1650s

The 1650s decade ran from January 1, 1650, to December 31, 1659.

February 2, 1653: New Amsterdam is incorporated.

Events

1650

January–March

• January 7 – Louis I, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen, dies after a reign of more than 63 years. The area is now part of the northeastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt.
• January 18 – Cardinal Jules Mazarin, the Chief Minister of France and head of its government since 1642, learns of a plot against him and has the Prince de Condé, the Prince de Conti and the Duc de Longueville arrested, prompting a rebellion by parliament against the Crown.
• January 28 – The Sultan bin Saif of Oman expels the Portuguese colonial government from Muscat, forcing the surrender of the port of Muttrah and of Fort Capitan, and captures two warships, ending 35 years of Portuguese occupation.
• February 1 – The French verse play Andromède, commissioned by Cardinal Mazarin, written by Pierre Corneille and with elaborate sets designed by Giacomo Torelli, premieres before the royal family at the Théâtre Royal de Bourbon.
• February 13 – Oliver Cromwell's troops sweep through Ireland and bombard the Kiltinan Castle in County Tipperary.
• February 26 – Jacob van Kittensteyn succeeds Joan Maetsuycker as the Dutch Governor of Zeylan (now the nation of Sri Lanka).
• March 10 – João Rodrigues de Vasconcelos, Portuguese Count of Castelo Melhor, becomes the new Governor of Brazil.
• March 28 – The Siege of Kilkenny in Ireland by Oliver Cromwell ends in after six days as royalist Sir Walter Butler turns over control of the city to the Commonwealth of England forces.

April–June

• April 27 – The Battle of Carbisdale begins when a Royalist army invades mainland Scotland from the Orkney Islands. The Royalists are defeated by a Covenanter army.
• May 17 – A quarter of the New Model Army at the Siege of Clonmel in Ireland is trapped and killed.
• June 9 – The Harvard Corporation, the more powerful of the two administrative boards of Harvard, is established (the first legal corporation in the Americas).
• June 23 – Claimant King Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland arrives in Scotland (at Garmouth), the only one of the three kingdoms that has accepted him as ruler.

July–September

• July 13 – Italian priest and astronomer Gerolamo Sersale of Naples takes advantage of a full moon and draws an extremely detailed lunar map, which is then engraved and reproduced for other astronomers.
• July 22 – Having completed his invasion of Ireland, England's General Oliver Cromwell begins the war against the Kingdom of Scotland, crossing from Northumberland at Berwick-upon-Tweed into Berwickshire, and leads troops toward Edinburgh.
• July 29 – William II, Prince of Orange, stadtholder of Holland, attempts to conquer the rest of the Netherlands and attempts a coup d'état against the Dutch Republic.
• August 13 – Colonel George Monck forms Monck's Regiment of Foot, forerunner of the Coldstream Guards.
• September 3 – Third English Civil War: Battle of Dunbar (1650) – Parliamentarian forces under Oliver Cromwell defeat a Scottish army, commanded by David Leslie.
• September 19 – Treaty of Hartford: the English Commonwealth's Connecticut Colony and the Dutch Republic's colony of New Netherland establish their frontiers in North America.
• September 27 – The Kolumbo volcano on Santorini experiences a massive eruption (VEI 6).
• September 29 – Henry Robinson opens his Office of Addresses and Encounters, a form of employment exchange, in Threadneedle Street, London.

October–December

• October 17 – The Western Remonstrance is signed by members of the Parliament of Scotland who condemn the recognition of Charles II being crowned King of Scotland, and pledging allegiance to England's General Oliver Cromwell.
• October 20 – Queen Christina of Sweden, who has been the legal ruler of Sweden for almost 18 years, has an elaborate coronation ceremony at the castle of Jacobsdal near Stockholm. The coronation had originally been planned for her 18th birthday in 1644 but was delayed by a war with Denmark-Norway.
• October 30 – The Commonwealth of England government passes a law prohibiting trade between English merchants and English colonies that had sided with Charles II over Oliver Cromwell. Specifically labeled as rebel colonies for purposes of the ban are the North American colonies of Virginia and the Somers Isles (alias Bermuda), as well as the Caribbean islands of Barbados and Antigua.
• November 4 – William III of Orange becomes Prince of the House of Orange at the moment of his birth, succeeding his father, who had died a few days earlier. He does not become stadtholder, so the United Provinces becomes a true republic.
• December 14 – Anne Greene is hanged at Oxford Castle in England for infanticide, having concealed an illegitimate stillbirth. The following day she revives in the dissection room and, being pardoned, lives until 1659.
• December 25 – Thomas Cooper, former Usher of Gresham's School, England, is hanged as a Royalist rebel.

Date unknown

• The first modern Palio di Siena horserace is held in Italy.
• Puritans chop down the original Glastonbury Thorn in England.
• English highwayman and Captain James Hind campaigns for the Royalist cause (according to his own account).
• Jews are allowed to return to France.
• Three-wheeled wheelchairs are invented in Nuremberg by watchmaker Stephan Farffler.
• Ethiopia deports Portuguese diplomats and missionaries.
• Einkommende Zeitungen becomes the first German daily newspaper (ceases 1918).
• The town of Sharon, Massachusetts is founded.
• Estimation – Istanbul becomes the largest city of the world, taking the lead from Beijing.

1651

January–March

• January 1 – Charles II is crowned King of Scots at Scone (his first crowning).
• January 24 – Parliament of Boroa in Chile: Spanish and Mapuche authorities meet at Boroa, renewing the fragile peace established at the parliaments of Quillín, in 1641 and 1647.
• February 22 – St. Peter's Flood: A first storm tide in the North Sea strikes the coast of Germany, drowning thousands..The island of Juist is split in half, and the western half of Buise is probably washed away.
• March 4 – St. Peter's Flood: Another storm tide in the North Sea strikes the Netherlands, flooding Amsterdam.
• March 6 – The town of Kajaani is founded by Count Per Brahe the Younger.
• March 15 – Prince Aisin Gioro Fulin attains the age of 13 and becomes the Shunzhi Emperor of China, which had been governed by a regency since the death of his father Hong Taiji in 1643.
• March 26 – The Spanish ship San José, loaded with silver, is pushed south by strong winds; it wrecks on the coast of southern Chile, and its surviving crew is killed by indigenous Cuncos.

April–June

• April 7 – Shunzhi, Emperor of China, announces in an imperial edict that he will purge corruption from government.
• April 25 – Thomas Hobbes publishes his magnum opus, the political tract Leviathan, in England.
• May 12 – General Marcin Kalinowski of Poland wins the Battle of Kopychyntsi against Zaporozhian Cossacks forces under the command of Asand Demka during the Khmelnytsky Uprising in what is now Ukraine.
• May 21 – The Sovereign Military Order of Malta purchases the Caribbean islands of Saint Barthélemy, Saint Christopher, Saint Croix and Saint Martin from the France's Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique. The Order will sell the islands in 1665 to the French West India Company.
• June 17 – Franco-Spanish War (1635-1659); A squadron of Spanish galleys under John of Austria the Younger capture the French galleon Lion Couronné off Formentera, Balearic Islands, Spain.
• June 30 – After three days of fighting in the Battle of Berestechko in Ukraine, one of the biggest land battles of the 17th century, with some 205,000 troops in the field, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth Army defeats the Zaporozhian Cossacks.

