I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.

-Blaise Pascal.

Born in 1657:

• English poet and philosopher John Norris.
• English physicist William Derham.
• French philosopher Bernard de Fontenelle.
• Italian composer Giovanni Bassani.
• English writer Narcissus Luttrell.
• English poet and literary critic John Dennis.
• Italian painter Francesco Solimena.
• Italian painter Rosalba Carriera.
• German composer Philipp Heinrich Erlebach.
• English astrologer Francis Moore, creator of a popular almanac.
• French composer Michel Richard de Lalande.
• English royal valet and playwright Thomas Killigrew the Younger.
• Princess Sophia Romanova, future regent of Russia for young Ivan V and Peter the Great.
• Japanese Confucian scholar Arai Hakuseki.
• Future king Frederick I of Prussia.

• English phyisican William Harvey.
• Turkish cartographer Halife Mustafa Katip Çelebi.
• Neo-Confucian philosopher Hayashi Razan, aka Doshun.
• Turkish historian Haji Khalifa.
• English composer John Hilton the Younger.
• Swiss astronomer Johann Cysat.
• French painter Jacques Stella.
• Dutch painter Hendrik Gerritsz Pot.
• Dutch painter Clara Peeters.
• Dutch painter Bartolomeus Breenbergh.
• Dutch painter Jan Anthonisz van Ravesteyn.
• Flemish painter Frans Snyders.
• French painter Sébastien Stoskopff.
• Swiss Jesuit astronomer Johann Baptist Cysatus.
• William Bradford, Governor of Plymouth Colony, and one of the original settlers from the Mayflower.
• Archduke Ferdinand III of Austria, also king of Bohemia and Hungary, as well as Holy Roman Emperor.  His son Leopold I succeeds him.
• Rabbi Manasseh ben Israel Manoel Dias Soeiro of Amsterdam, who had petitioned Oliver Cromwell to allow Jews to enter England.
• English Leveller leader John Lilburne.
• English admiral Robert Blake, see below.
• Marchese Gian Rinaldo Monaldeschi, see below.
• King Sri Suthammaraja of Siam, after fierce battles in Ayutthaya. His nephwew and co-conspirator from the preious year, Phra Narai, takes control.
• A measles epidemic kills many in Boston (sorry, I can't find how many).
• 100,000 or more in a the Great Meireki Fire, which completely destroys Edo.

• Galileo's pupils carry on his work:
• Christiaan Huygens invents a pendulum clock.
• Leopoldo de Medici of Florence and his brother, Ferdinand II, Grand Duke of Tuscany, found the Accademia del Cimento, Europe's first scientific society.
• Chehel Sotoon Palace is completed in Isfahan.
• The Edo catastrophe causes the Emperor to change his reign title from Meireki to Manji.
• Nieuw Nederland governor Peter Stuyvesant is remonstrated by residents of Flushing for his persecution of Quakers.
• France's finance minister, Nicolas Fouquet, has earned enough from bribes to build a chateau rivalling Versailles, Vaux le Vicomte.
• Edward Sexby publishes Killing No Murder, advocating the assassination of Oliver Cromwell.  Foolishly, he returns to England and is immediately thrown in the Tower of London.
• Cromwell and Cardinal Mazarin ally against Spain, as James II is leading an army bolstered by Spanish troops against Dunkirk.
• Admiral Blake defeats the Spanish at the Battle of Santa Cruz de Teneriffe in the Canary Islands, sinking 16 ships of hte Spanish Plate Fleet, but dies while sailing back to England.
• The English Parliament:
• offers Oliver Cromwell kingship.
• abolishes the royal right of purveyance
• pressures Cromwell to abolish the 'Major Generals', direct military governors of the 11 districts of England and Wales.  Cromwell takes sole command, and is He is reinstalled as Lord Protector.
• Thomas Venner leads a millenialist Puritan sect, the Fifth Monarchy Men, in a rebellion against Cromwell, easily crushed.
• The year sees everyone in Eastern Europe at war with everyone else:
• An invading Swedish army on the ropes in Poland. Sweden and Transylvania agree to partition Poland between them.  Poland's war with Russia is on hold, as the Russians are busy taking Livonia from the Swedes and fighting off the Crimean Tatars.
• George Rakoczy invades Poland with 40,000 Cossacks and Transylvanians.
• Denmark declares war on Sweden and Charles X goes home to fight that.
• Rakoczy learns that a Polish army is now ravaging Transylvania.
• (July 17) Having evacuated Warsaw, Rakoczy is forced to surrender at Magierow.  He buys his way out.
• (July 25) The Polish army recaptures Cracow with Austrian help¹.
• Elector Frederick William of Brandenburg switches sides, in exchange for control of Prussia and two towns.  The Swedes still control Pomerania and Prussia, however.
• A Tatar army wipes Rakoczy's forces out at Czarny Ostrow.  Mehmet Koprulu will conquer Transylvania for the Ottoman Empire the following year.
• The Battle of Torun
• Charles X marches an army across the frozen Great Belt strait, into Denmark.
• Meanwhile, in Italy, former Swedish Queen Kristina Vasa intrigues to overthrow Naples and set herself up as its ruler, but Mondalsechi betrays her to the Pope.  Mondalsechi loses his head, and Kristina isn't invited to dinner in Rome anymore.
• Ottoman grand vizier Mehmet Koprulu has a busy year:
• an uprising of the Spahis is crushed.
• the Orthodox Patriarch is hanged for predicting the downfall of Islam.
• Sheik Selim
• The Venetian navy defeats the Turks off Chios, damaging much of its navy; however, the Venetians are in turn defeated in a battle in the Dardanelles.
• The English East India Company builds its first outpost in Bengal, at Baleshwar.
• Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan falls ill in Delhi.  Heir apparent Dara Shikoh publishes a translation of the Upanishads into Arabic; his brother Aurangzeb is busy invading Bijapur. Nevertheless, they find time to begin vying to fill the power vacuum created by their father's illness.  Aurangzeb pulls out of Bijapur, leaving it for Maratta leader Shivaji to take.
• Qing forces defeat the holdout Ming state of Lu.
• The Dutch VOC settles Kaapstad (now Cape Town) at the southern tip of Africa.

1656 - 1657 - 1658

How They Were Made - 17th Century

¹Now wait a minute here! Austria was supporting one side, but their vassal, Transylvania, was supporitng the other side?