1616

Year 1616 (MDCXVI) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Monday of the 10-day slower Julian calendar).

Events of 1616

January - June

* January - The Dutch try to gain control of all the nutmeg-producing spice islands with the retreat of the English from Ai to Pula Run Island. Nutmeg at this time is more valuable than gold, and the English, led by Nathaniel Courthope, hold on to Run. [Giles Milton. 1999. "Nathaniel's Nutmeg: Or the True and Incredible Adventures of the Spice Trader Who Changed the Course of History". ISBN-13: 9780374219369.]
* January - The development of the thoroughbred horse is greatly encouraged by the appointment to the court of King James I of England of courtier George Villiers as Master of the Horse.
* January - António Vieira arrives, with his parents, in Bahia (present-day Salvador) in colonial Brazil, an unpromising beginning for his great career as a diplomat, noted author, leading figure of the Church, and protector of Brazilian Indians in an age of intolerance.
* January - Officials in Württemberg charge astronomer Johannes Kepler with practicing "forbidden arts" (witchcraft). His mother had also been so charged and spent 14 months in prison.
* January 1 - James I of England, theater-going and literary absolutist king, attends the masque "The Golden Age Restored", a satire by Ben Jonson on fallen court favorite Somerset. The king asks for a repeat performance on January 6.
* January 3 - In the court of James I of England, the king's favorite George Villiers becomes Master of the Horse; on April 24 he receives the Order of the Garter; and on August 27 is created Viscount Villiers and Baron Waddon, receiving a grant of land valued at £80,000. In 1617, he is made Earl of Buckingham. After the Earl of Pembroke, he is the 2nd richest nobleman in England.
* January 10 - Sir Thomas Roe, emissary from the court of King James I of England, presents his credentials to the Mughal Emperor Jahangir, in Ajmer Fort, thus opening the door to the British presence in India. [Jehângïr's period of stay at Ajmer was from 5 Shawwäl 1022 to 1 Zil-qä'da 1025 equivalent to November 8, 1613 to October 31, 1616.] Roe sailed in the "Lyon" under the command of captain Christopher Newport, best known for his role in the Virginia colonies.
* January 12 - The city of Belém, Brazil is founded on the Amazon River delta by the Portuguese captain Francisco Caldeiras de Castelo Branco, who had previously taken the city of São Luís in Maranhão from the French.
* January 15 - After overwintering with the Huron Indians, Samuel de Champlain and Recollect Father Joseph Le Caron visit the Petun and Ottawa Indians of the Great Lakes. This is Champlain's last trip in North America before returning to France. Having secured Canada, he helps create French America, New France, or L'Acadie.
* January 24 - Dutch captain Willem Schouten rounds the southern tip of South America and names it Cape Horn, after his birthplace in the Netherlands.
* February 24 - A commission of Roman Catholic theologians, the "Qualifiers," reports that the idea that the Sun is stationary is "foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts in many places the sense of Holy Scripture...".
* February - English merchants of the East India Company complain that the great troubles and wars in Japan since their arrival have put them to much pains and charges. Two great cities, Osaka and Sakaii, have been burned to the ground, each one almost as big as London, and not one house left standing, and it is reported above 300,000 men have lost their lives, “yet the old Emperor Ogusho Same hath prevailed and Fidaia Same either slain or fled secretly away, that no news is to be heard of him.” Jesuits, priests, and friars are banished by the emperor and their churches and monasteries pulled down; they put the fault on the arrival of the English; it is said if Fidaia Same had prevailed against the emperor, he promised them entrance again, when without doubt all the English would have been driven out of Japan. [Text from: 'East Indies: February 1616', Calendar of State Papers Colonial, East Indies, China and Japan: 1513-1616, volume 2 (1864), pp. 457-461. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=68785. Date accessed: 01 March 2008. (No copyright violation.)]
* February 19 - First recorded eruption of Mayon Volcano, the Philippines' most active volcano. [Smithsonian Institution. "Global Volcanism Program". URL: http://www.volcano.si.edu/ accessed on 12.03.2008. Event dated with reference to historical documents.]
* March - Nicolaus Copernicus' "De revolutionibus" is placed on the Index of Forbidden Books by the Congregation of the Index of the Roman Catholic Church.
* March - Action of 1616 - La Goulette, Tunisia: A Spanish squadron under Francisco de Ribera defeats a Tunisian fleet.
* March 11 - The English Roman Catholic priest, Thomas Atkinson (born c.1546) is hanged, drawn, and quartered at York, at age 70 (he is beatified by Pope John Paul II on November 22, 1987).
* March 19 - Sir Walter Raleigh, English explorer of the New World, is released from prison in the Tower of London in order to conduct a second, ill-fated expedition in search of El Dorado in South America.
* March 11 - Galileo Galilei meets Pope Paul V in person, to discuss his position.
* May - The Thomas Overbury Murder Scandal (1615-1616) ends with the conviction of Earl and Countess of Somerset, who were, however, not hanged but imprisoned until 1622 in the Tower of London. Although King James I of England has ordered the investigation of the poet's murder and allowed his former court favorite to be arrested and tried, his court, now under the influence of the Earl of Buckingham (George Villiers) gains the reputation of being corrupt and vile. The royal visit of James's brother-in-law Christian IV, king of Denmark, a notorious soak, adds further scandal.
* May 3 - The Treaty of Loudun is signed, ending a series of rebellions in France.
* June 12 - Pocahontas (now Rebecca) arrives in England, with her husband, John Rolfe, their baby son, Thomas Rolfe, her sister Matachanna and brother-in-law "Tomocomo," and the shaman Uttmatomakkin. Ten Powhatan Indians are brought by Sir Thomas Dale, the colonial governor, at the request of the Virginia Company, as a fund-raising stunt. Dale, having been recalled under criticism, writes "A True Relation of the State of Virginia, Left by Sir Thomas Dale, Knight, in May last, 1616" in a successful effort to redeem his leadership. Neither Pocahontas or Dale see Virginia again.

