February 17 – Manchurian leaderQing Tai Zu, referred to in the west as "Nurhaci", declares himselfkhan and crowns himself as Emperor of China, founding theLater Jin dynasty.
February 18 - Preparing the declaration of independence from the colony of the Hashimi Empire, namely the Arya Bayu Kingdom by Khan Nasaruddin II, who was crowned inMecca,Medina, andIsfahan.
February 24 – A commission ofRoman 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 26 – AstronomerGalileo Galilei appears before CardinalRoberto Bellarmino and "warned of the error of theCopernican opinion taught by him", andenjoined by the Catholic Church against any attempt to hold, teach or defend the position of Copernicus that the Sun is stationary rather than revolving around the Earth "in any way whatsoever, verbally or in writing."[6]
February 28 – In the aftermath of the1613–1614 anti-Jewishpogrom called theFettmilch uprising inFrankfurt, Germany, mob leaderVincenz Fettmilch is beheaded, but the Jews, who had been expelled from the city on August 23, 1614, following the plundering of theJudengasse, can return only as a result of direct intervention byHoly Roman EmperorMatthias. After long negotiations, the Jews are left without any compensation for their plundered belongings.
February – English merchants of theEast 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 been 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 andmonasteries 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.[7]
Galileo Galilei meetsPope Paul V in person, to discuss his position as a defender of Copernicus'heliocentrism. The Pope promises Galileo safety from any enemies, and Galileo complies for the next seven years with the injunction against teaching Copernican doctrines.[6]
SirWalter Ralegh, English explorer of theNew World, is released from prison in theTower of London, where he has been imprisoned for treason, in order to conduct a second (ill-fated) expedition, in search ofEl Dorado in South America.[9]
May 25 – KingJames I of England's former favourite, theEarl of Somerset, and his wifeFrances, are convicted of the murder ofThomas Overbury in1613. They are spared death, and are sentenced to imprisonment in the Tower of London (until1622).[15] Although the King 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 ofGeorge Villiers, gains the reputation of being corrupt and vile. The sale of peerages (beginning in July)[16] and the royal visit of James's brother-in-law,Christian IV of Denmark, a notorious drunkard, add further scandal.
June 12 –Pocahontas (now Rebecca) arrives in England, with her husband,John Rolfe,[17] their one-year-old son,Thomas Rolfe, her half-sister Matachanna (alias Cleopatra) and brother-in-lawTomocomo, theshaman also known as Uttamatomakkin (having set out in May). TenPowhatanIndians are brought by SirThomas Dale, the colonial governor, at the request of theVirginia Company, as a fund-raising device. Dale, having been recalled under criticism, writesA 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.
November 6 – Captain William Murray is granted a royalpatent, giving him the sole privilege of importingtobacco to Scotland for a period of 21 years. Continuing from the reign ofElizabeth I, the creation of grants and patents reaches a new highwater mark from1614 to1621, during the reign ofJames I of England.
November 13 – Italian artistGuido Reni's famousPietà, commissioned by the Senate ofBologna, is placed on the greater altar of the church of Santa Maria della Pietà.
TheTepehuán Revolt begins in Nueva Vizcaya with the attack of a Spanish wagon train that is on its way to Mexico City. It tests the limits of Spanish andJesuitcolonialism, in western and northwesternDurango and southernChihuahua, Mexico.[24]
Peter Paul Rubens begins work on classicaltapestries, when a contract is signed inAntwerp with cloth dyers Jan Raes and Frans Sweerts in Brussels, and theGenoese merchant Franco Cattaneo.
René Descartes, at age 20, graduates incivil andcanon law at theUniversity of Poitiers, where he becomes disillusioned with books, preferring to seek truths from "le grand livre du monde." His thesis defense may be written in December.