July–September

• July 20 – At the Battle of Inverkeithing in Scotland, the English Parliamentarian New Model Army, under Major-General John Lambert, defeats a Scottish Covenanter army acting on behalf of Charles II, led by Sir John Brown of Fordell.
• August 13 – The troops of King Charles II of Scotland force the retreat of English Commonwealth troops at the Battle of Warrington Bridge, the last victory of Scotland over England in battle.
• August 28
  • The "Onfall of Alyth takes place in the Scottish town of the same name when most of the members of Scotland's governing body, the Committee of States, are betrayed to English invaders. The Earl of Leven, the Earl of Crawford, the Earl Marischal, Lord Nairne and other prominent people are captured and imprisoned in the Tower of London.
  • The Battle of Upton is fought at Upton-upon-Severn in England, where Scottish invaders commanded by Major General Edward Massey are defeated by the English Parliamentarians led by John Lambert. The retreat of the Scots clears the way for the successful English attack at Worcester.
• September 1 – The siege of Dundee ends with the English Parliamentarian army, under General Monck, decisively defeating Covenanters in the last battle of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms in Scotland.
• September 2 – Kösem Sultan is assassinated by her daughter-in-law, Turhan Sultan.
• September 3 – Charles II of England, leading a largely-Scottish army, is defeated in the Battle of Worcester, the last major battle of the English Civil War, and forced to flee.

October–December

• October 14 – Laws are passed in Massachusetts, forbidding poor people from adopting excessive styles of dress.
• October 16 – Prince Charles of the House of Stuart escapes from England to find refuge in France.
• October – An English diplomatic team, headed by Oliver St John, goes to The Hague to negotiate an alliance between the Commonwealth of England and the Dutch Republic.
• November 3 – The Manx Rebellion of 1651 comes to an end as the Countess of Derby surrenders the Isle of Man to the forces of Oliver Cromwell in return for a guarantee of safe passage for herself, her family and her servants, off of the island.
• November 24 – In China, Qing dynasty forces led by Shang Kexi capture the city of Guangzhou from the Southern Ming and then carry out a massacre of the population, killing as many as 70,000 people over 11 days ending on December 5.
• December 17 – Castle Cornet in Guernsey, the last stronghold which had supported the King in the Third English Civil War, surrenders.

Date unknown

• The Keian Uprising fails in Japan.
• The first coffee house in England is opened in Oxford, indicative of their increasing popularity in Europe.
• The Madanmohan-jiu Temple is built at Samta (India), a village in the Howrah district of West Bengal.

1652

January–March

• January 8 – Michiel de Ruyter marries the widow Anna van Gelder and plans retirement, but months later becomes a vice-commodore in the First Anglo-Dutch War.
• February 4 – At Edinburgh, the parliamentary commissioners of the Commonwealth of England proclaim the Tender of Union to be in force in Scotland, annexing the Scottish nation with the concession that Scotland would have 30 representatives in the parliament of the English Commonwealth.
• February 12 – Oliver Cromwell, England's Lord Protector, announces that his Council of Scotland will regulate church affairs as part of the Terms of Incorporation of Scotland into England, and eliminates Presbyterianism as Scotland's state religion.
• March 29 (April 8 New Style) – Total solar eclipse of April 8, 1652 ("Black Monday").

April–June

• April 6 – Dutch sailor Jan van Riebeeck establishes a resupply camp for the Dutch East India Company at the Cape of Good Hope in modern-day South Africa, thus founding Cape Town.
• May 18 – Rhode Island passes the first law in North America making slavery illegal.
• May 19 (May 29, New Style) – First Anglo-Dutch War: Battle of Dover – The opening battle is fought off Dover between Lt.-Admiral Maarten Tromp's 42 Dutch ships and 21 English ships divided into two squadrons, one commanded by Robert Blake and the other by Nehemiah Bourne; the result is inconclusive.
• June 13 – George Fox preaches to a large crowd on Firbank Fell in England, leading to the establishment of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).

July–September

• July 2 – The Battle of the Faubourg St Antoine is fought east of Paris between French Parliamentarians (led by Louis, Grand Condé) against the army of King Louis XIV, commanded by the Viscount of Turenne, with neither side prevailing.
• July 4 – A mob kills 150 people, including judges, in the massacre at the Hôtel de Ville, Paris.
• July 5 – The 1652 Articles of Peace and Friendship are signed between the Province of Maryland and the Conestoga Indians, ceding most of the land around the Chesapeake Bay to the English colonists.
• July 10 – The First Anglo-Dutch War begins formally as the English Commonwealth declares war against the Dutch Republic.
• July 17 – The "Great Fire of Glasgow" destroys one-third of the Scottish city.
• August 26 – First Anglo-Dutch War: Battle of Plymouth – A fleet from the Commonwealth of England attacks an outward-bound convoy of the Dutch Republic, escorted by 23 men-of-war and six fire ships, commanded by Vice-Commodore Michiel de Ruyter; the Dutch escape.
• September 11 – The Guo Huaiyi Rebellion, a peasant revolt on the island of Taiwan against colonial rule in Dutch Formosa, is suppressed after four days.

October–December

• October 2 – The Great Fire of Oulu destroys almost all of the houses of the town’s bourgeoisie, the provision warehouses and the drawbridge of Oulu Castle, in the town of Oulu, Finland.
• October 8 – First Anglo-Dutch War: Battle of the Kentish Knock – In a battle fought near the shoal called the Kentish Knock in the North Sea, about 30 km (19 mi) from the mouth of the River Thames, the Dutch are forced to withdraw.
• November 30 – The Netherlands takes control of the English Channel after the Battle of Dungeness ends in a Dutch victory over the English Royal Navy.
• December 10 – First Anglo-Dutch War: Defeat at the Battle of Dungeness causes the Commonwealth of England to reform its navy.

1653

January–March

• January 3 – By the Coonan Cross Oath, the Eastern Church in India cuts itself off from colonial Portuguese tutelage.
• January – The Swiss Peasant War begins after magistrates meeting at Lucerne refuse to hear from a group of peasants who have been financially hurt by the devaluation of the currency issued from Bern.
• February 2 – New Amsterdam (now New York City) received municipal rights by a charter from New Netherland Governor Peter Stuyvesant.
• February 3 – Cardinal Mazarin returns to Paris from exile.
• February 10 – Swiss peasant war of 1653: Peasants from the Entlebuch valley in Switzerland assemble at Heiligkreuz to organize a plan to suspend all tax payments to the authorities in the canton of Lucerne, after having been snubbed at a magisterial meeting in Lucerne. More communities in the canton join in an alliance concluded at Wolhusen on February 26.
• February – The Morning Star Rebellion (Morgonstjärneupproret) of peasants breaks out in Sweden's province of Närke, against Queen Christina. It is brutally suppressed by April, and its leader, the self-proclaimed King Olof Mårtensson (who uses a morning star as his scepter) is executed on a breaking wheel on April 6.
• March 14 – A Dutch fleet defeats the English in the Battle of Leghorn in the Mediterranean but the Dutch commander, Johan van Galen, later dies of his wounds.

