1680s

This is a list of events occurring in the 1680s, ordered by year.

1680

January–June

• February – The Reverend Ralph Davenant dies, leaving £100 in his will to start up a new school for the poor boys of Whitechapel, in the East End.
• May – The volcano Krakatoa erupts, probably on a relatively small scale.

July–December

• July 8 – The first documented tornado in America kills a servant at Cambridge, Massachusetts.
• August 21 – Pueblo Revolt: Pueblo Indians capture Santa Fe (New Mexico) from the Spanish.
• August 24 – Comédie-Française is founded by decree of Louis XIV of France as La maison de Molière in Paris.
• November 14 – The Great Comet of 1680 is first sighted.
• November 17 – Whigs organize pope-burning processions in London.

Date unknown

• Chambers of Reunion (French courts under Louis XIV) decide on complete annexation of Alsace.
• The first Portuguese governor is appointed to Macau.
• The Swedish city of Karlskrona is founded, as the Royal Swedish Navy relocates there.

1681

January–June

• January 3 – Treaty of Bakhchisarai between the Ottoman vassal Crimean Khanate and the Russian Empire.
• March 14 – Charles II of England grants a land charter to William Penn for the area that will later become Pennsylvania.
• April – Following the death of its last count, the Palatinate-Landsberg passes to the King of Sweden.
• May 15 – The Canal du Midi in France is opened officially as the Canal Royal de Languedoc.^[1]

July–December

• July 1 – Oliver Plunkett, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, falsely convicted in June of treason, is hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn, London, the last Catholic martyr to die in England;^[2] he was canonised in 1975.
• August – English sea captain Robert Knox of the East India Company escapes prison in Ceylon, and details his adventures across Kandy and life in the kingdoms of the Tamil country Vanni in his book An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon.
• August 12 – The Ahom King Gadadhar Singha or Gadapani, who takes the Tai name Supaatphaa, ascends the throne.
• August 31 – English perjurer Titus Oates is told to leave his state apartments in Whitehall; his fame begins to wane and he is soon arrested and imprisoned for sedition.
• September 30 – France annexes the city of Strasbourg (German: Strassburg), previously a free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire.
• October 28 – A London woman is publicly flogged for the crime of "involving herself in politics."
• December – Wu Shifan, grandson of Chinese general Wu Sangui, commits suicide in Yunnan province, ending the 8-year conflict of the Revolt of the Three Feudatories against Qing Dynasty authority in China, at this time led by the Kangxi Emperor.
• December 22 – King Charles II of England signs a warrant for the building of the Royal Hospital Chelsea in London for wounded and retired soldiers.

Date unknown

• Collections are made in England for needy French refugees.
• The Port of Honfleur in France is re-modelled by Abraham Duquesne.
• The basilica of Santa Maria della Salute in Venice, designed by Baldassare Longhena in 1631, is dedicated.
• Possible date – The last dodo bird is killed.

1682

January–June

• March 11 – Work begins on construction of the Royal Hospital Chelsea for old soldiers in London.^[3]
• April 7 – René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, exploring rivers in America, reaches the mouth of the Mississippi River.
• April 9 – At the mouth of the Mississippi River, near modern Venice, Louisiana, Robert de La Salle buries an engraved plate and a cross, claiming the territory as La Louisiane for France.
• May 6 – Louis XIV of France moves his court to Versailles.
• May 7 – The reign of Peter the Great officially begins in Russia.
• May 11 – Moscow Uprising of 1682: A mob takes over the Kremlin and lynches the leading boyars and military commanders.

July–December

• July 19 – Iyasus succeeds his father Yohannes I as Emperor of Ethiopia.
• August 12 – Vesuvius begins a period of volcanic activity lasting for 10 days.
• August 25 – Following the Bideford witch trial, three women become the last known to be hanged for witchcraft in England, at Exeter.^[4]
• September – A comet is observed, which later becomes known as Comet Halley, after Edmond Halley successfully predicts that it will return in 1758.
• September 14 – Bishop Gore School in Swansea, Wales, is founded.
• October 12 – Sultan Mehmed IV departs Istanbul for Adrianople.
• October 19 – Kara Mustafa departs with the Ottoman army to Adrianople.
• October 27 – The city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is founded by William Penn.

Date unknown

• Celia Fiennes noblewoman and traveller, begins her journeys across Britain, in a venture that would prove to be her life's work. Her aim was to chronicle the towns, cities and great houses of the country. Her travels continued until at least 1712, and would take her to every county in England, though the main body of her journal was not written until the year 1702.
• The Richard Wall House is built in Pennsylvania.