July - December

* July 6 - First recorded eruption of Manam Volcano (erupting frequently since then), forming a 10-km-wide island in the Bismarck Sea, 13 km off coast of Papua New Guinea, in the southwestern part of the Pacific Ring of Fire. [Smithsonian Institution. "Global Volcanism Program". URL: http://www.volcano.si.edu/ accessed on 12.03.2008. Event dated with reference to historical documents.]
* July 20 - Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone, dies in Rome, thus concluding the Flight of the Earls from Ireland.
* August 8 - The Tokugawa shogunate (Bakufu) in Japan forbids foreigners other than Chinese from traveling freely or trading outside of the ports of Nagasaki and Hirado. [Arano, Yasunori. "The Formation of a Japanocentric World Order."International Journal of Asian Studies" 2:2 (2005). p201.]
* September - Sakazaki Naomori of Iwami Tsuwano han fails to kidnap Princess Sen and commits suicide.
* September 15 - The first non-aristocratic, free public school in Europe is opened in Frascati, Italy.
* October- John Donne is appointed as Reader in Divinity at his old inn of court, Lincoln's Inn.
* October 25 - Dirk Hartog makes the second recorded landfall by a European on Australian soil, at Dirk Hartog Island off the Western Australian coast. The pewter Hartog Plate, left to mark the landfall of the Dutch ship Eendracht, is now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
* November 6-25 - The famous, if still inaccurate, folio edition of Ben Jonson's "Workes" is published. [Bland, M. ‘William Stansby and the production of the "Workes of Beniamin Jonson", 1615–16’, The Library, 20, 1998, 10.]
* November - Peter Paul Rubens begins work on his famous classical tapestries, when a contract is signed in Antwerp with cloth dyers Jan Raes and Frans Sweerts in Brussels, and the rich Genoese merchant Franco Cattaneo.
* November - Rene Descartes, at age 20, graduates in civil and canon law at the University of Poitiers, where he becomes disillusioned with books, preferring to seek truths from "le grand livre du monde." His thesis defense may have been written in December 1616.
* November - With small profits to show, the Virginia Company decides to distribute land in Virginia to stockholders according to the number of shares owned. Each stockholder can set up a "particular" plantation and pay associated expenses, receiving convert|100|acre|km2 of land for each share and 50 acres for each person transported (the "headrights" system).
* November - Author Richard Burton is made vicar of St. Thomas in the west suburbs of London.
* November 4 - Charles I (15 year-old second son of James I of England and Anne of Denmark) is invested as Prince of Wales at Whitehall in London, the last such investiture until 1911.
* November 5 - Bishop Lancelot Andrewes preaches the annual Gunpowder Treason sermon before King James I of England at Whitehall (both were intended victims).
* November 6 - Captain William Murray is granted a royal patent, giving him the sole privilege of importing tobacco to Scotland for a period of 21 years. Continuing from the reign of Elizabeth I of England, the creation of grants and patents reaches a new highwater mark from 1614 to 1621, during the reign of James I of England.
* November 16 - Roman Catholic Archbishop of the See of Spalato and Primate of Dalmatia, Marco Antonio de Dominis, having run afoul of Pope Paul V over secular matters relating to Venice, submits to King James I of England and later becomes Dean of Windsor.
* November 30 - Cardinal Richelieu, Armand-Jean du Plessis, is named French Secretary of State by young king Louis XIII. Richelieu will change France into a unified centralised state, able to resist both England and the Habsburg Empire.
* December - In the Middle East, traveller Pietro Della Valle marries Jowaya, daughter of a Nestorian Catholic father and an Armenian mother, in Baghdad. The couple then sets off (1617) to find the Shah in Isfahan.
* December 10 - An ordinance establishes parish schools in Scotland. The same act of the Privy Council commends the abolition of Gaelic.
* December 18 - A widely reported earthquake occurs in Leipzig, Germany (also dated December 22). ["A Basic European Earthquake Catalogue and a Database for the evaluation of long-term seismicity and seismic hazard" (BEECD). URL: http://emidius.mi.ingv.it/BEECD/app/app_E.pdf. (retrieved March 5, 2008).]
* December 22 - An Indian youth (called one of the "the first fruits of India") is baptized with the name "Peter" in London at the St. Dionis Backchurch, in a ceremony attended by the Lord Mayor, the Privy Council, city aldermen, and officials of the Honourable East India Company. Peter thus becomes the first convert to the Anglican Church in India. He returns to India as a missionary, schooled in English and Latin. [Rozina Visram. "Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History". Pluto Press. 504 pp. (ISBN-10: 0745313736)]
* December 25 - "Father Christmas" is a main character of the Christmas masque written by Ben Jonson and presented at the court of King James I of England. Father Christmas is considered a papist symbol by Puritans, and later banished from England until the Restoration of Charles II shortly after Oliver Cromwell's death. The traditional, comical costume for this jolly figure, as well as regional names, leaves little doubt that he is descended from the presenter of the medieval Feast of Fools. (Ben Jonson received a royal pension of 100 marks in 1616, causing some historians to identify him as England's first Poet Laureate, even though John Fletcher was more popular).

