1642

This article is about the year 1642.

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	16th century – 17th century – 18th century
Decades:	1610s  1620s  1630s  – 1640s –  1650s  1660s  1670s
Years:	1639 1640 1641 – 1642 – 1643 1644 1645

1642 by topic:

Arts and Science

Architecture - Art - Literature - Music - Science

Lists of leaders

Colonial governors - State leaders

Birth and death categories

Births - Deaths

Establishments and disestablishments categories

Establishments - Disestablishments

Works category

Works

1642 in other calendars

Gregorian calendar	1642 MDCXLII
Ab urbe condita	2395
Armenian calendar	1091 ԹՎ ՌՂԱ
Assyrian calendar	6392
Bahá'í calendar	-202–-201
Bengali calendar	1049
Berber calendar	2592
English Regnal year	17 Cha. 1 – 18 Cha. 1
Buddhist calendar	2186
Burmese calendar	1004
Byzantine calendar	7150–7151
Chinese calendar	辛巳年十二月初一日 (4278/4338-12-1) — to — 壬午年閏十一月初十日 (4279/4339-intercalary 11-10)
Coptic calendar	1358–1359
Ethiopian calendar	1634–1635
Hebrew calendar	5402–5403
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	1698–1699
- Shaka Samvat	1564–1565
- Kali Yuga	4743–4744
Holocene calendar	11642
Igbo calendar
- Ǹrí Ìgbò	642–643
Iranian calendar	1020–1021
Islamic calendar	1051–1052
Japanese calendar	Kan'ei 19 (寛永19年)
Juche calendar	N/A (before 1912)
Julian calendar	Gregorian minus 10 days
Korean calendar	3975
Minguo calendar	270 before ROC 民前270年
Thai solar calendar	2185

Year 1642 (MDCXLII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Saturday of the 10-day slower Julian calendar.

Events

January–June

• January 4 – First English Civil War: Charles I attempts to arrest 6 leading members of the Long Parliament, but they escape.
• March 1 – Georgeana, Massachusetts (now known as York, Maine) becomes the first incorporated city in America.
• March 19 – The citizens of Galway seize an English naval ship, close the town gates and declare support for Confederate Ireland.
• May 17 or May 18 – Sieur de Maisonneuve founds the Ville Marie de Montreal (nowadays known as Montreal, Quebec, Canada).
• May 30 – All honours granted by Charles I from this date onward are retrospectively annulled by Parliament.

July–December

• July – First English Civil War: Charles I besieges Hull in an attempt to gain control of its arsenal.
• August 4 – Lord Forbes relieves Forthill and besieges Galway.
• August 21 – First Battle of Lostwithiel.
• August 22 – King Charles I raises the royal battle standard over Nottingham Castle, so declaring war on his own Parliament.
• September 2 – Parliament orders the theatres of London closed, effectively ending the era of English Renaissance theatre.
• September 7 – Lord Forbes raises his unsuccessful siege of Galway.
• September 8 – Thomas Granger is executed by hanging at Plymouth, Massachusetts for confessing to numerous acts of bestiality.
• October 23 – First English Civil War – Battle of Edgehill: Royalists and Parliamentarians battle to a draw.
• November 13 – First English Civil War – Battle of Turnham Green: The Royalist forces withdraw in face of the Parliamentarian army and fail to take London.
• November 24 – Abel Tasman becomes the first European to discover the island Van Diemen's Land (later renamed Tasmania).

Abel Tasman sight New Zealand.

• December 13 – Abel Tasman is the first recorded European to sight New Zealand.

Date unknown

• The Dutch drive Spain from Taiwan.
• The village of Bro (Broo) in Sweden is granted the city rights for the second time and takes the name Kristinehamn (literally "Christina's port") after the present Swedish monarch, Queen Christina.

The Night Watch.

• Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn finishes his painting "The Night Watch".
• The Manchu under their leader Huang Taiji raid the Ming Chinese province of Shandong from their base in Manchuria. Two years later Beijing falls to rebels, the Chongzhen Emperor commits suicide, and the Shunzhi Emperor becomes the first Qing Emperor to rule over China proper.
• Kaifeng flood of 1642: Some 300,000 people die when the Ming Dynasty army in China intentionally breaks the dams and dykes of the Yellow River to break the siege by the large rebel force of Li Zicheng.
• Isaac Aboab da Fonseca is appointed rabbi in Pernambuco, Brazil, thus becoming the first rabbi of the Americas.

Births

• January 2 – Mehmed IV, Ottoman Sultan (d. 1693)
• January 11 – Mary Carleton, impostor (d. 1673)
• February 18 – Marie Champmeslé, French actress (d. 1698)
• April 15 – Suleiman II, Ottoman Sultan (d. 1691)
• June 20 – George Hickes, English minister and scholar (d. 1715)
• August 14 – Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (d. 1723)
• November 11 – André Charles Boulle, French cabinet-maker (d. 1732)
• December 6 – Johann Christoph Bach, German composer (d. 1703)
• December 25 – Isaac Newton, English scientist (d. 1727)
• December 30 – Vincenzo da Filicaja, Italian poet (d. 1707)
• date unknown
  • John Archdale, British colonial governor (d. 1717)
  • Abdul-Qader Bedil, Persian Sufi poet (d. 1720)
  • Bonaventure Giffard, English Catholic priest (d. 1734)
  • Josep Romaguera, Catalan author (d. 1723)
  • Albert Janse Ryckman, Mayor of Albany, Prominent Brewermaster (d. 1737)
  • Edward Taylor, American poet (d. 1729)

Deaths

• January 8 – Galileo Galilei, Italian astronomer and physicist (b. 1564)
• February 7 – William Bedell, English clergyman (b. 1571)
• April 30 – Dmitry Pozharsky, Russian prince (b. 1578)
• July 3 – Marie de' Medici, queen of Henry IV of France (b. 1573)
• August 18 – Guido Reni, Italian painter (b. 1575)
• September 3 – Elisabeth of Nassau, regent of Sedan (b. 1577)
• September 12 – Henri Coiffier de Ruzé, Marquis of Cinq-Mars, French conspirator (b. 1620)
• September 29 – Rene Goupil, the first of the Canadian Martyrs (b. 1608)
• October 24 – Robert Bertie, 1st Earl of Lindsey Fen drainage adventurer and soldier (b. 1583)
• November 1 – Jean Nicolet, French explorer (b. 1598)
• November 7 – Henry Montagu, 1st Earl of Manchester, English politician (b. c. 1563)
• December 4 – Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal Richelieu, French statesman (b. 1585)