- Jan 6 Virginia orders half of its tobacco crop destroyed to support plunging prices and to avoid an economic catastrophe, the 1st colony to order the destruction of crops
- Jan 14 1st Connecticut constitution (Fundamental Orders) adopted in Hartford, published by Rodger Ludlow
- Jan 24 Connecticut colony organizes under Fundamental Orders
Historic Expedition
Jun 2 Secret Dutch expedition to find the Gold and Silver Islands departs Batavia, led by Mathijs Hendrikszoon Quast and Abel Tasman, thought to lie east of Japan, never found [1]
- Jun 6 Massachusetts grants 500 acres of land to erect a gunpowder mill
- Jun 10 1st American log cabin at Fort Christina (Wilmington Delaware)
- Jun 18 Treaty of Berwick: Ends the First Bishops' War between England and Scotland
- Jul 19 French troops occupy Salses, at Perpignan
- Aug 1 French Ursuline nun Marie de l’Incarnation arrives in Quebec on board the Saint-Joseph - goes on to open first school for girls and play a large part in establishing Catholicism in New France [1]
- Aug 22 Madras (now Chennai), India, founded by the British East India Company on sliver of land bought from local Nayak rulers
- Sep 12 Viceroy Thomas Wentworth sails back to England
- Sep 25 First printing press in America set up in Cambridge under the guaranty of Harvard College
- Sep 25 Suzuki Shosan, Samurai monk of Zen Buddhism, found awakening
Battle of the Dunes
Oct 21 Sea battle at Dunes, Dutch fleet under Maarten Tromp defeats Spanish armada under Antonio De Oquendo
- Nov 5 First post office in the colonies is set up in Massachusetts
Transit of Venus
Nov 24 1st observation of transit of Venus by Jeremiah Horrocks and William Crabtree - helped establish size of the Solar System
- Dec 3 1st annulment by court decree passes
Authors
Dictators
Explorers
Outlaws
Queens
Spies