Undated

* The Uskok War occurs between the Austrians and Spanish (Habsburg Empire) on one side and the Venetians, Dutch, and English on the other. An Austro-Turkish treaty is signed in Belgrade under which the Austrians are granted the right to navigate the middle and lower Danube River by the Ottoman Empire.
* A peace treaty is signed between Holland and Portugal. Spain is their common enemy.
* The Collegium Musicum is founded in Prague.
* Physician Aleixo de Abreu is granted a pension of 16,000 reis for services to the crown in Angola and Brazil by Philip III of Portugal, who also appoints him physician of his chamber.
* Ngawang Namgyal arrives in Bhutan, having escaped Tibet.
* The Swiss Guard is appointed part of the household guard of King Louis XIII of France.
* Week-long festivities in honor of the Prince of Urbano, of the Barbarini family, occur in Florence, Italy. [From an etching in the "Guerre de Beauté", a series of six etchings depicting a celebration which took place in Florence in the year 1616 in honor of the prince of Urbino.]
* Constantinople's Sultan Ahmed Mosque (also known as the "Blue Mosque") is completed during the rule of Ahmed I.
* Nurhaci declares himself khan (emperor) of China and founds the Later Jin Dynasty.
* Manchurian leader Qing Tai Zu crowns himself king.
* Tokugawa Ieyasu dies and is replaced by his xenophobic son Tokugawa Hidetada, and Japan moves towards the "Sakoku" policy of isolation.
* Richard Steel and John Crowther journey from Ajmeer in Mogul India, to Ispahan, Persia, in 1615 and 1616.
* Captain John Smith (1580-1631) publishes his book "A description of New England" in London. Smith relates one voyage to the coast of Massachusetts and Maine, in 1614, and an attempted voyage the following year (1615) when he was captured by French pirates and detained for several months escaping.
* The New England Indian smallpox epidemic of 1616-1619 begins to depopulate the region, killing an estimated 90% of the costal native peoples. [Timothy Bratton. 1988. Identity of the New England Indian Epidemic of 1616-1619. "Bulletin of the History of Medicine", 62(3): 352-383.]
* In London and neighboring towns, an epidemic of louse-borne typhus ravages the poor, crowded English. Lack of bathing encourages body lice that, when scratched, defecate on the skin, where a minor cut or sore can serve as an entry portal for the typhus-infected feces to enter the bloodstream, leading to high fever, delirium, and gangrenous sores.
* At the behest of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Dr. Richard Vines, a physician, passes the winter of 1616—17 at Biddeford, Maine, at the mouth of the Saco River, that he calls Winter Harbor. This is the site of the earliest permanent settlement in Maine of which we have a conclusive record. Maine will become an important refuge for religious dissenters persecuted by the Puritans.
* In Spanish Florida, the Cofa Mission at the mouth of the Suwannee River disappears.
* The first African slaves are brought to Bermuda, an English colony, by Captain George Bargrave to dive for pearls, because of their reputed skill in pearl-diving. Harvesting pearls off the coast proves unsuccessful, and the slaves are put to work planting and harvesting the initial large crops of tobacco and sugar cane. [Virginia Bernhard. 1999. "Slaves and Slaveholders in Bermuda, 1616-1782". Columbia, University of Missouri Press.] (At the same time, the freedom-loving English refused to purchase Brazilian sugar because it was produced by slave labor. [Sidney W. Mintz. 1986. "Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History".] )
* William Baffin is held at bay from finding the Northwest Passage to China.
* Thomas Middleton writes "The Witch", a tragicomedy that may have entered into the present-day text of Shakespeare's "Macbeth."
* With much legal strife and the encouragement of Sir Francis Bacon, Chief Justice Edward Coke is dismissed from the King's Bench, and the royal prerogatives of King James I triumph over English common law.