April–June

• April 20 – Oliver Cromwell expels the Rump Parliament in England.
• April 28 – The Great Fire of Marlborough destroys 224 houses and much of the textile businesses in the Wiltshire town which, "at that date was one of considerable importance, and had merchants of affluence and repute."
• May 31 – Ferdinand IV, already the King of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia, is elected King of the Romans by his fellow German monarchs, making him eligible to succeed his father Ferdinand III as Holy Roman Emperor. Ferdinand IV will not live to become Holy Roman Emperor, instead dying from smallpox 14 months after his designation.
• June 13 – First Anglo-Dutch War: The English navy defeats the Dutch fleet in the Battle of the Gabbard after a two-day fight.
• June 20 – The Swiss peasant war of 1653 ends after Swiss Army troops under the command of Sebastian Peregrin Zwyer suppress the last rebels in Switzerland's Entlebuch Valley.

July–September

• July 4 – Barebone's Parliament, named for a prominent Puritan member, Praise-God Barebone, opens its session in London with elected representatives to pass laws for the Commonwealth of England.
• July 8 – John Thurloe becomes Cromwell's head of intelligence.
• August 5 – Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg reaffirms the nobility's freedom from taxation, and its unlimited control over the peasants, in return for a grant to him of 530,000 silver Joachimsthalers to be paid in installments over six years.
• August 8 – The petite post, a system of postage using prepaid labels and post boxes, is inaugurated in Paris by Jean-Jacques Renouard de Villayer for the mailing of letters within the city, an event noted by Madeleine de Scudéry in her manuscript Chroniques du samedi.
• August 10 – The Battle of Scheveningen, the final naval battle of the First Anglo-Dutch War, ends after three days of fighting off the island of Texel, as the English Navy gains a tactical victory over the Dutch fleet.
• September 13 – A violent storm off the west coast of Scotland sinks the English Navy warship Swan, and the commandeered merchantmen Speedwell and Martha and Margaret, all of which have been anchored off of Mull. Most of the crews had gone ashore, but 23 of the men on the ship Speedwell are killed.
• September 29 – In India, the third and final attempt by the Mughal Empire, to recapture the city of Kandahar from the Safavid Empire, ends in failure after almost six months despite the presence of 70,000 Mughal soldiers under the command of Prince Dara Shukoh.

October–December

• October 11 (October 1 O.S.) – The Zemsky Sobor, the Russian Empire's national assembly, opens its session to declare a war against the Kingdom of Poland.
• October 20 – The Battle of Bordeaux is fought between French and Spanish warships in the Gironde estuary of France as part of the Franco-Spanish War. The Spanish fleet of 30 warships, under the command of Álvaro de Bazán y Manrique de Lara, Marquis of Santa Cruz, overwhelms the French fleet of César, Duke of Vendôme and captures ten galleys and brigantines, as well as burning four other warships and 15 barges.
• October 25 – Erdeni Bumba, the wife and chief consort of China's Shunzhi Emperor, is demoted from being the empress to being a concubine.
• October 29 – Pierre-Esprit Radisson, a French Canadian teenager who had been captured by a Mohawk raiding party two years earlier and then tortured, escapes captivity in what is now the U.S. state of New York.
• November 8 – The Battle of Arronches takes place near the town of Arronches on the Portuguese side of the border between Portugal and Spain, with the Portuguese Army outflanking and defeating a larger Spanish force.
• November 16 – The Krishnanattam, a series of eight dance dramas written by Mana Veda, Zamorin of Calicut in India to tell the epic of the Hindu god Krishna, is completed.
• November 30 – Jacques Dyel du Parquet completes his installment payments, totaling 41,500 French livres, to become the exclusive owner of the Caribbean islands of Martinique, Grenada, Saint Lucia and the Grenadines.
• November – John Casor, a servant of African descent in Northampton County of the colony of Virginia, leaves Anthony Johnson's farm, after claiming his contract of indenture had expired, and goes to work for a new employer, Robert Parker. Johnson sues Parker, claiming that Casor is a slave for life, rather than an indentured servant, and the court issues a landmark ruling on March 8, 1655, establishing African-Americans as property.
• December 7 – The Moti Masjid, an Islamic mosque made completely of white marble and within the walls of the Agra Fort in what is now the city of Agra in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, is dedicated by the Mughal Emperor, Shah Jahan, on 16 Muharram 1064.
• December 12 – The dissolution of Barebone's Parliament is voted by its members after having passed laws for the Commonwealth of England.
• December 16 – The Instrument of Government in England becomes Britain's first written constitution, under which Oliver Cromwell becomes Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland, being advised by a remodelled English Council of State. This is the start of The First Protectorate, bringing an end to the first period of republican government in the country, the Commonwealth of England.

Date unknown

• Marcello Malpighi, an Italian pioneer of microscopical anatomy becomes a doctor of medicine.
• Stephen Bachiler, a clergyman and early advocate for the separation of church and state returns to England after having spent more than 20 years overseas in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
• The gardens surrounding the Taj Mahal mausoleum are completed at Agra.

1654

January–March

• January 6 – In India, Jaswant Singh of Marwar (in the modern-day state of Rajasthan) is elevated to the title of Maharaja by Emperor Shah Jahan.
• January 11 – Arauco War – Battle of Río Bueno in southern Chile: Indigenous Huilliche warriors rout Spanish troops from Fort Nacimiento, who are attempting to cross the Bueno River.
• January 26 – Portugal recaptures the South American city of Recife from the Netherlands after a siege of more than two years during the Dutch-Portuguese War, bringing an end to Dutch rule of what is now Brazil. The Dutch West India Company has held the city (which they call Mauritsstad) for more than 23 years.
• February 9 – Spanish troops led by Don Gabriel de Rojas y Figueroa succeed in the capture of Fort Rocher, a pirate-controlled base on the Caribbean island of Tortuga.
• February 10 – The Battle of Tullich takes place in Aberdeenshire in Scotland during Glencairn's rising, a revolt by Scottish royalists against the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland led by Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell. The battle is indecisive.
• March 13 – The Treaty of Pereyaslav is concluded in the city of Pereyaslav during a meeting between the Cossacks of the Zaporozhian Host and Tsar Alexey I of Russia following the end to the Khmelnytsky Uprising in Ukraine, which started in 1648 and has resulted in the massacre of many thousands of Jews.

April–June

• April 5 – The Treaty of Westminster, ending the First Anglo-Dutch War, is signed.
• April 11 – A commercial treaty between England and Sweden is signed.
• April 12 – Oliver Cromwell creates a union between England and Scotland, with Scottish representation in the Parliament of England.
• May 5 – Cromwell's Act of Grace, officially the Act of Pardon and Grace to the People of Scotland, is proclaimed at the Mercat Cross in Edinburgh.
• May 8 – Otto von Guericke demonstrates the power of atmospheric pressure and the effectiveness of his vacuum pump, using the Magdeburg hemispheres, before Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor, and the Imperial Diet in Regensburg.
• June 3 – Louis XIV of France is crowned at Reims.
• June 16 (June 6 Old Style) – Charles X Gustav succeeds his cousin Christina on the Swedish throne. After her abdication on the same day, Christina, now the former reigning queen of a Protestant nation, secretly converts to Catholicism.

