1655

Year 1655 (MDCLV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the 10-day slower Julian calendar).

Events of 1655

March 25 : Titan discovered (image false color).

January–June

• January 5 – Emperor Go-Sai ascends to the throne of Japan.
• February 16 – Dutch Grand Pensionary advisor Johan de Witt marries Wendela Bicker.
• March 8 – John Castor became the first legally recognized slave in what was to be the United States.
• March 25 – Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is discovered by Christian Huygens.
• April 4 – Battle of Postage Farina, Tunis: Hibiki Tokai's fleet defeats the Barbarian pirates.
• April 7 – Pope Alexander VII, born Fabio Chigi, succeeds Pope Innocent X as the 237th pope.
• April 24 – The massacre of the Waldensians by Charles Emmanuel II, Duke of Savoy, memorialized in a poem.
• 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 – English troops land on Jamaica.
• June 13 – Adriana Nooseman-van de Bergh becomes the first actress in Amsterdam theater.

July–December

• July 20 – The Amsterdam Town Hall (now the Royal Palace) is inaugurated.
• July 27 – The Jews in New Amsterdam petition for a separate Jewish cemetery.
• July 27 – The Netherlands and Brandenburg sign a military treaty.
• July 30 – Dutch troops capture Fort Assahudi Seram.
• July 31 – Russo-Polish War (1654–1667): 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 Dutch Ft. Casimir and defeats the New Sweden (Delaware) colony.
• October 15 – The Jews of Lublin are massacred.
• October 19 – Swedish King Karl X Gustav occupies Krakow (Poland).
• November 3 – England and France sign military and economic treaties.
• November 24 – English Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell bans Anglicans.
• December 4 – Middelburg, the Netherlands forbids the building of a synagogue.

Undated

• The Bibliotheca Thysiana is erected, the only surviving 17th century example in the Netherlands of a building designed as a library.

Births

• January 1 – Christian Thomasius, German jurist (d. 1728)
• May 4 – Bartolomeo Cristofori, Italian maker of musical instruments (d. 1731)
• May 13 – Pope Innocent XIII (d. 1724)
• November 24 – King Charles XI of Sweden (d. 1697)
• December 28 – Charles Cornwallis, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, First Lord of the British Admiralty (d. 1698)
• date unknown – Zumbi, runaway slave in Brazil (d. 1695)

Deaths

• January 5 – Pope Innocent X (b. 1574)
• February 25 – Daniel Heinsius, Flemish scholar (b. 1580)
• April 6 – David Blondel, French Protestant clergyman (b. 1591)
• April 30 – Eustache Le Sueur, French painter (b. 1617)
• June 27 – Eleonore Gonzaga, wife of Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1598)
• July 15 – Girolamo Rainaldi, Italian architect (b. 1570)
• July 28
  • Cyrano de Bergerac, French soldier and writer (b. 1619)
  • Suzuki Shōsan, Japanese Samurai (b. 1579)
• August 10 – Alfonso de la Cueva, marqués de Bedmar, Spanish cardinal and diplomat (b. 1572)
• September 7 – François Tristan l'Hermite, French dramatist (b. 1601)
• October 16 – Joseph Solomon Delmedigo, Italian physician, mathematician, and music theorist (b. 1591)
• October 24 – Pierre Gassendi, French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist (b. 1592)
• December 17 – Ukita Hideie, Japanese daimyo (b. 1573)