* English dramatist Thomas Dekker is imprisoned in the King's Bench Prison (1612-1619) because of a debt of 40 ₤ to the father of John Webster. In prison he continues to write.
* Saint Ambrose Edward Barlow, recently graduated from the College of Saint Gregory, Douai, France, and the Royal College of Saint Alban in Valladolid, Spain, enters the Benedictine Order. In 1641 he is hanged, drawn and quartered in Lancaster, England, for preaching.
* Italian natural philosopher Giulio Cesare Vanini publishes a radically heterodox book in France after his English interlude "De admirandis naturae reginae deaeque mortalium arcanis," for which he is condemned and forced to flee Paris. For his opinion that the world is eternal and governed by immanent laws, as expressed in this book, he is executed in 1619.
* Francesco Albani paints the ceiling frescoes of "Apollo and the Seasons" at the Palazzo Verospi in Via del Corso for Cardinal Fabrizio Verospi. Italy still houses most of the Renaisance artwork of Europe.
* In the aftermath of the 1613-1614 anti-Jewish pogrom called the Fettmilch Uprising, in Frankfurt, Germany, mob leader Vincenz Fettmilch is beheaded, but the Jews, who had been expelled from the city on August 23, 1614, following the plundering of the Judengasse, can only return in February 1616, as a result of direct intervention by Holy Roman Emperor Matthias. After long negotiations, the Jews are left without any compensation for their plundered belongings.
* Elizabethan polymath and alchemist Robert Fludd's "Apologia" is published. Fludd has become a cult figure, being linked with Rosicrucians and the Family of Love, without any historical evidence.
* John Cotta writes his influential book "The Triall of Witch-craft."
* Witch-hunting: Elizabeth Rutter is hanged as a witch in Middlesex, England. Orkney witch Elspeth Reoch is tried, and Agnes Berrye is hanged as a witch in Enfield, England. In France Leger (first name unknown) is condemmned for witchcraft on May 6, and Sylvanie de la Plaine is burned at Pays de Labourde as a witch. In Orleans, France, 18 witches are killed.
* A second witch craze breaks out in Biscay, Spain. An Edict of Silence is issued by the Inquisition, but the king overturns the Edict and 300 accused witches are burned alive.
* The Leicester witch trial, in which nine women were hanged on the testimony of a raving 13-year old boy named John Smith, is held under the 1604 Witchcraft Statute of King James I. [Source: Robbins, Russell Hope. The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology. New York: Bonanza Books, 1959.] This bill was supported by some of the most able and learned men in England, including the Earl of Northumberland, the Bishop of Lincoln, the Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, the Attorney General, the Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and the Chief Justice of the King's Bench.
* The witch trial of in-keeper Harmonia Applegate, who was arrested on February 20, for poisoning 32 of her guests over the course of 12 years, is held. When questioned, Applegate gives excuses ranging from non-payment of debt to offence at guests' body odour.
* "The Scornful Lady," a comedy stage play written by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, is published.
* "Drink to me only with thine eyes" comes from Ben Jonson's love poem, "To Celia". Ben Jonson's poetic lamentation "On my first Sonne" is also from this year.
* Ben Jonson's witty and satirical play "The Devil Is an Ass", a comedy in five acts, is produced at Blackfriars Theatre by the King's Men, in October or November. The play pokes fun at credence in witchcraft and Middlesex juries. It is published in 1631.
* Francis de Sales' literary masterpiece "Treatise on the Love of God" is published, while he is Bishop of Geneva.
* Orlando Gibbons' anthem "See, the Word is Incarnate" is written.
* Tommaso Campanella’s book "In Defence of Galileo" is written.
* In Tunis, Tunisia, the mosque of Youssef Deyis is built. Today it has an octagonal minaret crowned with a miniature green-tiled pyramid for a roof.