July–September

• July 5 – The Russian Army camps outside Smolensk and the Thirteen Years' War starts between Russia and Poland over Ukraine.
• July 10
  • Peter Vowell and John Gerard are executed in London for plotting to assassinate Oliver Cromwell.
  • Don Pantaleon, brother of the Portuguese ambassador to England, is executed after the death of an innocent man following a fracas at the exchange in Exeter.
• August 12 – The Battle of Shklow, one of the first clashes of the Russo-Polish War, takes place at the modern-day Belarusan town of Škłoŭ during a total eclipse of the Sun visible over Eastern Europe. The Russian troops retreat.
• August 18 – Oliver Cromwell launches the Western Design with the appointment of Admiral William Penn to prepare for a fleet to leave on Christmas Day for an English expedition to the Caribbean to counter Spanish commercial interests, effectively beginning the Anglo-Spanish War (which will last until after the English Restoration in 1660). The fleet leaves Portsmouth in late December.
• August 22 – Jewish arrival in New Amsterdam: 23 Sephardic Jews arrive as refugees from Brazil and settle in New Amsterdam, forming the nucleus of what will be the second largest urban Jewish community in history, that of New York City, and of Congregation Shearith Israel, the first synagogue in North America.
• August 25 – Russia routs the Polish Army in the Battle of Shepeleviche.
• September 3 – In England, the First Protectorate Parliament assembles.
• September 12 – Oliver Cromwell orders the exclusion of 120 members of Parliament who are hostile to him.
• September 23 – Smolensk falls to the Russian Army after almost three months.

October –December

• October 12 – The Delft Explosion, in the arsenal, devastates the city in the Netherlands, killing more than 100, among whom is Carel Fabritius (32), the most promising student of Rembrandt.
• October 31 – Ferdinand Maria, Elector of Bavaria, is crowned. His absolutist style of leadership becomes a benchmark for the rest of Germany.
• November 23 – French mathematician, scientist and religious philosopher Blaise Pascal experiences an intense mystical vision that marks him for life.
• December 11 – Sir William Petty wins the contract from the Commonwealth of England to make a survey of Ireland.
• December 14 – Jerónimo de Ataíde, Count of Atouguia, becomes Portugal's new Governor-General of Brazil, succeeding João Rodrigues de Vasconcelos e Sousa.
• December 25 – An English Navy fleet of 17 warships and 20 transports, carrying 325 cannons, 1,145 seamen, and 1,830 troops, under the command of Admiral William Penn departs from Portsmouth to begin Oliver Cromwell's planned surprise attack on Spain's colonies in the New World.

1655

January–March

• January 5 – Emperor Go-Sai ascends to the throne of Japan.
• January 7 – Pope Innocent X, leader of the Roman Catholic Church and the Papal States, dies after more than 10 years of rule.
• February 14 – The Mapuches launch coordinated attacks against the Spanish in Chile, beginning the Mapuche uprising of 1655.
• February 16 – Dutch Grand Pensionary advisor Johan de Witt marries Wendela Bicker.
• March 8 – John Casor becomes the first legally recognized slave in what will become the United States, as a court in Northampton County in the Colony of Virginia issues its decision in the Casor lawsuit, the first instance of a judicial determination in the Thirteen Colonies holding that a person who has committed no crime could be held in servitude for life.
• March 25 – Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is discovered by Christiaan Huygens.

April–June

• April 4 – Battle of Porto Farina, Tunis: English admiral Robert Blake's fleet defeats the Barbary pirates.
• April 7 – Pope Alexander VII (born Fabio Chigi) succeeds Pope Innocent X, as the 237th pope.
• April 24 – The Piedmontese Easter Massacre of the Waldensians: Charles Emmanuel II, Duke of Savoy slaughters 1,500 men, women and children; this is memorialized in John Milton's sonnet "On the Late Massacre in Piedmont" and apologized for by Pope Francis in 2015.
• April 26 – The Dutch West India Company denies Peter Stuyvesant's request to exclude Jews from New Amsterdam (Manhattan).
• April 28 – Admiral Blake severely damages the arsenal of the Bey of Tunis.
• May 10–27 – Anglo-Spanish War: Invasion of Jamaica – Forces of the English Protectorate led by William Penn and Robert Venables capture the island of Jamaica from Spain.
• June 13 – Adriana Nooseman-van de Bergh becomes the first actress, in Amsterdam theater.

July–September

• July 20 – The Amsterdam Town Hall (the modern-day Royal Palace) is inaugurated.
• July 27
  • The Jews in New Amsterdam petition for a separate Jewish cemetery.
  • The Netherlands and Brandenburg sign a military treaty.
• July 30 – Dutch troops capture Fort Assahudi Seram.
• July 31 – Russo-Polish War (1654–67): The Russian army enters the capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Vilnius, which it holds for 6 years.
• August 9 – Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell divides England into 11 districts, under major-generals.
• August 28 – New Amsterdam and Peter Stuyvesant bar colonial Jews from military service.
• August – The governor of New Netherland, Peter Stuyvesant, attacks the New Sweden (Delaware) colony.
• September 8 – Swedish King Karl X Gustav occupies Warsaw (Poland).
• September 26 – Peter Stuyvesant recaptures the Dutch Fory Casimir, and defeats the New Sweden (Delaware) colony.

October –December

• October 15 – The Jews of Lublin are massacred.
• October 19 – Swedish King Karl X Gustav occupies Kraków (Poland).
• November 3 – England and France sign military and economic treaties.
• November 24 – English Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell announces measures against the Laudian party, which are enforced starting on January 1.
• December 4 – Middelburg, the Netherlands forbids the building of a synagogue.
• December 18 – The Whitehall Conference ends with the determination that there is no law preventing Jews from re-entering England after the Edict of Expulsion of 1290.
• December 27 – Second Northern War/the Deluge: Monks at the Jasna Góra Monastery in Częstochowa are successful in fending off a month-long siege.

Date unknown

• Stephan Farffler, a 22-year-old paraplegic watchmaker, builds the world's first self-propelling chair on a three-wheel chassis using a system of cranks and cogwheels. However, the device has the appearance of a hand bike more than a wheelchair since the design includes hand cranks mounted at the front wheel.
• The Bibliotheca Thysiana is erected, the only surviving 17th century example in the Netherlands, of a building designed as a library.
• 1655 Malta plague outbreak kills 20 people.
• Frederick III of Denmark-Norway gives control of the Faroe Islands to Christoffer Gabel and his son, which will last until 1709.

