17th century

As a means of recording the passage of time, the 17th century was that century which lasted from 1601-1700 in the Gregorian calendar.

Events

1600s

1601: Battle of Kinsale, the most important battle in Irish history, fought.
1602: Dutch East India Company founded. 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 seizes control of Japan and establishes the Tokugawa Shogunate which rules the country until 1868.
1603-23: After modernizing his army, Abbas I expands Persia by capturing territory from the Ottomans and the Portuguese.
1605: Gunpowder Plot foiled in England.
1607: The London Company establishes the Jamestown Settlement in North America precipitating the British colonization of the Americas.
1608: Quebec City founded by Samuel de Champlain in New France (present-day Canada).

1610s

1611: The King James Version of the Bible is completed.
1613: The Time of Troubles in Russia ends with the establishment of the House of Romanov which rules until 1917.
1615: The Mughal Empire grants extensive trading rights to the British East India Company.
1618-48: The Thirty Years' War devastates Central Europe.

1620s

1624-42: As chief minister, Cardinal Richelieu centralizes power in France.
1625: New Amsterdam founded by the Dutch West India Company in North America.

1630s

1637: The Dutch tulip mania bubble bursts.
1637: The Pequot War, the first of the American Indian Wars
1639-51: Wars of the Three Kingdoms, civil wars throughout Scotland, Ireland, and England.

1640s

1640: Portugal regains its independence from Spain bringing an end to the Iberian Union.
1640: Torture is outlawed in England.
1641: The Tokugawa Shogunate institutes Sakoku- foreigners are expelled and no one is allowed to enter or leave Japan.
1642: Dutch explorer Abel Janszoon Tasman achieves the first recorded European sighting of New Zealand.
1644: The Manchu conquer China ending the Ming Dynasty. The subsequent Qing Dynasty rules until 1912.
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.
1648-53: Fronde civil war in France.
1648-67: The Deluge wars leave Poland in ruins.
1648-69: The Ottoman Empire captures Crete from the Venetians after the Siege of Candia.

1650s

1652: Cape Town founded by the Dutch East India Company in South Africa.
1652: Anglo-Dutch Wars begin.
1655-61: The Northern Wars cement Sweden's rise as a Great Power.

1660s

1660: The Commonwealth of England ends and the monarchy is brought back during the English Restoration.
1660: Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge founded.
1661: The reign of the Kangxi Emperor of China begins.
1662: Koxinga captures Taiwan from the Dutch and founds the Kingdom of Tungning which rules until 1683.
1663: France takes full political and military control over its colonial possessions in New France.
1664: British troops capture New Amsterdam and rename it New York.
1665: Portugal defeats the Kongo Empire.
1666: The Great Fire of London.
1667-99: The Great Turkish war halts the Ottoman Empire's expansion into Europe.

Significant people

Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden (1594-1632).
Tokugawa Ieyasu
Francis Bacon, English philosopher and politician (1561-1626).
Pierre Corneille, French dramatist (1606 - 1684)
William Harvey, medical doctor (1578 – 1657)
Jean Racine, French dramatist (1639 - 1699)
Molière, French dramatist, actor, director (1622 - 1673)
Jean de La Fontaine French poet (1621 - 1695)
Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux (1636 - 1711) French poet and critic
Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598 - 1680) Italian artist
Jean-Baptiste Lully Italian-born French compsoer (1632 - 1687)
André Le Nôtre French landscape architect ([1613 - 1700)
Gabriel Bethlen, Hungarian prince of Transylvania (1580-1629)
Sir Thomas Browne, English author, philosopher and scientist (1605-1682).
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Spanish Author (1574 - 1616)
Charles I of England (1600 - 1649).
Charles II of England (1630 - 1685).
Queen Christina of Sweden, high profile Catholic convert, matron of arts (1626 - 1689)
Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland (1599 - 1658)
Richard Cromwell, Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland (1626 - 1712).
René Descartes, French philosopher and mathematician (1596 - 1650)
John Donne, English metaphysical poet (1572 - 1631)
John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1647 - 1680) English poet
Elizabeth I of England (1533 - 1603).
Galileo Galilei, Italian natural philosopher (1564 - 1642)
Andreas Gryphius, German poet and dramatist(1616 - 1664)
Thomas Hobbes, English philosopher and mathematician (1588 - 1679)
Christiaan Huygens, Dutch mathematician, physicist and astronomer (1629 - 1695)
Johannes Kepler, German astronomer (1571 - 1630)
Gottfried Leibniz, German philosopher and mathematician (1646 - 1716)
John Locke, English philosopher (1632 - 1704)
James I of England (1566 - 1625).
James II of England (1633 - 1701).
Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor (1640 - 1705)
Louis XIV, King of France, (1638 - 1715)
Mary II of England (1662 - 1694).
Dubhaltach MacFhirbhisigh (d.1671), Irish historian and genealogist.
John Milton, English author and poet (1608 - 1674)
Miyamoto Musashi, famous warrior in Japan, author of The Book of Five Rings, a treatise on strategy and martial combat. (1584 - 1645)
Isaac Newton, English physicist and mathematician (1642 - 1727)
Blaise Pascal, French theologian, mathematician and physicist (1623 - 1662)
Pierre de Fermat French lawyer and mathematician 1601 – 1665
Samuel Pepys, English civil servant and diarist (1633 - 1703)
Henry Purcell, English composer (1659 - 1695)
Samarth Ramdas, Hindu Saint (1608 - 1681)
Sant Tukaram, Hindu Saint (1600 - 1650)
Anne of Austria (1601 - 1666) Queen consort and regent of France
Cardinal Richelieu, French Cardinal, Duke, and politician (1585 - 1642)
Cardinal Mazarin, French cardinal and politician of Italian origin (1602 - 1661)
Françoise-Athénaïs, marquise de Montespan (1641 - 1707) lover of Louis XIV
Françoise d'Aubigné, marquise de Maintenon (1635 - 1719 second wife of Louis XIV
Rembrandt van Rijn, Dutch painter (1606 - 1669)
William Shakespeare, English author and poet (1564 - 1616)
Pedro Calderón de la Barca Spanish dramatist (1600 - 1681)
Shivaji Bhonsle, Hindu King, 1st Maratha ruler, established Hindavi Swaraj. (1630-1680)
Baruch Spinoza, Dutch philosopher (1632 - 1677)
Seathrún Céitinn, Irish historian (ca. 1569 - ca. 1644)
Jan III Sobieski, King of Poland (1629 - 1696)
Imre Thököly, prince of Transylvania, leader of the anti-Habsburg uprising in Hungary (1657 - 1705)
Albrecht von Wallenstein, German General in the Thirty Years' War, Catholic (1583 - 1634)
William III of England (1650 - 1702).
Abel Janszoon Tasman (1603 - 1659), was a Dutch seafarer and explorer.

Inventions, discoveries, introductions

List of 17th century inventions

Major changes in philosophy and science take place, often characterized as the Scientific revolution.

Calculus is invented and used to formulate classical mechanics.
First measurement of the speed of light, 1676.
Banknotes were reintroduced in Europe.
Ice cream
Tea and coffee become popular in Europe.
Central Banking in France and modern Finance by Scottish economist John Law.

Decades and years

17th century | Centuries | Eighty Years' War

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Events

Significant people

Inventions, discoveries, introductions

Decades and years