History Timeline

1601 - 1700 AD

1606 Netherlands Dutch discover Australia. William Jansz sails the Torres Strait
   Birth of Rembrandt
1607 First permanent British settlement in North America, at Jamestown, Virginia
1608 Quebec is established
   Birth of John Milton, playwright
1609 Zen monk Takuan lives in Japan
1610 Assasination of Henry of Navarre
1611 Gustavus Adolphus becomes King of Sweden
1612 Basilica of St. Peters is completed in Rome
1613 Romanov dynasty begins in Russia
1618 - 1648 Thirty years war between Catholics and Protestants
   Ferdinand III leader of Catholics
   Gustavus Adolphus leader of Protestants
1619 - 1622 Little Ice age in Europe (very cold)
1623 Birth of Blaise Pascal
1630 Scientific inquiries become rational and adopt Platonism over    Aristotelianism
1631 Birth of John Dryden
1632 Birth of John Locke
   Birth of Spinoza
1638 Birth of Louis XIV
   Athanasius Kircher (a Jesuit priest) is the first person to descend into an active volcano and live to write about it
1639 Birth of Jean Baptiste Racine
1640 - 1660 English revolution
1642 Birth of Isaac Newton
1643 Invention of the barometer
1644 - 1911 Manchu Qing Dynasty in China
1646 Birth of Leibnitz
1647 Birth of St Marguerite Marie Alacoque - founder of the devotion to the Sacred Heart
1648 Peace of Westphalia
1652 Dutch found Cape Colony in South Africa
1653 Completion of Taj Mahal
1655 Great Red Spot on Jupiter discovered
1660 Birth of Daniel Defoe
1665 Isaac Newton invents Calculus
1667 Birth of Jonathen Swift
1679 Introduction of the Habeus Corpus Act in England
1682 - 1725 Peter the Great rules in Russia, remodels the military
1685 J.S. Bach is born
   Handel born
1688 Birth of Alexander Pope
1694 Voltaire if born
1700 Russian explorer Bering discovers Alaska, Russians decimate the Aleut people of southeast Alaska
   End of Baroque period