* Italian naturalist Fabio Colonna states that "tongue stones" (glossopetrae) are shark teeth in his treatise "De glossopetris dissertatio".
* An important English dictionary is published by Dr. John Bullokar with the title "An English Expositour teaching the Interpretation of the hardest Words used in our Language with sundry Explications, Descriptions and Discourses".
* Scot John Napier's " Description of the Admirable Table of Logarithms" is published, a great boon to mathematics. The decimal point makes its first appearance in Napier's book "Descriptio." Astronomer Johannes Kepler soon thereafter begins to employ logarithms in his description of the solar system.
* English mathematician Henry Briggs goes to Edinburgh to show John Napier his efficient method of finding logarithms by the continued extraction of square roots (unfortunately, Napier dies in April, 1617).
* Moralist writer John Deacon publishes a quarto entitled "Tobacco Tortured in the Filthy Fumes of Tobacco Refined." (Even King James I writes against this fad.) Deacon writes the same year that syphilis is a "Turkished," "Spanished", or "Frenchized" disease that the English contract by "trafficking with the contagious courruptions."
* Human deformities are seen as producing monsters. Italian Fortunio Liceti publishes his book "De monstrorum natura caussis et differentiis" ("On the nature, causes and differences of monsters").
* Dutch traders smuggle the coffee plant out of Mocha, a port in Yemen on the Red Sea, and cultivate it at the Amsterdam Botanical Gardens. Dutch later introduce Mocha coffee to Java.
* Mohammad Baqer Majlesi, known as "Allameh Majlesi", is born in the city of Isfahan.
* The Tepehuán Revolt in Nueva Vizcaya tests the limits of Spanish and Jesuit colonialism in western and northwestern Durango and southern Chihuahua, Mexico.
* Fort San Diego, in Acapulco Bay, Mexico, is completed by the Spanish as a defence against their erstwhile vassals, the Dutch. [Engel Sluiter. 1949. The Fortification of Acapulco, 1615-1616. "The Hispanic American Historical Review", Vol. 29, No. 1, pp. 69-80.] Today the fort houses the Acapulco Historical Museum.
* Anti-Christian persecutions break out in Nanking, China, and Nagasaki, Japan. The Jesuit-lead Christian community in Japan at this time was over 3000,000 strong.
* John Speed publishes his Atlas of England.
* Master seafarer Henry Mainwaring (1587-1653), Oxford graduate and lawyer turned successful Newfoundland pirate, returns to England, is pardoned after rescuing a Newfoundland trading fleet near Gibraltar, and writes a revealing treatise on piracy. He is knighted and later becomes Vice-Admiral and Chancellor of Ireland under Kings James I and Charles I, before being exiled to France for being on the losing side of the English Civil War. In his book, he advises the King against granting pardons to pirates. [Patrick Pringle. 2001. "Jolly Roger". Dover (ISBN 0486418235)]
* The first Thai embassy to Japan arrives.
* In the Edo Era of Japan, Hideyori's forces are defeated during the Summer Battle of 1616, he commits suicide, and the house of Toyotomi is ended.
* William Harvey gives his views on the circulation of blood as Lumleian Lecturer at the College of Physicians at Cambridge University. It is not until 1628 that he gives his views in print.
* The Dutch establish their colony of Essequibo in the region of the Essequibo River in northern South America (present-day Guyana) for sugar and tobacco production. The colony is protected by the Kyk-Over-Al fort, now in ruins. The Dutch also map the Delaware River in North America.
* The Ottoman Empire attempts landings at the shoreline between Cadiz and Lisbon.
* Croatian mathematician Faustus Verantius publishes his book "Machinae novae," a book of mechanical and technological inventions, some of which are applicable to the solutions of hydrological problems, and others concern the construction of clepsydras, sundials, mills, presses, and bridges, and boats for widely different uses.
* Pierre Vernier is employed, with his father, in making fine-scale maps of France (Franche-Comté area).