With small profits to show, theVirginia Company decides to distribute land inVirginia toshareholders according to the number of shares owned. Each stockholder can set up a "particular" plantation and pay associated expenses, receiving 100 acres (0.40 km2) of land for each share and 50 acres (200,000 m2) for each person transported (the "headrights" system).
December 22 – An Indian youth (called one of "the first fruits of India") is baptized with the name "Peter" in London at the St. Dionis Backchurch, in a ceremony attended by theLord Mayor, thePrivy Council, city aldermen, and officials of theHonourable East India Company. Peter thus becomes the first convert to theAnglican Church in India. He returns to India as a missionary, schooled in English and Latin.[28]
Oorsprong en voortgang der Nederlandtscher beroerten (Origin and progress of the disturbances in the Netherlands), byJohannes Gysius, is published.[31]
A fatal disease of cattle, probablyrinderpest, spreads through the Italian provinces ofPadua,Udine,Treviso andVicenza, introduced most likely fromDalmatia or Hungary. Great numbers of cattle die in Italy, as they had in previous years (1559,1562,1566,1590,1598) in other European regions whenharvest failure also drives people to the brink of starvation (for example,1595–97 in Germany). The consumption of beef and veal is prohibited, andPope Paul V issues an edict prohibiting the slaughter of draught oxen that are suitable for plowing. Calves are also not slaughtered for some time afterwards, so that Italy's cattle herds can be replenished.[36]
At the behest of SirFerdinando Gorges, Dr. Richard Vines, a physician, passes the winter of 1616–17 atBiddeford, Maine, at the mouth of theSaco River, that he calls Winter Harbor. This is the site of the earliest permanent settlement in Maine, of which there is a conclusive record. Maine will become an important refuge for religious dissenters persecuted by thePuritans.[37]
The first Africanslaves are brought toBermuda, an Englishcolony, by Captain George Bargrave to dive forpearls, because of their reputed skill in this activity. Harvesting pearls off the coast proves unsuccessful, and the slaves are put to work planting and harvesting the initial large crops oftobacco andsugarcane.[38] At the same time, some English refuse to purchase Brazilian sugar because it is produced by slave labour.[39]
Italiannatural philosopherGiulio Cesare Vanini publishes a radicallyheterodox book in France, after his English interludeDe 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 in1619.
Francesco Albani paints the ceiling frescoes ofApollo and the Seasons, at the Palazzo Verospi inVia del Corso, for Cardinal Fabrizio Verospi.
Elizabethanpolymath andalchemistRobert Fludd publishes his first book,Apologia Compendiaria, Fraternitatem de Rosea Cruce suspicionis … maculis aspersam, veritatis quasi Fluctibus abluens, which was a defense of the ideas of theRosicrucians.[40]
John Cotta writes his influential bookThe Triall of Witch-craft.
Elizabeth Rutter ishanged as awitch inMiddlesex, England, Agnes Berrye inEnfield, and nine women inLeicester on the testimony of a raving 13-year-old named John Smith, under theWitchcraft Act 1603.[41] InOrkney,Elspeth Reoch is tried. In France Leger (first name unknown) is condemned forwitchcraft onMay 6, Sylvanie de la Plaine is burned at Pays de Labourde as a witch, and inOrléans eighteen witches are killed.
A secondwitch-hunt breaks out inBiscay, Spain. An Edict of Silence is issued by theInquisition, but the king overturns the Edict, and 300 accused witches are burned alive.
"Drink to me only with thine eyes" comes fromBen Jonson's love poem,To Celia. Jonson's poetic lamentationOn my first Sonne is also from this year.
Francis de Sales' literary masterpieceTreatise on the Love of God is published, while he is Bishop ofGeneva.
Orlando Gibbons' anthemSee, the Word is Incarnate is written.
Italian naturalist Fabio Colonna states that "tongue stones" (glossopetrae) areshark teeth, in his treatiseDe glossopetris dissertatio.
An important English dictionary is published by Dr.John Bullokar with the titleAn English Expositor: teaching the interpretation of the hardest words used in our language, with sundry explications, descriptions and discourses.
