April 15 – Shogunate forces defeat the last remnants of the Shimabara Rebellion, in the fortress of Hara.
• May 13 – Construction begins on the Red Fort in Delhi (India) for Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan who is transferring his capital there from Agra.
• May 23 – The Kandyan Treaty is signed between Singhala King Rajasimha II and the Dutch, to rid Ceylon of the Portuguese.
• June 20 – Seven Years' War – Battle of Kallo: Spanish troops under Ferdinand of Austria defeat a much larger Dutch force, near Antwerp.
• June 27 – Patriarch Cyril of Constantinople is deposed for high treason, and strangled and thrown into the sea by Janissaries, on Ottoman Sultan Murad IV's command.

• September 21 – The Treaty of Hartford is signed, ending the Pequot War between British American colonists and the Pequot.
• September – John Spofford arrives in Boston Harbor, on the ship John of London, and is one of the first people to establish Rowely, Essex County, Massachusetts.
• October 21 – The Great Thunderstorm breaks out in Widecombe-in-the-Moor, England.
• November – The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland is summoned to Glasgow, by King Charles I of England.
• December 18 – Cardinal Mazarin becomes the first adviser to French potentate Richelieu, on the death of Leclerc du Tremblay.
• December 21 – The full moon is in total eclipse from 1:12 to 2:47 UT, and the solstice occurs later in the day, at 16:05 UT.
• December 25 – Capture of Baghdad by the Ottomans under Sultan Murad IV.

• Scottish Covenanters meet at Muchalls Castle, to compose responses to the Bishops of Aberdeen.
• Pedro Teixeira makes the first ascent of the Amazon River, from its mouth to Quito, Ecuador (the same trip had been made in the opposite direction, in 1541).
• Dutch merchant Willem Kieft is appointed Director of New Amsterdam, by the Dutch East Indian Company.
• The Netherlands colonizes Mauritius.
• The Dutch settle in Ceylon.
• The Finnish postal service, now called Suomen Posti, is founded.
• New Haven, the first planned city in America, is founded.
• Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan and his sons capture the city of Kandahar, from the Safavids.
• Shipwrecked English buccaneer Peter Wallace, called Ballis by the Spanish, settles near and perhaps gives his name to the Belize River, the first known European settlement in Belize.
• The Peking Gazette makes an official switch in its production process of newspapers, from woodblock printing to movable type printing (private newspapers in Ming Dynasty China were first mentioned in 1582).

• January 14 – Connecticut's first constitution, the Fundamental Orders, is adopted.
• January 19 – Hämeenlinna (Swedish: Tavastehus) was granted privileges after it separated from the Vanaja parish as its own city in Tavastia.[40]
• c. January – The first printing press in British North America is started in Cambridge, Massachusetts, by Stephen Daye.
• March 3 – The early settlement of Taunton, Massachusetts, is incorporated as a town.
• March 13 – Harvard University is named for clergyman John Harvard.
• April – Italian-born Cardinal Mazarin, apostolic nuncio to Paris and adviser to Cardinal Richelieu, is naturalized French by letters patent; in December, he leaves the service of Rome to enter that of King Louis XIII of France.[41]
• April 14 – Battle of Chemnitz: Swedish forces under Johan Banér inflict a crushing defeat on the army of the Holy Roman Empire, prolonging the Thirty Years' War and allowing the Swedes to occupy Pirna and advance into Bohemia.
• May – The first of the Bishops' Wars breaks out between Charles I of England and Scottish Covenanters. Charles arrives with his army at Berwick-upon-Tweed.
• June – The first battle of the Bishops' Wars is fought by Earl Marischal and the Marquess of Montrose when they lead a Covenanter army of 9,000 men past Muchalls Castle over the Causey Mounth to fight at the Bridge of Dee in Scotland.[42]
• June 18 – The Treaty of Berwick is signed between Charles I and the Scots.[43]

• August 22 – The British East India Company buys a strip of land from King Peda Venkata Raya of the Vijayanagara Empire for the construction of Fort St. George, the first settlement of British India, so founding modern-day Chennai, capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu (celebrated as Madras Day).[44]
• October 31 – Naval Battle of the Downs: A Republic of the United Provinces fleet decisively defeats a Spanish fleet in English waters.
• December 4 – English astronomer Jeremiah Horrocks makes the first successful prediction and observation of a transit of Venus.

• The Casiquiare canal, a river forming a natural channel between the Amazon River and Orinoco River basins, is first encountered by Europeans, an expedition led by Pedro Teixeira and Cristóbal Diatristán de Acuña.
• French nobleman Jérôme le Royer de la Dauversière obtains the seigneurial title to the island of Montreal in New France (modern-day Quebec) in the name of the Société Notre-Dame de Montréal to establish a Roman Catholic mission to evangelize indigenous peoples.
• The House of Assembly of Barbados meets for the first time.
• Russian Cossacks advance over the Urals to the Pacific, to Okhotsk.
• Sakoku, the isolationist foreign policy of Japan, comes fully into effect.
  • Dejima, an island trading post off Nagasaki, becomes the only official port of trade allowed for Europeans, with the multi-national United East Indies Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie) as the only European party officially allowed. Trading parties from China, India and other places are still officially allowed, though the VOC will become the usual broker for them.
  • Japanese wives and children of Dutch and British people from Hirado are sent to Batavia (Asian headquarters of the VOC, renamed Jakarta by the Japanese around three centuries later) on Dutch ships.[45]
• The Treaty of Zuhab is signed between the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire and Safavid Persia, delineating the modern Turkey-Iran and Iraq-Iran border lines.

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