1656

January–March

• January 5 – The First War of Villmergen, a civil war in the Confederation of Switzerland pitting its Protestant and Roman Catholic cantons against each other, breaks out but is resolved by March 7. The Lutheran cantons of the larger cities of Zurich, Bern and Schaffhausen battle against seven Catholic cantons of Lucerne, Schwyz, Uri, Zug, Baden Unterwalden (now Obwalden and Nidwalden) and St. Gallen.
• January 17 – The Treaty of Königsberg is signed, establishing an alliance between Charles X Gustav of Sweden and Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg.
• January 24 – The first Jewish doctor in the Thirteen Colonies of America, Jacob Lumbrozo, arrives in Maryland.
• January 20 – Reinforced by soldiers dispatched by the Viceroy of Peru, Spanish Chilean troops defeat the indigenous Mapuche warriors in a battle at San Fabián de Conuco in what is now central Chile, turning the tide in the Spanish colonists favor in the Mapuche uprising after more than a year.
• February 18 (February 8 O.S.) – Swedish Empire troops led by King Carl X Gustav defeat troops of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth commanded by General Stefan Czarniecki in the first major engagement of the Swedish Deluge, meeting in the Battle of Golab.
• February 23 – London's Lord Mayor Christopher Packe suggests to Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector and chief executive of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland, that the monarchy should be restored with Cromwell as its King. Cromwell declines to become King Oliver, but his right to name his successor becomes effective on May 25, 1657 with the commencement of the Humble Petition and Advice.
• February 26 – A rebellion of Turkish soldiers, leading to the "Çınar incident", takes place after a palace guard for Ottoman Sultan Mehmet IV turns away a representative group who had come for payment for their services during the war in Crete. The rebellion ends with the mass killing 30 men identified by the rebels as being responsible for the non-payment.
• March 3 – Fyodor Baykov, the Russian Empire's first envoy to China, is admitted to the Forbidden City within Beijing, after being sent by Tsar Alexis to negotiate a trade agreement with the Emperor Shunzi.
• March 4 – The "Çınar incident", named for the Turkish word for the sycamore tree takes place after Ottoman Sultan Mehmet IV declines the request of soldiers to have 30 named government officials put to death. When Mehmet agrees only to dismiss the people from office, the rebels seek out the men on the list and publicly hang most of them from the cinar trees.
• March 5 – Zurnazen Mustafa Pasha is appointed as the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire after persuading Mehmet IV to rescind the February 28 selection of Gazi Hüseyin Pasha. Zurnazen Mustafa's rule lasts only four hours and he is sent into exile the same day.
• March 7 – The First War of Villmergen in the Confederation of Switzerland ends with a peace agreement, mediated by France and the Duchy of Savoy, between the Protestant and Roman Catholic cantons
• March 15 – Almost a month after their defeat by Sweden at the battle of Golab, Polish and Lithuanian troops commanded by Stefan Czarniecki defeat King Karl X Gustav's Swedish Army at the Battle of Jaroslaw.
• March 23 – Roman Catholic Pope Alexander VII issues a decree ending the Chinese Rites controversy between Jesuit missionaries (who tolerate the rites as compatible with Catholicism) and Dominican and Franciscan missionaries (who consider the Chinese rituals incompatible). The Pope rules that practices ""favorable to Chinese customs", including Confucianism and ancestor worship, can be accepted as compatible with Catholic rites.

April–June

• April 1 – John II Casimir Vasa, King of Poland, crowns the Black Madonna of Częstochowa as Queen and Protector of Poland in the cathedral of Lwów, after the miraculous saving of the Jasna Góra Monastery during the Deluge, an event which changed the course of the Second Northern War. The King swears a vow, the Lwów Oath, pledging to protect Poland's people from being conquered again.
• April 2 – The Treaty of Brussels is signed, creating an alliance between Philip IV of Spain and the exiled Royalists of the British Isles, led by Charles II.
• April 28 – The Dutch East India Company ship Vergulde Draeck, with 193 crew aboard and a valuable cargo is wrecked off Ledge Point, Western Australia, with the loss of 118 members. Another 75 make it to shore, with limited provisions. The ship had been bound from the Cape of Good Hope to Batavia in the Dutch East Indies (now Jakarta in Indonesia).
• May 7 – Nine days after the wreck of the Vergulde Draeck, a steersman and six crew members are dispatched to Batavia to get help. The other 68 survivors remain at Ledge Point and await rescue but are not seen again.
• May 12 – The Dutch capture the city of Colombo, Sri Lanka, marking the start of Netherlands colonial rule of Dutch Ceylon.
• May 17 – In elections by the nobility of Venice for the Leader of the Venetian Republic, Francesco Cornaro defeats Bertuccio Valier. Cornaro dies less than three weeks later, on June 5.
• June 15 – Bertuccio Valier is elected as the new Doge of the Venetian Republic in Venice.
• June 16 – After a 41-day voyage, the seven-member team dispatched from the Vergulde Draeck reaches Batavia and alerts Dutch East India Company officials that the ship was wrecked on April 28. Two rescue ships, the Goede Hoop and the Witte Valck are sent to rescue the men marooned in Western Australia. By the time the Goede Hoop arrives, the crew find no sign of the wreckage of the Vergulde Draeck.
• June 21 – Poland's capital, Warsaw, is recaptured by Poland's John II Casimir Vasa 11 months after the capital had fallen on July 25, 1655 to Sweden.
• June 27 – The Navy of the Ottoman Empire suffers a major defeat after two days of fighting against the navies of the Republic of Venice and of Malta in the Battle of the Dardanelles, one of the Turkish straits that connects the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. Out of 98 Ottoman Turkish ships under the command of Kenan Pasha, 82 are either captured or destroyed. Venice loses only three of its ships, but its commander, Admiral Lorenzo Marcello, is killed by a direct cannon hit to his flagship.
• June 29 – The Treaty of Marienburg is signed by representatives of Sweden and of Brandenburg and Prussia to create a military alliance during the Second Northern War. King Karl X Gustav signs for Sweden and the Elector Friedrich Wilhelm signs for Brandenburg and Prussia.

July–September

• July 18 – In an attempt to find survivors of the Vergulde Draeck, a search party is sent ashore by the rescue ship Goede Hoop; eleven men from two search parties while in the forests around the wreckage site. No trace of the Vergulde Draeck will be found for more than three centuries, until its wreckage is discovered by skin divers on April 13, 1963.
• July 27 – A Writ of Excommunication is issued against Baruch Spinoza.
• July 30 – After a battle of three days, Swedish and Brandenburger troops led by King Charles X Gustav of Sweden, defeat the forces of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, near Warsaw and recapture the recently liberated capital.
• August 8 – In the Ayutthaya Kingdom, comprising most of the territory now occupied by Thailand, King Prasat Thong dies after a reign of more than 25 years. His eldest son, Prince Chao Fa Chai, is crowned as King Sanpet VI but Prasat's brother plots the new king's overthrow.
• August 9 – King Sanpet's uncle, Prince Si Suthammaracha, stages a coup d'etat and becomes the new King of Ayutthaya, now Thailand. Suthammaracha appoints another nephew, Prince Narai, as his chief minister and former King Sanpet is executed two days later on August 11. Suthammaracha's reign lasts less than three months.
• August 14 – In one of the first battles of the Russo-Swedish War, Russian troops capture the Swedish-controlled city of Kokenhusen in Swedish Livonia (Latvia). Tsar Alexis, ruler of the Russian Empire and the leader of the Russian troops in battle, renames Kokenhausen "Tsarevich-Dmitriev" in honor of his late first-born son. Russia holds the city for more than 30 years before it is ceded back to Sweden. Kokenhusen is now the Latvian town of Koknese.
• August 27 – The Treaty of Butre is signed in West Africa by representatives of the Dutch West India Company and of the Ahanta Kingdom and allows the Netherlands to have a protectorate over the Dutch Gold Coast. The area is now part of the Republic of Ghana.
• September 15 – Köprülü Mehmed Pasha becomes Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire.