1683

January–June

• April 10 – Charles V the Duke of Lorraine is appointed commander of the Imperial army.
• May 3 – Sultan Mehmed IV enters Belgrade.
• June 6 – The Ashmolean Museum opens as the world's first university museum.
• June 12 – The Rye House Plot to assassinate Charles II of England is discovered.

July–December

• July 8 – The Qing Dynasty Chinese admiral Shi Lang leads 300 ships with 20,000 troops out of Tongshan, Fujian and sails towards the Kingdom of Tungning, in modern-day Taiwan and Penghu, in order to quell the kingdom in the name of Qing.
• July 14 – A 140,000-man Ottoman force arrives at Vienna and starts to besiege the city.
• July 16 and July 17 – Battle of Penghu: Qing Chinese admiral Shi Lang defeats the naval forces of Zheng Keshuang in a decisive victory.
• September 5 – The Qing Chinese admiral Shi Lang receives the formal surrender of Zheng Keshuang, ushering in the collapse of the Kingdom of Tungning, which is then incorporated into the Qing Empire.

Vienna Battle, 1683

• September 12 – Battle of Vienna: The Ottoman siege of the city is broken with the arrival of a force of 70,000 Polish, Austrians and Germans under Polish-Lithuanian king Jan III Sobieski, whose cavalry turns their flank (considered to be the turning point in the Ottoman Empire's fortunes).
• October 3 – Shi Lang reaches Taiwan and occupies present day Kaohsiung.
• October 6 – Germantown, Philadelphia is founded as the first permanent German settlement in North America (in 1983 U.S. President Ronald Reagan declares a 300th Year Celebration, and in 1987, it becomes an annual holiday, German-American Day).
• November 1 – The British crown colony of New York is subdivided into 12 counties.
• December – The River Thames freezes, allowing a frost fair to be held.

Date unknown

• Wild boars are hunted to extinction in Britain.

1684

January–June

• January – Edmund Halley, Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke have a conversation in which Hooke later claimed not only to have derived the inverse-square law, but also all the laws of planetary motion.
• January 5 – King Charles II of England gives the title Duke of St Albans to Charles Beauclerk, his illegitimate son by Nell Gwyn.
• January 26 – Marcantonio Giustinian is elected Doge of Venice.
• March – End of the severe frost in Britain, starting the previous December, during which the Thames was frozen in London, and the sea as far as 2 miles (3.2 km) out from land freezes over. There was great loss of beast and of wildlife, especially birds. Similar reports from across Northern Europe.^[5]
• April 5 - Karl Eusebius, Prince of Liechtenstein dies.

July–December

• July 24 – René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle sails from France, again, with a large expedition designed to establish a French colony on the Gulf of Mexico, at the mouth of the Mississippi River.
• August 15 – France under Louis XIV makes the Truce of Ratisbon separately with the Holy Roman Empire (Habsburg) and Spain.
• October 7 – Japanese Chief Minister Hotta Masatoshi is assassinated, leaving Shogun Tsunayoshi without any adequate advisors, leading him to issue impractical edicts and create hardships for the Japanese people.
• December 10 – Isaac Newton's derivation of Kepler's laws from his theory of gravity, contained in the paper De motu corporum in gyrum, is read to the Royal Society by Edmund Halley.
• December 20 – Miles Holmwood, known as Norway's Undead Soldier was born. Disappeared in 1721 after the victory of the Great Northern War

Date unknown

• End of the Tibet-Ladakh-Mughal war of 1679-1684.
• Pope Innocent XI forms a Holy League with the Habsburg Empire, Venice and Poland to end the Ottoman Turkish rule in Europe.
• Japanese poet Saikaku composes 23,500 verses in 24 hours at the Sumiyoshi Shrine at Osaka; the scribes cannot keep pace with his dictation and just count the verses.
• Tokyo University, formally registered as a university in 1877, had its predecessor established.
• The British East India Company receives Chinese permission to build a trading station at Canton. Tea sells in Europe for less than a shilling a pound, but the import duty of 5 shillings makes it too expensive for most English people to afford.
• Smuggled tea is drunk much more than legally imported tea.
• John Bunyan writes The Pilgrim's Progress, Part 2.
• The Chipperfield's Circus dynasty begins when James Chipperfield introduces performing animals to England at the River Thames frost fairs on the Thames in London.