Moralist writer John Deacon publishes aquarto entitledTobacco Tortured in the Filthy Fumes of Tobacco Refined (supporting the views ofJames I of England). Deacon writes the same year thatsyphilis is a "Turkished", "Spanished", or "Frenchized" disease that the English contract by "trafficking with the contagious courruptions."
Fortunio Liceti publishesDe Monstruorum Natura in Italy, which marks the beginning of studies into malformations of theembryo.
Fort San Diego, inAcapulco Bay, Mexico, is completed by the Spanish as a defence against their erstwhilevassals, the Dutch.[43]
Anti-Christian persecutions break out inNanjing, China, andNagasaki, Japan. TheJesuit-lead Christian community in Japan at this time is over 3,000,000 strong.
Master seafarerHenry Mainwaring,Oxford graduate and lawyer turned successful Newfoundlandpirate, returns to England, is pardoned after rescuing a Newfoundland trading fleet near Gibraltar, and begins to write a revealing treatise onpiracy.
Croatian mathematician Faustus Verantius publishes his bookMachinae novae, a book of mechanical and technological inventions, some of which are applicable to the solutions of hydrological problems, and others concern the construction ofclepsydras,sundials,mills, presses bridges and boats for widely different uses.
John Speed publishes an edition of hisAtlas of Britain, with descriptive text in Latin.
TheStates of Holland set up a commission to advise them on the problem of Jewish residency and worship. One of the members of the commission isHugo Grotius, a highly regarded jurist and one of the most important political thinkers of his day.
Marie Venier (called Laporte) is the first female actress to appear on the stage in Paris.[45]
TheUskok War (1615–1618) continues between the Austrians and Spanish (Habsburg Empire) on one side, and theVenetians, Dutch, and English on the other. An Austro-Turkish treaty is signed inBelgrade, under which the Austrians are granted the right to navigate the middle and lowerDanube River by theOttoman Empire.
^The Pontifical Decrees against the Motion of the Earth, Considered in their Bearing on the Theory of Advanced Ultramontanism (Longmans, Green, Reader & Dyer, 1870) pp.5-6
^Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006.ISBN0-14-102715-0.
^abEverett, Jason M., ed. (2006). "1616".The People's Chronology. Thomson Gale.
^The Jahangirnama: memoirs of Jahangir, Emperor of India. Translated by Thackston, W. M. Washington, D.C.; New York: Freer Gallery of Art; Arthur M. Sackler Gallery; Smithsonian Institution; Oxford University Press. 1999 [1829].ISBN9780195127188.
^Findly, Ellison Banks (2000).Nur Jahan: Empress of Mughal India. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 94.ISBN0-19-507488-2.
^Nath, Renuka (1990).Notable Mughal and Hindu women in the 16th and 17th centuries A.D. New Delhi: Inter-India Publ. p. 72.ISBN9788121002417.
^From an etching in theGuerre 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.
^Bratton, Timothy (1988). "Identity of the New England Indian Epidemic of 1616–1619".Bulletin of the History of Medicine.62 (3):352–383.
^Sluiter, Engel (1949). "The Fortification of Acapulco, 1615–1616".The Hispanic American Historical Review.29 (1):69–80.doi:10.2307/2508294.JSTOR2508294. Today the fort houses the Acapulco Historical Museum.
^His notebooks, not fully published until the 20th century, reveal a coherentmechanical philosophy of nature with incipient atomism, a force of inertia, and mathematical interpretations of natural philosophy are present.van Berkel, K. (1983).Isaac Beeckman (1588–1637) en de mechanisering van het wereldbeeld. Amsterdam.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Searles, Colbert (1925). "Allusions to the Contemporary Theater of 1616 by Francois Rosset".Modern Language Notes.40 (8):481–483.doi:10.2307/2914581.JSTOR2914581.