October–December

• October 26 – King Si Suthammaracha of Ayutthaya (now Thailand) is overthrown in a coup d'etat by his nephew and former ally, Prince Narai, 11 weeks after having staged a coup to seize the throne. Narai is crowned as King Ramathibodi III.
• November 3 – The Truce of Vilna is signed between Russia and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In addition to agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in their ongoing war, Tsar Alexis of Russia agrees to help defend the commonwealth against Sweden's invasion in return for Tsar Alexis being named heir to the thrones of Poland and Lithuania by King John II Casimir Vasa.
• November 4 – Ali Adil Shah II becomes the new Sultan of Bijapur (located in what is now India's Karnataka state) upon the death of his father, Mohammed Adil Shah.
• November 6 – At the age of 13, Prince Afonso, Duke of Braganza becomes the new King of Portugal upon the death of his father, King João IV. Because of his age and a mental disability King Afonso VI's authority is exercised instead by his mother, Queen Luisa, as Regent.
• November 20 – The Treaty of Labiau is signed, between Charles X Gustav of Sweden and Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg.
• December 1 – A treaty of alliance is signed between the Holy Roman Empire and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
• December 6 – The Treaty of Radnot is signed between Sweden, the Electorate of Brandenburg, Transylvania (now Romania), and two rebels groups within Poland on how to divide the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the event of a victory in the Second Northern War.
• December 16 – English Quaker James Nayler is convicted of blasphemy but spared the death penalty.
• December 17 – King Frederick III of Denmark and Norway decrees that loan repayments and payments of interest to lenders will be made on two specific days, May 29 and June 11, each one nicknamed the Fandens fødselsdag or "Devil's Birthday",
• December 25 – The pendulum clock is invented by Christiaan Huygens, so accurate that it only loses 10 seconds per day. Huygens will mention the date in a letter to Ismail Boulliau a year later.

Undated

• The Stockholm Banco, the first bank to issue banknotes, is founded in Stockholm, Sweden.
• The only English fifty shilling coin is minted.
• Konoike Zen'amon (son of Konoike Shinroku) founds a baking and money-changing business in Osaka, Japan.
• Adams' Grammar School at Newport, Shropshire, England is founded by William Adams.
• Physician Samuel Stockhausen of the metal mining town of Goslar, Lower Saxony publishes his Libellus de lithargyrii fumo noxio morbifico, ejusque metallico frequentiori morbo vulgò dicto die Hütten Katze oder Hütten Rauch ("Treatise on the Noxious Fumes of Litharge, Diseases caused by them and Miners' Asthma"), a pioneering study of occupational disease.

1657

January–March

• January 8 – Miles Sindercombe and his group of disaffected Levellers are betrayed in their attempt to assassinate Oliver Cromwell by blowing up the Palace of Whitehall in London and are arrested.
• January 29 – Rule of the Major-Generals (regional military government) in England is abolished.
• February 4 – Resettlement of the Jews in England: Oliver Cromwell gives Antonio Fernandez Carvajal the assurance of the right of Jews to remain in England.
• February 23 – In England, the Humble Petition and Advice offers Lord Protector Cromwell the crown.
• March 2 – The Great Fire of Meireki in Edo, Japan, destroys most of the city and damages Edo Castle, killing an estimated 100,000 people.
• March 23 – Anglo-Spanish War (1654–60): By the Treaty of Paris, France and England form an alliance against Spain; England will receive Dunkirk.

April–June

• April 20
  • Anglo-Spanish War – Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife: English Admiral Robert Blake attempts to seize a Spanish treasure fleet.
  • The Jews of New Amsterdam (later New York City) are granted freedom of religion, as full citizens.
• May 8 – Lord Protector Cromwell confirms his refusal of the crown of England, preferring the title "Lord Protector".
• June 1
  • King Frederick III of Denmark signs a manifesto, de facto declaring war on Sweden.
  • The first eleven Quaker settlers arrive in New Amsterdam (later New York City), and are allowed to practice their faith.

July–September

• July 13 – Following his refusal to take the oath of allegiance to Oliver Cromwell, English army leader John Lambert is ordered to resign his commissions.
• August 20 – The ship Les Armes d'Amsterdam arrives at Quebec, New France. Among the passengers is Michel Mathieu Brunet dit Lestang (1638–1708), colonist, explorer and co-discoverer of modern-day Green Bay, Wisconsin, and ancestor of the Brunet, Lestang and Carisse families of North America.
• September 19 – Brandenburg and Poland sign the Treaty of Wehlau.
• September 24 – The first autopsy and coroner's jury verdict in the Colony of Maryland are recorded.
• September – Shah Jahan becomes ill, allowing his son to take control of the Mughal Empire.

October–December

• October 1 – Treaty of Raalte: William III, Prince of Orange is no longer stadtholder of Overijssel.
• October 3 – French troops occupy Mardyck.
• November 6 – Brandenburg and Poland sign the Treaty of Bromberg.
• November 10 – Christina, former Queen regnant of Sweden, has Gian Rinaldo Monaldeschi killed in her presence, at the Palace of Fontainebleau.
• December 27 – The Flushing Remonstrance is signed in New Amsterdam, at the site of the future (1862) Flushing Town Hall in New York City.

Date unknown

• The Accademia del Cimento is founded in Florence, Italy.
• England's first chocolate house is opened in London and introduction of tea in England while coffee is introduced to France.
• Christiaan Huygens writes the first book to be published on probability theory, De ratiociniis in ludo aleae ("On Reasoning in Games of Chance").
• Andreas Gryphius' drama Katharina von Georgien is published in Breslau.
• Thomas Middleton's tragedy Women Beware Women (c. 1623–24) is published posthumously in London.

1658

January–March

• January 13 – Edward Sexby, who had plotted against Oliver Cromwell, dies in the Tower of London.
• January 30 – The "March Across the Belts" (Tåget över Bält), Sweden's use of winter weather to send troops across the waters of the Danish straits at a time when winter has turned them to ice, begins. Within 17 days, Sweden's King Karl X Gustav leads troops across the ice belts to capture six of Denmark's islands as Swedish territory.
• February 5 – Prince Muhi al-Din Muhammad, one of the sons of India's Mughal, Emperor Shah Jahan, proclaims himself Emperor after Jahan names Muhi's older brother, Dara Shikoh, as regent, and departs from Aurangabad with troops.
• February 6 – Swedish troops of Charles X Gustav of Sweden cross The Great Belt in Denmark, over frozen sea.
• March 8 (February 26 OS) – The peace between Sweden and Denmark-Norway is concluded in Roskilde by the Treaty of Roskilde, under which Denmark is forced to cede significant territory. This leads to Sweden reaching its territorial height during its time as a great power.