* Danish natural philosopher Ole Worm collects materials that will later be incorporated into his museum in Copenhagen. His museum is the nucleus of the University of Copenhagen's Zoological Museum.
* Italian artist Guido Reni executes his famous "Pietà", on commission from the Senate of Bologna and placed on the greater altar of the church of Santa Maria della Pietà on November 13.
* A fatal disease of cattle, probably rinderpest, spreads through the Italian provinces of Padua, Udine, Treviso, and Vicenza, introduced most likely from Dalmatia or Hungary. Great numbers of cattle die in Italy, as they had in previous years (1559, 1562, 1566, 1590, 1598) in other European regions when harvest failure also drives people to the brink of starvation (for example, 1595-1597 in Germany). The consumption of beef and veal is prohibited, and Pope Paul V issues an edict prohibiting the slaughter of draught oxen that were suitable for plowing. Calves are also not slaughtered for a some time afterwards, so that Italy's cattle herds can be replenished. [Clive A. Spinage. 2003. "Cattle plague: a history". New York: Springer. ISBN 0306477890.]
* Gustavus Adolphus (1611-1632), trained, since childhood, to become the Swedish king, begins to accompany the army on campaigns. In 1630 he will invade Germany to fulfill his victorious and fatal role in the Thirty Years War (1618-1648).
* Isaac Beeckman (1588-1637), Dutch intellectual and friend of René Decartes, has his own candle factory in Zierikzee, Netherlands, until 1616, when he returns to Middelburg to study medicine. In 1618, he takes his degree at the French university of Caen, with the defence of his "Theses de febre tertiana intermittente". His notebooks, unfortunately not fully published until the 20th century, reveal a coherent mechanical philosophy of nature with incipient atomism, a force of inertia, and mathematical interpretations of natural philosophy are present. [K. van Berkel. 1983. "Isaac Beeckman (1588-1637) en de mechanisering van het wereldbeeld". Amsterdam. (An English edition is forthcoming.)]
* In Sardinia, the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery of the University of Sassari is founded.
* Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) sculpts "Bacchanal: A Faun Teased by Children", at the age of 18 years. This work is now in New York, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
* The States of Holland set up a commission to advise them on the problem of Jewish residency and worship. One of the members of the commission is Hugo Grotius (Hugo de Groot), a highly regarded jurist and one of the most important political thinkers of his day.
* Frans Hals, artist, paints his well-known "The Banquet of the Officers of the St George Militia Company".
* A slave ship carries smallpox from the "Kongo" to Salvador, Brazil. [Henry F. Dobyns. 1993. Disease Transfer at Contact. "Annual Review of Anthropology", 22: 273-291.]
* Marie Venier, dite Laporte, is the first female actress to appear on the stage in Paris. She is either a dramatic actress or a comedienne. [Searles, Colbert (1925) "Allusions to the Contemporary Theater of 1616" by Francois Rosset. Modern Language Notes, 40(8): 481-483.]
* Jesuit astronomer Christoph Scheiner becomes the advisor to Archduke Maximilian, brother of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II in Vienna. In a series of published letters in 1612 and 1613, Scheiner had sparred with Galileo over the nature of sunspots and been roundly trounced since Galileo's careful observations indicated that sunspots could not be satellites around the Sun because they often disappear on the disk. In fact, Scheiner sought to remove these smudges to the celestial body's immaculate reputation. A life-long enemy of Galileo, Scheiner is credited with reopening the 1616 accusations against Galileo in 1633.
* Despite being appointed to the usually profitable post of comptroller to Prince Charles in 1616, John Vaughan, 1st Earl of Carbery later claims that serving the Prince had cost him £20,000.