1685

January–June

• February 6 – James Stuart, Duke of York becomes James II of England and Ireland and King James VII of Scotland in succession to his brother Charles II (1630–1685), King of Great Britain since 1660. James II and VII reigns to 1688.
• February 18 – Fort St. Louis is established by a Frenchman at Matagorda Bay, thus forming the basis for France's claim to Texas.
• February 20 – René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, intending to establish a colony near the mouth of the Mississippi River, lands with 200 surviving colonists at Matagorda Bay on the Texas coast, believing the Mississippi near (Texas Handbook).
• March – Louis XIV of France passes the "Code Noir", allowing the full use of slaves in the French colonies.
• May 11 – The Killing Time: Five Covenanters in Wigtown, Scotland, notably Margaret Wilson, are executed for refusing to swear an oath declaring King James of England, Scotland and Ireland as head of the church, becoming the 'Wigtown martyrs'.^[6]
• June 11 – Monmouth Rebellion: James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, illegitimate son of King Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland, lands at Lyme Regis with an invasion force brought from the Netherlands to challenge his uncle, James II, for the Crown of England.^[7]
• June 20 – Monmouth Rebellion: James, Duke of Monmouth declares himself at Taunton to be King and heir to his father's Kingdoms as James II of England and Ireland and James VII of Scotland.^[7]

July–December

• July 6 – Monmouth Rebellion – Battle of Sedgemoor: the armies of King James II of England defeat rebel forces under Monmouth and capture the Duke himself, shortly after the battle.
• July 15 – The Duke of Monmouth is executed at Tower Hill, London.
• August 25 – The Bloody Assizes begin in Winchester; over 1000 of Monmouth's rebels tried and condemned to death or transportation.
• September – The first organised street lighting was introduced in London with oil lamps to be lit outside every tenth house on moonless winter nights.
• October 18–October 19 – Louis XIV issues the Edict of Fontainebleau, which revokes the Edict of Nantes and declares Protestantism illegal, thereby depriving Huguenots of civil rights.

Date unknown

• The Chinese army of the Qing Dynasty attacks a Russian post at Albazin, during the reigns of the Kangxi Emperor and the dual Russian rulers Ivan V of Russia and Peter I of Russia. The events lead to the Treaty of Nerchinsk.^[8]
• Adam Baldridge finds a pirate base at Île Sainte-Marie in Madagascar.

1686

January–June

• May 4 – The Municipality of Ilagan is founded in the Philippines.

July–December

• July 17 – King James II of England appoints four Roman Catholics to the Privy Council of England^[9] in defiance of the Test Acts which bar Catholics from public office. Suspicions about James's intentions lead to a group of conspirators meeting at Charborough House in Dorset to plan his overthrow and replacement with the Protestant Dutch Stadtholder, William III of Orange-Nassau (James's son-in-law).
• July 22 – New York City and Albany, New York are granted city charters by the colonial governor.
• September 2 – The forces of the Holy League of 1684 liberate Buda from Ottoman Turkish rule (leading to the end of Turkish rule in Hungary during the subsequent years).

Date unknown

• The League of Augsburg is founded in response to claims made by Louis XIV of France on the Electorate of the Palatinate in western Germany. It comprises the Holy Roman Empire, the Netherlands, Sweden, Spain and the electors of Bavaria, Saxony and the Electorate of the Palatinate.
• Russia, Saxony, Brandenburg and Bavaria join the Holy League against the Ottoman Turkish Empire. Imperial forces under Austrian leadership invade Ottoman-occupied Hungary and advance on Budapest.
• In Greece, Ottoman-occupied Morea (i.e., the Peloponnese) falls to the Venetians.
• A hurricane saves Charleston, South Carolina, from attack by Spanish vessels.
• The Dominion of New England is formed.
• English historian and naturalist Robert Plot publishes The Natural History of Staffordshire, a collection of illustrations and texts detailing the history of the county. It is the first document known to mention crop circles and a double sunset.
• The Café Procope, which remains in business in the 21st century, is opened in Paris by Procopio Cutò as a coffeehouse.

1687

January–June

• March 19 – The men under explorer Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, murder him while searching for the mouth of the Mississippi River.
• April 4 – King James II of England issues the Declaration of Indulgence (or Declaration for the Liberty of Conscience), suspending laws against Roman Catholics and nonconformists.^[10]
• May 6 – Emperor Higashiyama succeeds Emperor Reigen on the throne of Japan.