April–June

• April 15 – In India, the Battle of Dharmat is fought in the modern-day state of Madhya Pradesh between rival claimants to the throne of the Mughal Empire. Prince Muhi al-Din Muhammad, the son of the Emperor Shah Jahan, leads 30,000 men in a triumph over 22,000 troops led by Jaswant Singh of Marwar and Ratan Singh Rathore. Despite heavy losses, with more than 11,000 casualties, Prince Muhi, who has adopted the name Aurangzeb, continues toward Samugarh and Agra and captures the throne at the end of July.
• April 16 – In Skåneland, a region recently ceded by Denmark to the Swedish Empire, representatives of the nobility of the provinces of Blekinge, Halland and Scania gather at the Scanian city of Malmö to swear their allegiance to King Charles X Gustav of Sweden.
• May 1 – Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial and The Garden of Cyrus are published by Thomas Browne in England.
• May 29 – Aurangzeb wins the Battle of Samugarh as Indian Mughal regent Dara Shikoh makes a last effort to defend the Mughal capital Agra.
• June 3 – Pope Alexander VII appoints François de Laval vicar apostolic of New France.
• June 14 – Anglo-Spanish War (1654–60) and Franco-Spanish War (1635–59): In the Battle of the Dunes, a Spanish force attempting to lift a siege of Dunkirk is defeated by the French and English. England is then given Dunkirk, for its assistance in the victory.
• June 25–27 – In the Battle of Rio Nuevo, part of the Anglo-Spanish War, a Spanish invasion force fails to recapture Jamaica from the English.

July–September

• July 2 – The Siege of Toruń begins in Poland as troops of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and of Austria seek to recapture the city of Toruń from a garrison of the Swedish Army. Within six months, the Swedish occupiers surrender.
• July 18 – Prince Leopold of the House of Habsburg, son of the late Ferdinand III, is elected as the new Holy Roman Emperor.
• July 31 – After Shah Jahan completes the Taj Mahal, his son Aurangzeb deposes him as ruler of the Mughal Empire.
• July – Šarhūda's Manchu fleet annihilates Onufriy Stepanov's Russian flotilla, on the Amur River.
• August 1 – The coronation of Leopold I takes place in Frankfurt.
• August 5 – Just six months after winning territory from Denmark-Norway in war and subsequent treaty, Sweden's King Charles X Gustav declares a second war against Denmark. By August 11, the King's troops have surrounded Denmark's capital, Copenhagen, while the Swedish Navy blocks the harbor to prevent the city from being resupplied, and begins bombardment.
• August 14 – The League of the Rhine (Rheinische Allianz) is formed by 50 German princes whose cities are on the Rhine river.
• September 3 – Oliver Cromwell dies and his son Richard assumes his father's position as Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland.
• September 17 – Portuguese Restoration War: In the Battle of Vilanova, a Spanish army, having crossed the Minho, defeats the Portuguese.

October–December

• October 7 – The Netherlands enters the Dano-Swedish War to come to the rescue of Denmark, sending a 45-ship fleet from Vlie.
• October 29 – The 45-ship fleet of the Netherlands arrives at Denmark and begins its counterattack on Sweden's army and navy with three squadrons.
• November 6 – The Mexican Inquisition carries out the execution, by public burning, of 14 men convicted of homosexuality, while another 109 arrested are either released or given less harsh sentences.
• November 8 (October 29 old style) – The Battle of the Sound takes place between the navies of the Dutch Republic (with 41 warships) and of Sweden (with 45) at the Øresund, a strait between Denmark and Sweden's newly-acquired territory, the former Danish island of Scania. The Dutch Republic is successful at breaking the Swedish Navy's blockade of Copenhagen, and Sweden is forced to retreat, bringing an end to the attempted conquest of Denmark.
• November 23 – The elaborate funeral of Lord Protector of England Oliver Cromwell (who had died on September 3 and was buried at Westminster Abbey two weeks later) is carried out in London. A little more than two years later (in January 1661), his body will be disinterred and his head severed and placed on a spike.
• December 11 – Abaza Hasan Pasha, an Ottoman provincial governor who is attempting to depose the Grand Vizier, wins a battle at the Turkish city of Ilgin, defeating loyalist forces led by Murtaza Pasha. The victory is the last for the rebels. Two months later (February 16, 1659) Abaza Hasan is assassinated after being invited to peace negotiations by the loyalists.
• December 20 – Representatives of the Russian Empire and the Swedish Empire sign the Treaty of Valiesar at the Valiesar Estate near Narva, part of modern-day Estonia. In return for ceasing hostilities between the two empires in the Second Northern War, Russia is allowed to keep captured territories in Livonia (part of modern-day Latvia) for a term of three years.
• December 25 – Polish and Danish forces defeat a Swedish Army in the Battle of Kolding in Denmark.
• December 30 – The Siege of Toruń ends almost six months after it started, with Poland recapturing the city from Sweden.

Date unknown

• Portuguese traders are expelled from Ceylon by Dutch invaders.
• The Dutch in the Cape Colony start to import slaves from India and South-East Asia (later from Madagascar).

1659

January–March

• January 14 – In the Battle of the Lines of Elvas, fought near the small city of Elvas in Portugal during the Portuguese Restoration War, the Spanish Army under the command of Luis Méndez de Haro suffers heavy casualties, with over 11,000 of its nearly 16,000 soldiers killed, wounded or taken prisoner; the smaller Portuguese force of 10,500 troops, commanded by André de Albuquerque Ribafria (who is killed in the battle) suffers less than 900 casualties.
• January 24 – Pierre Corneille's Oedipe premieres in Paris.
• January 27 – The third and final session of the Parliament of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland is opened by Lord Protector Richard Cromwell, with Chaloner Chute as the Speaker of the House of Commons, with 567 members. "Cromwell's Other House", which replaces the House of Lords during the last years of the Protectorate, opens on the same day, with Richard Cromwell as its speaker.
• January 31 – Giovanna De Grandis is arrested in Rome and charged with trafficking the lethal Aqua Tofana poison. On February 2, she implicates the mastermind of the poisoners, Gironima Spana, starting the case of the Spana Prosecution that eventually leads to the arrest and trial of 40 people.
• February 2 – Jan van Riebeeck produces the first South African wine, at the Cape of Good Hope.
• February 11 – The Assault on Copenhagen by Swedish forces is beaten back, with heavy losses.
• February 16 – The first known cheque (400 pounds) is written.
• March 1 – In exile in the Netherlands while plotting the restoration of the monarchy to England, Scotland and Ireland, Charles, son of the late King Charles I appoints seven royalists (including six from the "Sealed Knot" group) to a "Great Trust and Commission" to make plans for a post-restoration government. The Great Trust is led by Charles's trusted advisor, Edward Hyde.
• March 9 – Sir Lislebone Long is elected as the Speaker of the House of Commons by the Third Protectorate Parliament after Chaloner Chute becomes seriously ill. Long serves only six days before dying on March 16. Chute remains Speaker but dies on April 14 and is replaced by Thomas Bampfield.
• March 11 – Prince Dara Shikoh, who had been the heir apparent to the throne of the Mughal Empire in India until the overthrow of his father, Shah Jahan, makes a stand near Ajmer to fight the armies sent by Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, but loses and is forced to flee.
• March 28 – The Danish Africa Company (Dansk afrikanske kompagni) is chartered to Hendrik Carloff for the purpose of capturing Africa slaves from the area around Denmark's colony on the Danish Gold Coast for use in the West Indies.