Ongoing

Wars
* Moldavian Magnate Wars (1593-1617)
* Russo–Polish War (1609–1618)
* Ingrian War (1610–1617)
* War of Kalmar (1611–1613)Social Unrest
* The witch-hunting craze in Europe reaches its height between 1560 and 1660, with mainly Jesuits leading the prosecution of women and social outcasts.
* Anti-semitismExploration and Colonization
* European imperialism and expansion, whether for colonial, military, religious, or commercial reasons, is aimed at the New World, Asia, Africa, Australia, and Oceania. The main European players in this game are Spain, England, Netherlands, Portugal, France, Venice, and Genoa.Climate
* The Little Ice Age may not have been global but leads to harvest failures in Europe.Religion
* The Counter-reformation in the Roman Catholic Church can not turn back the clock.
* Protestantism fragments into numerous sects, including Puritanism in England.

Births

* January 13 - Antoinette Bourignon, Flemish mystic (d. 1680)
* January 16 - François de Vendôme, duc de Beaufort, French soldier (d. 1669)
* January 20 - Jerzy Sebastian Lubomirski, Polish noble (szlachcic) (d. 1667)
* January 23 - Ralph Josselin, English clergyman (d. 1683)
* January 27 - Christen Aagaard, Danish poet (d. 1664)
* January 30 - William Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1693)
* February 2 - Sébastien Bourdon, French painter and engraver (d. 1671)
* April 24 - Gustav, Count of Vasaborg, illegitimate son of King Gustavus Adolphus ("Gustav II Adolf") and his mistress Margareta Slots (d. 1653)
* May 16 - Archibald Primrose, Lord Carrington, Scottish judge (d. 1679)
* May 18 - Johann Jakob Froberger, German composer (d. 1667)
* May 24 - John Maitland, 1st Duke of Lauderdale, (d. 1682)
* May 25 - Carlo Dolci, Italian artist (d. 1686)
* June - John Thurloe, spymaster for Oliver Cromwell (d. 1668)
* June 23 - Shah Shuja, second son of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal (d. 1660)
* June 24 - Ferdinand Bol, Dutch artist (d. 1680)
* August - William Russell, 1st Duke of Bedford, British peer and soldier (d. 1700)
* October 11 - Andreas Gryphius, German writer (d. 1664)
* October 18 - Nicholas Culpeper, English botanist (d. 1654)
* October 20 - Thomas Bartholin, Danish physician, mathematician, and theologian (d. 1680)
* November 23 - John Wallis, English mathematician (d. 1703)
* December 17 - Roger L'Estrange, English pamphleteer and author (d. 1704)
* "date unknown"
** Charles Albanel, French missionary (d. 1696)
** Henry Bard, 1st Viscount Bellomont, English Royalist (d. 1656)
** Jan Kazimierz Chodkiewicz, Polish nobleman (szlachcic) (d. 1660)
** William Hamilton, 2nd Duke of Hamilton, Scottish nobleman (d. 1651)
** William Holder, English music theorist (d. 1698)
** Kamalakara, Indian astronomer/mathematician (d. 1700)
** Johann Klaj, German poet (d. 1656)
** John Leverett, colonial magistrate (d. 1679)
** Sokuhi Nyoitsu, Buddhist monk (d. 1671)
** John Owen, Nonconformist theologian (d. 1683)
** Edward Sexby, English Puritan soldier/Leveller (d. 1658)
** Obadiah Walker, Master of University College, Oxford (d. 1699)
* "probable"
** Caesar van Everdingen, older brother of Allart van Everdingen (d. 1678)
** Louise de La Fayette, daughter of John, comte de La Fayette (d. 1665)
** Matthias Weckmann, German musician/composer (d. 1674)
** Trijntje Keever, presumed to have been the tallest woman ever (d. 1633): "See also ."