July–December

• July 5 – Isaac Newton's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, known as the Principia, is published by the Royal Society of London. In it, Newton describes his theory of universal gravitation, explains the laws of mechanics and gives a formula for the speed of sound. The writing of Principia Mathematica ushers in a tidal wave of changes in thought, significantly accelerating the scientific revolution by providing new and practical intellectual tools and becomes the foundation of modern physics.
• August 12 – Battle of Mohács: imperial army under Charles V, Duke of Lorraine defeats the Ottoman Turks and enables Austria to conquer most of Ottoman-occupied Hungary.
• September – The Venetian navy raids the Dalmatian coast and attacks Turkish strongholds in Greece. On 28 September, the Parthenon in Athens is badly damaged when Venetian mortar fire explodes a Turkish powder magazine housed in the building.
• November 8 – Suleiman II (d. 1691) succeeds the deposed Mehmed IV as Ottoman Emperor.
• December 31 – In response to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, a group of Huguenots set sail from France and settle in the recently established Dutch colony at the Cape of Good Hope where, using their native skills, they establish the first South African vineyards.

1688

January–June

• March – William Dampier makes the first recorded visit to Christmas Island.
• March 1 – Great fire devastates Bungay in England.
• April 18 (Julian calendar) – The Germantown Quaker Protest Against Slavery is drafted by four Germantown Quakers.
• April 29 – Death of Friedrich Wilhelm, the "Great Elector" of Brandenburg-Prussia. Friedrich III becomes Elector of Brandenburg-Prussia until 1701, when he becomes the first King of Prussia as Friedrich I.
• May 4 – King James II of England orders his Declaration of Indulgence, suspending penal laws against Catholics, to be read from every Anglican pulpit in England. The Church of England and its staunchest supporters, the peers and gentry, are outraged; on June 8 the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Sancroft, is imprisoned in the Tower of London for refusing to proclaim it.
• June 10 – The birth of James Francis Edward Stuart (later known as the "Old Pretender", d.1766), son and heir to James II of England and his Catholic wife Mary of Modena, at St James's Palace in London, increases public disquiet about a Catholic dynasty, particularly when the baby is baptised into the Catholic faith. Rumours about his true maternity swiftly begin to circulate.
• June 30 – A high-powered conspiracy of notables (the Immortal Seven) invite Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange and Princess Mary to "defend the liberties of England" and depose King James VII and II.

July–December

• July 13 – Beginning of the Siege of Negroponte by the Venetians.
• July – Phetracha stages a coup d'état and becomes king of Ayutthaya.
• October 21 – The Venetians raise the Siege of Negroponte.
• October 27 – King James II of England dismisses minister Robert Spencer, 2nd Earl of Sunderland.
• November 11 (November 1 OS) – The Glorious Revolution: William III of Orange sets sail a second time from Hellevoetsluis in the Netherlands to take over England, Scotland and Ireland from King James II of England before the Glorious Revolution.
• November 15 (November 5 OS) – The Glorious Revolution begins: William of Orange lands at Torbay in Britain with a multinational force of 15,000 mercenaries. He makes no claim to the British Crown, saying only that he has come to save Protestantism and to maintain English liberty, and begins a march on London.
• November 19 (November 9 OS) – William of Orange captures Exeter after the magistrates flee the city.
• November 23 – A group of 1,500 Old Believers immolate themselves to avoid capture when troops of the tsar lay siege to their monastery on Lake Onega.
• November 26 – Hearing that William of Orange has landed in England, Louis XIV declares war on the Netherlands. Perhaps revealingly, he does not attack the Netherlands but instead strikes at the heart of the Holy Roman Empire with about 100,000 soldiers. The Nine Years' War begins in Europe and America.
• December 11 – Having led his army to Salisbury and been deserted by his troops, James VII and II attempts to flee to France.
• December 18 – William of Orange enters London.

Date unknown

• The Austrians incite a rebellion against the Ottomans in Bulgaria.
• Fall of Belgrade to the Austrians as the Ottoman Empire continues to lose ground in Europe.
• Edward Lloyd opens the London coffee house that soon becomes a popular meeting place for shipowners, merchants, insurance brokers and underwriters. In time the business association they form will outgrow the coffee house premises and become Lloyd's of London.
• Neuruppin becomes a Prussian garrison town.
• Francesco Morosini becomes Doge of Venice.
• Janez Vajkard Valvasor becomes a member of the Royal Society.
• Antonio Verrio begins work on the Heaven Room at Burghley House.
• Earliest known mention of the balalaika.