April–June

• April 22 – Under pressure from the English Army in London, which has assembled troops outside of Westminster, Richard Cromwell, Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland, dissolves the Third Protectorate Parliament, the last for the Commonwealth.
• May 6 – English Army General Hezekiah Haynes, joined by officers Charles Fleetwood, John Lambert, James Berry, Robert Lilburne, Thomas Kelsey, William Goffe and William Packer, presents the manifesto A Declaration of the Officers of the Army, advocating that Lord Protector Cromwell step down after restoring the "Rump Parliament" to administer England. Cromwell restores the parliament rule the next day and decides to step down.
• May 21 – The Kingdom of France, the Commonwealth of England and the Dutch Republic sign the Concert of The Hague, agreeing a common stance on the Second Northern War.
• May 25 – Richard Cromwell resigns as English Lord Protector, submitting "a letter that may have been dictated to him." In the letter, signed by Cromwell in front of Sir Gilbert Pickering and Lord Chief-Justice St. John, "I have perused the Resolve and Declaration, which you were pleased to deliver to me the other Night," and after listing his personal debts to be paid in return for stepping down, "As to that Part of the Resolve, whereby the Committee are to inform themselves, How far I do acquiesce in the Government of this Commonwealth, as it is declared by this Parliament; I trust, my past Carriage hitherto hath manifested my Acquiescence in the Will and Disposition of God; and that I love and value the Peace of this Commonwealth much above my own Concernments: And I desire, that by this, a Measure of my future Deportment may be taken; which, thro' the Assistance of God, shall be such as shall bear the same Witness; having, I hope, in some degree, learned rather to reverence and submit to the Hand of God, than to be unquiet under it: And, as to the late Providences that have fallen out amongst us, however, in respect of the particular Engagements that lay upon me, I could not be active in making a Change in the Government of these Nations, yet through the Goodness of God, I can freely acquiesce in it, being made; and do hold myself obliged." The executive government is replaced by the restored Council of State, dominated by Generals John Lambert, Charles Fleetwood and John Desborough. The Council of State is dismissed by the Rump Parliament on October 13 and replaced by the "Committee of Safety" on October 25.
• June 10 – Dara Shikoh, at one time the heir apparent for the Mughal Empire, is betrayed by an Afghan chieftain, Junaid Khan Barozai, who had initially given him refuge from pursuit from the new emperor, Aurangzeb. Turned over to Aurangzeb's men, Dara Shikoh is killed on August 30.
• June 29 – In the Battle of Konotop, fought near the Ukrainian city of Konotop during the Russo-Polish War, Polish Cossack hetman Ivan Vyhovsky and his allies defeat the armies of the Tsardom of Russia, led by Aleksey Trubetskoy.

July–September

• July 5 – Five women are executed by hanging at Rome after being convicted of murder in the Spana Prosecution by distributing the powerful Aqua Tofana poison, sold primarily to women wishing to get rid of their husbands. Put to death on the same day are Gironima Spana, Giovanna De Grandis, Maria Spinola, Graziosa Farina and Laura Crispoldi, in the public square at the Campo de' Fiori.
• July 16 – Princess Henriette Catherine of Nassau marries John George II, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau, in Groningen.
• July 31 – Dodda Kempadevaraja (Devaraja Wodeyar I) becomes the new maharaja of the Kingdom of Mysore (part of modern-day India's Karnataka state) upon the death of his cousin, Kanthirava Narasaraja I. He is crowned on August 19.
• July – Christiaan Huygens's important work on astronomy, Systema Saturnium, is published.
• August 3 – Booth's Uprising, led by George Booth, begins in the city of Chester as 3,000 royalists attempt a revolt against the military government of England. English Army troops begin marching on August 5 to suppress the rebellion.
• August 7 – As Booth's Uprising spreads to Liverpool, Thomas Myddelton, Randolph Egerton and fellow royalists take control of the town of Wrexham in Wales and proclaim Charles II to be King.
• August 15 – Two English warships block the entrance to the River Dee to prevent supplies from reaching Booth's rebels in Chester, while Major General John Lambert of the English Army advances into Cheshire at Nantwich.
• August 19 – At the Battle of Winnington Bridge, the Protectorate Army of 5,000 troops, dispatched by Parliament and under the command of Major General Lambert, routs the 4,000 anti-government rebels commanded by George Booth of England and Edward Broughton of Wales. Lambert and his forces, exhausted from their rapid march and the battle, elect not to pursue the fleeing rebels and less than 30 rebels are killed.
• August 30 – Poland's army of over 12,000 troops under the command of Jerzy Sebastian Lubomirski and Krzysztof Grodzicki, takes back the city of Grudziadz, which has been under Sweden's control since the end of 1655, after a siege of seven days. Much of the town is left in ruins after a fire and bombardment from Polish cannons.
• September 20 – War between Dutch settlers and the native Lenape Indians, of the Esopus tribe, in modern-day Ulster County, New York, in the U.S., as a group of Dutch settlers from the village of Wiltwijck, New Netherland fires their guns at a group of Esopus men who have been sitting around a campfire. For the next ten months, the Esopus warriors, commanded by Chief Papequanaehen, fight a war with the Dutch that is finally settled with a peace treaty on July 15, 1660.
• September 22 – The Ottoman-ruled island of Kizilhisar (called Castelrosso by Italy and in modern times the island of Kastellorizo in Greece) is captured from the Ottoman Empire by the navy of the Republic of Venice after nearly 150 years of Ottoman rule that had started in 1512.
• September 30 – Peter Stuyvesant of New Netherland forbids tennis playing during religious services, marking the first mention of tennis in what will become the United States.

October–December

• October 12 – The English Rump Parliament dismisses John Lambert, and other generals.
• October 13 – General-major John Lambert drives out the English Rump-government.
• November 7 – The Treaty of the Pyrenees is signed by representatives of King Louis XIV of France and King Philip IV of Spain. Spain agrees to French acquisition of the counties of Roussillon and Upper Cerdanya (Principality of Catalonia) and most of Artois, formally ending the 24-year-long Franco-Spanish War.
• November 25 – Dutch forces under Michiel de Ruyter free the Danish city of Nyborg from Swedish conquest that had taken place earlier in the year.
• December 16 – General George Monck demands free parliamentary elections in Scotland and resolves to overthrow the military government that has ruled the British Isles since 1648.
• December 26 – The Long Parliament reforms occur in Westminster.

Date unknown

• First British colonists arrive on Saint Helena.
• Spanish Infanta Maria Theresa brings cocoa to Paris.
• Diego Velázquez's portrait of Infanta Maria Theresa is first exhibited.
• Thomas Hobbes publishes De Homine.
• Parisian police raid a monastery, sending monks to prison for eating meat and drinking wine during Lent.
• Drought occurs in India.
• Peter Swink, the first known non-white settler to own land in Massachusetts, and first known African to live in Springfield, Massachusetts, arrives. He holds a seat in the town meetings.