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Date |
Event(s) |
| 1 | 1590 | - 1590: Zacharias and Hans Janssen combined double convex lenses in a tube, producing the first telescope.
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| 2 | 1596 | - 1596: The work of Dutch cartographer Abraham Ortelius suggests the possibility of continental drift, which will be described more forcefully by Alfred Wegener centuries later.
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| 3 | 1597 | - 1597: Cultivation of sweet potatoes was tried (probably unsuccessfully) by John Gerarde of London
- 1597: Irish rebellion under Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone (finally put down 1601)
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| 4 | 1600 | - 1600: William Gilbert, in 'De Magnete', held that the earth behaves like a giant magnet with its poles near the geographic poles. He coined the word 'electrica' (from the Greek word for amber, elektron), and distinguished electricity from magnetism.
- 1600: Elizabeth I grants charter to East India Company
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| 5 | 1601 | - 1601: Elizabethan Poor Law charges the parishes with providing for the needy; Essex attempts rebellion, and is executed
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| 6 | 1603 | - 1603: Elizabeth dies; James VI of Scotland becomes James I of England
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| 7 | 1604 | - 1604: Hampton Court Conference: no relaxation by the Church towards Puritans; James bans Jesuits; England and Spain make peace
- 1604: Cawdrey's A Table Alphabeticall, first English dictionary, is published
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| 8 | 1605 | - 1605: Gunpowder Plot; Guy Fawkes and other Roman Catholic conspirators fail in attempt to blow up Parliament and James I
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| 9 | 1607 | - 1607: Parliament rejects proposals for union between England and Scotland; colony of Virginia is founded at Jamestown by John Smith; Henry Hudson begins voyage to eastern Greenland and Hudson River
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| 10 | 1609 | - 1609: Galileo built a telescope with which he discovered the mountains on the moon, that the Milky Way consisted of innumerable stars, the four largest satellites of Jupiter, the phases of Venus, and sunspots.
- 1609: Henry Hudson explores present-day New York and Hudson River and claims them for the Dutch
- 1609: Avisa Relation oder Zeitung', world's first regular newspaper is published
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| 11 | 1610 | - 1610: Hudson Bay discovered
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| 12 | 1611 | - 1611: James I's authorized version (King James Version) of the Bible is completed; English and Scottish Protestant colonists settle in Ulster
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| 13 | 1614 | - 1614: James I dissolves the "Addled Parliament" which has failed to pass any legislation
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| 14 | 1616 | - 1616: Italian philosopher Lucilio Vanini suggests that humans descended from apes. For this heresy, he is burned alive three years later.
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| 15 | 1618 | - 1618: Thirty Years' War begins, lasts until 1648
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| 16 | 1620 | - 1620: Pilgrims land at Plymouth Rock on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in the "Mayflower"; found New Plymouth
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| 17 | 1622 | - 1622: James I dissolves Parliament for asserting its right to debate foreign affairs
- 1622: Weekly News, first English newspaper, published.
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| 18 | 1623 | - 1623: Wilhelm Schickard built a six digit calculator, driven directly by gears, which could add, subtract, and indicate overflow by ringing a bell.
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| 19 | 1624 | - 1624: Alliance between James I and France; Parliament votes for war against Spain; Virginia becomes crown colony
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| 20 | 1625 | - 1625: Charles I, King of England (to 1649); Charles I marries Henrietta Maria, sister of Louis XIII of France; dissolves Parliament which fails to vote him money
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| 21 | 1627 | - 1627: William Harvey was able to confirm his observation that the blood circulates throughout the body, which he inferred from the structure of the venal valves. The following year, in Exercitatio Anatomica, he published these conclusions as well as a description of the heart as a mechanical pump.
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| 22 | 1628 | - 1628: Petition of Right; Charles I forced to accept Parliament's statement of civil rights in return for finances
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| 23 | 1629 | - 1629: Charles I dissolves Parliament and rules personally until 1640
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| 24 | 1630 | - 1630: England makes peace with France and Spain
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| 25 | 1636 | - 1636: Tulip mania begins and ceases the following year in a precursor of the 2000 'dot-com' crash
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| 26 | 1639 | - 1639: First Bishops' War between Charles I and the Scottish Church; ends with Pacification of Dunse
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| 27 | 1640 | - 1640: Charles I summons the "Short " Parliament ; dissolved for refusal to grant money; Second Bishops' War; ends with Treaty of Ripon; The Long Parliament begins.
