1659

Early to bed, and early to rise / Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.
Good laws spring from bad morals.
Don't cry over spilt milk,

-Paroimiografia.

Born in 1659:

• English composer Henry Purcell.
• French mathematician Joseph Saurin
.
• English poet Richard Duke.
• English philosopher and early feminist Damaris Cudworth, later Lady Masham, patron of John Locke.
• English publisher John Dunton.
• Acadian military commander and French colonial official Simon-Pierre Bonaventure, Sr.
• French painter Hyacinthe Rigaud.
• Irish clergyman and playwright Nicholas Brady.
• Venetian painter Sebastiano Ricci.
• Dutch painter Adriaen van der Werff.
• Plague in southwestern Denmark kills up to 80% of the population in some parts of Jutland, leaving it "a barren and desolate waste", according to contemporary parish texts. Thx. to liveforever

• English poet Sir John Denham.
• English composer Water Porter.
• English painter Robert Walker.
• Dutch explorer Abel Janszoon Tasman.
• Giovanni Pesaro, Doge of Venice. Domenico Contarini succeeds him.
• Dara Shukoh, son of Shah Jehan, beheaded; see below.

• William Chamberlayne's heroic novel Pharonnida appears.
• The play Les Précieuses ridicules (The Affected Young Ladies) appears, giving Molière his first big success, as well as legitimacy in literary circles.
• Jephtha is Dutch playwright Joost van den Vondel's greatest work.
• In his treatise Systema Saturnium, Christiaan Huygens proposes that the disc-shaped thing orbiting Saturn is a solid ring, detatched from the planet.
• James Howell publishes Paroimiografia. Proverbs, or, Old Sayed Savves & Adages in English (or the Saxon Toung) Italian, French and Spanish.
• Althanasius Kircher publishes an investigation into the cause of bubonic plague, stopping just short of proposing a germ theory of disease.
• Mirza Ali produces a medical treatise, probably in India.
• The Thirty Years' War had ended in 1648 for most European countries, except for France and Spain.  This year, Cardinal Jules Mazarin, acting for Louis XIV concludes the Peace of the Pyrenees ending France's war with Spain.  France gains some territory (Artois and Roussillon; Louis agrees to marry the daughter of Philip IV.  Olimpia Mancini, Mazarin's niece, is heartbroken.
• The generals controlling England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland realize that in their Lord Protector Richard Cromwell, the acorn has fallen far from the tree.   Engineered mostly by general John Lambert, the Rump Parliament disbanded by Oliver Cromwell in 1653 is reinstated, Richard Cromwell is shown the door, and theoretically, the British Isles are again under a republican Commonwealth system.  In reality, the country is in chaos; the discipline of the New Model Army having evaporated when their pay was not forthcoming.
• Sir George Booth leads an uprising trying to restore Charles II to the throne, but is defeated (by Lambert) at the Battle of Nantwich Bridge.
• James Harrington gathers several pro-Commonwealth political figures (including Samuel Pepys) into a coffeehouse ("The Rota").
• Parliament passes the first Navigation Act requiring goods produced in its American colonies to be sold in England.
• Aurangzeb, who had seized the Mughal throne from his father Shah Jehan, captures his brother Dara Shikoh after the Battle of Deorai. Aurangzeb has his brother, who belonged to an obscure Sufi sect, behaded for heresy. A legend states that Aurangzeb sent Shukoh's head wrapped as a present up to the cell in Delhi's Lal Quila ("Red Fort") where he had their father imprisoned. At any rate, Aurangzeb then has himself crowned at Lal Quila, taking the title  Al-amgir ('World Conqueror').
• Quakers become the first European settlers of Nantucket Island.
• There being no Suez Canal, the East India Company's capture of St. Helena from the Vereenigte Oostindische Compagnie gives them an important way station on the trip around Africa.
• The Dutch abandon the Swedsh-built Fort Carolusborg at Cape Coast in Ghana to the local Fetu people.
• The VOC captures the city of Palembang on Sumatra.
• Slaves of Dutch settlers produce the first wine in South Africa.
• Chinese priest Chin Genpin begins teaching Kempo in Japan.
• Chinese astronomer Yang Guangxian takes offense at the Gregorian Calendar and begins to lobby the Emperor to suppress Roman Catholicism in China.
• King Narai of Siam invades Burma.

1658 - 1659 - 1660

How They Were Made - 17th Century