1689

January–June

• January 11 (January 22 O.S.) – Glorious Revolution in England: The Convention Parliament is convened to determine if King James II of England, the last Roman Catholic British monarch, vacated the throne when he fled to France at the end of 1688. The settlement of this is agreed on 8 February.^[11]
• February 13 (O.S.) – William III and Mary II are proclaimed co-rulers of England, Scotland and Ireland.^[11]
• March 2 – Nine Years' War: As French forces leave, they set fire to Heidelberg Castle and the nearby town of Heidelberg.
• March 22 (March 12 O.S.) - Start of the Williamite War in Ireland: The deposed James II of England lands with 6,000 French soldiers in Ireland, where there is a Catholic majority, hoping to use it as the base for a counter-coup.^[12] However, many Irish Catholics see him as an agent of Louis XIV of France and refuse to support him.
• March 27 Japanese haiku master Bashō sets out on his last great voyage which will result in the prose and verse classic Oku no Hosomichi, or "Narrow Road to the Interior".
• April 11 (O.S.) – William III and Mary II are crowned in London as King and Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland.^[3] Ireland does not recognise them yet, while the Estates of Scotland declare King James VII of Scotland deposed.
• April 18
  • Boston revolt: Unpopular Governor of the Dominion of New England Sir Edmund Andros and other officials are overthrown by a "mob" of Bostonians. Andros, an appointee of James II of England, is disliked for his support of the Church of England and revocation of various colonial charters.
  • Williamite War in Ireland: Siege of Derry: James II arrives at the gates of Derry and asks for its surrender, which is refused by the Protestant defenders.^[13]
• May 11 (May 1 O.S.) - Williamite War in Ireland: Battle of Bantry Bay between the English Royal Navy under the Earl of Torrington and the French fleet under the Marquis de Châteaurenault. The French are able to protect their transports unloading supplies for James II and withdraw unpursued.^[14]
• May 12 – Nine Years' War: With England and the Netherlands both now ruled by William III, they join the Grand Alliance (League of Augsburg), thus escalating the conflict, which continues until 1697. This is also the effective beginning of King William's War, the first of four North American Wars until 1763 between English and French colonists, both sides allied to Native American tribes. The nature of the fighting is a series of raids on each other's settlements across the Canadian and New England borders.
• May 24 – The Bill of Rights establishes constitutional monarchy in England but with Roman Catholics barred from the throne. Parliament also passes the Act of Toleration protecting Protestants but with Roman Catholics intentionally excluded. This effectively concludes the Glorious Revolution.
• May 25 – The last hearth Tax is collected in England and Wales.
• May 31 – Leisler's Rebellion: Calvinist Jacob Leisler deposes lieutenant governor Francis Nicholson and assumes control of the Province of New York.

July–December

• July 25 – Abolition of Council of Wales and the Marches.
• July 27 – First Jacobite rising: Scottish Covenanter supporters of William and Mary (under Hugh Mackay) are defeated by Jacobite supporters of James II at the Battle of Killiecrankie near Pitlochry in Perthshire, but the latter's leader, John Graham, Viscount Dundee, is killed. Hand grenades are used in action.
• July 28 – Relief of the Siege of Derry after 105 days: English sailors break through a floating boom across the River Foyle to end the Siege.^[15]
• August 2 – Boston Revolt: Edmund Andros, former governor of the Dominion of New England, escapes from Boston to Connecticut but is recaptured.
• August 5 – A force of 1,500 Iroquois attacks the village of Lachine, in New France.
• August 12 – Death of Innocent XI (Benedetto Odescalchi; 1611–1689), Pope since 1676. A man of integrity who has been described as the greatest Pope of the 17th century, he played a major part in founding both the League of Augsburg, against Louis XIV, and the Holy League, against the Ottoman Empire.
• August 21 – First Jacobite rising: Battle of Dunkeld: Covenanters defeat the Jacobites in Scotland.
• August 27 – China and Russia sign the Treaty of Nerchinsk.
• October 6 – Pope Alexander VIII succeeds Pope Innocent XI, to become the 241st pope.
• November 22 – The Tsar decrees the construction of the Great Siberian Road to China.
• December 16 – The English Bill of Rights is officially declared in force.

Date unknown

• Peter the Great plots to overthrow his half-sister Sophia as regent of the Tsardom of Russia.
• Supporters of William of Orange seize Liverpool Castle.^[16]
• The English East India Company expands its influence with the establishment of administrative districts called presidencies in the Indian provinces of Bengal, Madras and Bombay, the effective beginning of the company's long rule in India.^{[citation needed]}
• Valvasor's The Glory of the Duchy of Carniola is printed in Nuremberg.

Significant people

Births

Deaths

References