1609

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January 15: Avisa newspaper.

August 25: Galileo Galilei.

1609 (MDCIX) was a common year starting on Thursday (dominical letter D) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Sunday (dominical letter A) of the Julian calendar, the 1609th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 609th year of the 2nd millennium, the 9th year of the 17th century, and the 10th and last year of the 1600s decade. Note that the Julian day for 1609 is 10 calendar days difference, which continued to be used from 1582 until the complete conversion of the Gregorian calendar was entirely done in 1929.

Events

January–June

• January – The Basque witch trials begin.
• January 15 – One of the world's first newspapers, Avisa Relation oder Zeitung, begins publication in Wolfenbüttel (Holy Roman Empire).
• January 31 – Bank of Amsterdam is established.
• February 4 – The last day of Keichō 慶長 13 (according to the Japanese lunar calendar).
• c. March – Hugo Grotius publishes Mare Liberum, his legal text on freedom of the seas, in Leiden.
• April 4
  • King Philip III of Spain signs an edict to expel of all moriscos from his country (see September 11).
  • English explorer Henry Hudson in the service of the Dutch East India Company sets out from Amsterdam in the Halve Maen.^[1]
• April 5 – Invasion of Ryukyu in Japan: Soldiers of the Shimazu clan capture the castle on Ryukyu Island, beginning to make the Ryukyu Kingdom a vassal of Satsuma han.
• April 9 – By the Treaty of Antwerp the Netherlands and Spain agree the Twelve Years' Truce (1609–1621) in the Eighty Years' War, allowing the Dutch East India Company to trade within the Spanish Empire.
• May 20 – London publisher Thomas Thorpe issues Shake-speares Sonnets, with a dedication to "Mr. W.H.", and the poem A Lover's Complaint appended; it is uncertain whether this publication has Shakespeare's authority.
• May 23 – The Second Charter of Virginia is officially ratified; it is intended to replace the council with a Governor who has absolute control in the colony.

July–December

• c. Early July – Samuel de Champlain claims the Lake Champlain area of Vermont for the Kingdom of France.
• July 6 – Bohemia is granted freedom of religion (Letter of Majesty).
• July 10 – The German Catholic League is formed to counteract the Protestant Union.
• July 23 – A hurricane at sea separates the 9 London Company's ships (600 more settlers) en route to relieve the Jamestown settlement, one ship sinks, and the Sea Venture is driven ashore at Bermuda on July 25, thus effectively first settling the colony.
• July 30 – At what is now Crown Point, New York, Samuel de Champlain participates in a battle between the Huron and Iroquois, shooting and killing two Iroquois chiefs; this helps set the tone for French–Iroquois relations for the next 100 years.
• August 25 – Galileo Galilei demonstrates his first telescope to Venetian officials.
• August 28 – Henry Hudson is the first European to see Delaware Bay.^[1][2]
• August – Seven ships arrive at the colony of Jamestown, Virginia, with 200–300 men, women, and children, reporting the Sea Venture wrecked near Bermuda.
• September 2 – Henry Hudson enters New York Bay aboard the Halve Maen.
• September 10 – Jamestown: Capt. George Percy replaces Captain John Smith as president of the Council, and Smith returns to England.
• September 11 – Valencia expels all the Moriscos (see April 4).
• September 11–12 – Henry Hudson in the Halve Maen sails into Upper New York Bay^[3] and begins a journey up the Hudson River.^[4]
• October 12 – A version of the rhyme "Three Blind Mice" is published in London.^[5] The editor, and possible author of the verse, is the teenage Thomas Ravenscroft.^[6]

Date unknown

• The Dutch East India Company imports tea to Europe.
• The Dutch East India Company establishes a trading post in Hirado, Japan.
• Warsaw becomes the capital of Poland.
• The municipality of Buenavista in Marinduque, Philippines is founded.
• The Statutes of Iona are passed, marking the end of the bloody feuds between the clans in the Scottish Highlands.
• The Douay–Rheims Bible Old Testament translation from the Vulgate into English vol. 1 is published in Reims.
• English-born Sister Mary Ward founds the Sisters of Loreto at Saint-Omer, at this time in the Spanish Netherlands.
• Johannes Kepler publishes his first two laws of planetary motion in Astronomia nova.
• Cornelis Drebbel invents the thermostat.

Births

• February 10 – John Suckling, English poet (d. 1642)
• February 18 – Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, English historian and statesman (d. 1674)
• February 21 – Raimondo Montecuccoli, Italian general (d. 1680)
• March 22 – John II Casimir of Poland (d. 1672)
• March 28 – King Frederick III of Denmark (d. 1670)
• March 29 – Sarah Boyle, English noblewoman (d. 1633)
• May 16 (or 1610) – Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand of Austria, Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands (d. 1641)
• June 29 – Pierre-Paul Riquet, French engineer and canal builder (d. 1680)
• August 6 – Richard Bennett, British Colonial Governor of Virginia (d. 1675)
• August 19 – Jean Rotrou, French poet and tragedian (d. 1650)
• October 5 – Paul Fleming, German poet (d. 1640)
• October 8 – John Clarke, English physician (d. 1676)
• October 19 – Gerrard Winstanley, English Protestant religious reformer (d. 1676)
• October 26 – William Sprague, English co-founder of Charlestown, Massachusetts (d. 1675)
• November 1 – Matthew Hale, Lord Chief Justice of England (d. 1676)
• November 25 – Henrietta Maria of France, queen of Charles I of England (d. 1669)
• November 26 – Henry Dunster, first President of Harvard College (d. 1659)
• December 24 – Philip Warwick, English writer and politician (d. 1683)
• date unknown
  • Luc d'Achery, French Benedictine (d. 1685)
  • Samuel Cooper, English miniature painter (d. 1672)
  • Alberich Mazak, Austrian composer (d. 1661)
  • Hannibal Sehested, Danish statesman (d. 1666)
• probable – Gauthier de Costes, seigneur de la Calprenède, French novelist and dramatist (d. 1663)

Deaths

• January – Thomas East, English printer (born c. 1540)
• January 21 – Joseph Justus Scaliger, French Protestant scholar (b. 1540)
• February 17 – Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (b. 1549)
• March – James Hamilton, 3rd Earl of Arran (b. c. 1537)
• March 9 – William Warner, English poet (b. c. 1558)
• March 22 – Al-Jilani, Persian physician
• March 25 – Olaus Martini, Swedish Archbishop of Uppsala (b. 1557)
• April 4 – Charles de L'Écluse, Flemish botanist (b. 1526)
• April 8 – Mark Kerr, 1st Earl of Lothian, Scottish statesman (b. 1553)
• May 15 – Giovanni Croce, Italian composer (b. 1557)
• June 15 – Yamada Arinobu, Japanese nobleman (b. 1544)
• July 15 – Annibale Carracci, Italian painter (b. 1560)
• July 20 – Federico Zuccari, Italian painter (b. 1543)
• August 22 – Maharal of Prague, Jewish mystic and philosopher (b. 1525)
• October 1 – Giammateo Asola, Italian composer (b. c. 1532)
• October 19 – Jacobus Arminius, Dutch Reformed theologian (b. 1560)
• December 4 – Alexander Hume, Scottish poet (b. 1560)
• December – Barnabe Barnes, English poet (b. c. 1571)

References