- 1640: Athanasius Kirchner's magic lantern invented
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| 28 | 1641 | - 1641: Triennial Act requires Parliament to be summoned every three years; Star Chamber and High Commission abolished by Parliament; Catholics in Ireland revolt; some 30,000 Protestants massacred; Grand Remonstrance of Parliament to Charles I
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| 29 | 1642 | - 1642: Charles I fails in attempt to arrest five members of Parliament and rejects Parliament's Nineteen Propositions; Civil War (until 1645) begins with battle of Edgehill between Cavaliers (Royalists) and Roundheads (Parliamentarians)
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| 30 | 1643 | - 1643: Solemn League and Covenant is signed by Parliament
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| 31 | 1644 | - 1644: Battle of Marston Moor; Oliver Cromwell defeats Prince Rupert
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| 32 | 1645 | - 1645: Formation of Cromwell's New Model Army; Battle of Naseby; Charles I defeated by Parliamentary forces
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| 33 | 1646 | - 1646: Charles I surrenders to the Scots
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| 34 | 1647 | - 1647: Scots surrender Charles I to Parliament; he escapes to the Isle of Wright; makes secret treaty with Scots
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| 35 | 1648 | - 1648: Scots invade England and are defeated by Cromwell at battle of Preston Pride's Purge: Presbyterians expelled from Parliament (known as the Rump Parliament); Treaty of Westphalia ends Thirty Years' War
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| 36 | 1649 | - 1649: Charles I is tried and executed; The Commonwealth, in which ; England is governed as a republic, is established and lasts until 1660; Cromwell harshly suppresses Catholic rebellions in Ireland
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| 37 | 1650 | - 1650: Charles II lands in Scotland; is proclaimed king
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| 38 | 1651 | - 1651: Thomas Hobbes, in 'Leviathan', argued from a mechanistic theory that man is a selfishly individualistic animal at constant war with others. In the state of nature, life is "nasty, brutish, and short."
- 1651: Charles II invades England and is defeated at Battle of Worcester; Charles escapes to France; First Navigation Act, England gains virtual monopoly of foreign trade
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| 39 | 1653 | - 1653: Cromwell dissolves the "Rump" and becomes Lord Protector
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| 40 | 1654 | - 1654: James Ussher, Protestant archbishop of Armagh, determined by a close reading of scriptural genealogies that the events described on the first page of the Book of Genesis occurred in 4004 B.C.
- 1654: Treaty of Westminster between England and Dutch Republic
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| 41 | 1655 | - 1655: Christiaan Huygens discovered 'Titan,' Saturn's largest moon, and that what Galileo had thought were moons were actually rings. He was the first to note markings on Mars.
- 1655: England divided into 12 military districts by Cromwell; seizes Jamaica from Spain
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| 42 | 1656 | - 1656: Huygens built the first pendulum-regulated clock. Two years later, Huygens, in Horologium, claimed that his clock could establish longitude at sea which was not then possible and had led to many maritime disasters.
- 1656: War with Spain (until 1659)
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| 43 | 1658 | - 1658: Oliver Cromwell dies; succeeded as Lord Protector by son Richard; Battle of the Dunes, England and France defeat Spain; England gains Dunkirk
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| 44 | 1659 | - 1659: Richard Cromwell forced to resign by the army; "Rump" Parliament restored
- 1659: First cheque drawn in London
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| 45 | 1660 | - 1660: Convention Parliament restores Charles II to throne
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| 46 | 1661 | - 1661: Clarendon Code; "Cavalier" Parliament of Charles II passes series of repressive laws against Nonconformists; English acquire Bombay
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| 47 | 1662 | - 1662: Boyle, using a vacuum pump of his own invention, determined that the volume and pressure of a gas are inversely proportional
- 1662: John Graunt, in 'Observations upon the Bills of Mortality', using London population data, noted that life expectancy is 27 years, with nearly two/thirds dying before 16 years.
- 1662: Act of Uniformity passed in England
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| 48 | 1664 | - 1664: England siezes New Amsterdam from the Dutch, change name to New York
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| 49 | 1665 | - 1665: Great Plague in London
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| 50 | 1666 | - 1666: Great Fire of London
- 1666: First European printed paper banknote issued
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| 51 | 1667 | - 1667: Dutch fleet defeats the English in Medway river; treaties of Breda among Netherlands, England, France, and Denmark
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| 52 | 1668 | - 1668: Triple Alliance of England, Netherlands, and Sweden against France
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| 53 | 1669 | - 1669: Isaac Newton circulated a manuscript, 'De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas', the first notice of his calculus.
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| 54 | 1670 | - 1670: Secret Treaty of Dover between Charles II of England and Louis XIV of France to restore Roman Catholicism to England; Hudson's Bay Company founded
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| 55 | 1672 | - 1672: Third Anglo-Dutch war (until 1674); William III (of Orange) becomes ruler of Netherlands
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| 56 | 1673 | - 1673: Test Act aims to deprive English Roman Catholics and Nonconformists of public office
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| 57 | 1674 | - 1674: Hennig Brand discovered phosphorus in a distillation of human urine
- 1674: Anton van Leeuwenhoek reported his discovery of protozoa, using his newly-devised microscope
- 1674: Treaty of Westminster between England and the Netherlands
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| 58 | 1677 | - 1677: William III, ruler of the Netherlands, marries Mary, daughter of James, Duke of York, heir to the English throne
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| 59 | 1678 | - 1678: Popish Plot' in England; Titus Oates falsely alleges a Catholic plot to murder Charles II
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| 60 | 1679 | - 1679: Act of Habeas Corpus passed, forbidding imprisonment without trial; Parliament's Bill of Exclusion against the Roman Catholic Duke of York blocked by Charles II; Parliament dismissed; Charles II rejects petitions calling for a new Parliament; petitioners become known as Whigs; their opponents (royalists) known as Tories
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