Deaths

* January 5 - Simeon Bekbulatovich, khan of the Qasim Tatars, Grand Duke of Muscovy and Tver
* January 6 - Philip Henslowe, English theatre manager (b. 1550)
* February - Johannes van den Driesche, Protestant divine (b. 1550)
* February 13 - Anders Sørensen Vedel, priest and historian (b. 1542)
* February 28 - Mikołaj Krzysztof "the Orphan" Radziwiłł, Polish-Lithuanian noble (szlachcic) (b. 1549)
* March 3 - Matthias de Lobel, physician of James I (b. 1538)
* March 6 - Francis Beaumont, dramatist in the English Renaissance theatre (b. 1584)
* March 8 - Maria Anna of Bavaria, daughter of William V, Duke of Bavaria and Renata von Lothringen (b. 1574)
* March 31 - John Adolf, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp (b.1575)
* April 16 - Juan de Silva, Spanish military commander and governor of the Philippines
* April 23
** (O.S., Tuesday) - William Shakespeare, English playwright and poet (b. 1564)
** (N.S., Saturday) - Miguel de Cervantes, Spanish author (b. 1547)
** (Inca date unknown) - Inca Garcilaso de la Vega
* June 1 - Tokugawa Ieyasu, Japanese shogun (b. 1543)
* June 4 - Adam Hieronim Sieniawski, Polish noble (b. 1576)
* June 12 - Kuzma Minin, merchant from Nizhny Novgorod
* July 20
** Honda Masanobu, commander and daimyo (b. 1538)
** Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone, Irish soldier (b. 1540)
* July 25 - Andreas Libavius, German physician and chemist (b. 1555)
* July 29 - Tang Xianzu, Chinese playwright and poet (b. 1550)
* August 7
** Scipione Gentili, law professor and legal writer (b. 1563)
** Vincenzo Scamozzi, Italian architect (b. 1548)
* October 11 - Aleksander Józef Lisowski, Polish noble (szlachcic) (b. 1580)
* October 17 - John Pitts, Catholic scholar and writer (b. 1560)
* October 21 - Sakazaki Naomori, daimyo
* October 23 - Leonhard Hutter, German theologian (b. 1563)
* November 23 - Richard Hakluyt, English author, editor and translator (b. c. 1552)
* December 22 - Jacob Le Maire, Dutch mariner (b. 1585)
* December 31 - Jan Szczęsny Herburt, Polish political writer (b. 1567)
* "date unknown"
** Matteo Perez d'Aleccio, Italian painter (b. 1547)
** Shimozuma Chuko, monk of the Hongan-ji (b. 1551)
** Yonten Gyatso, 4th Dalai Lama (b. 1589)
** Meir Lublin, Polish rabbi (b. 1558)
** Henry Robinson, English bishop (b. 1553)
* "probable"
** Hendrick Christiaensen, Dutch explorer
** Krzysztof Klabon, Polish Renaissance composer (b. 1550)
** Alexander Whitaker, Virginia Colony religious leader (b. 1585): "See also ."

References

Further reading

* Anne Clifford (Author), Katherine O. Acheson (Editor). 2006. "The Memoir of 1603 and The Diary of 1616-19". New York: Broadview Press. ISBN 1551113392 (see also: Google Books URL: http://books.google.com.br/books?id=9qsAos0O_-QC&hl=en ).