• English naturalist Mark Catesby.
• English painter John Wootton.
• English mathematician John Hadley.
• English mathematician and physicist Roger Cotes.
• Scottish architect James Gibbs.
• Italian anatomist Giovanni Battista Morgagni.
• Italian painter Giovanni Battista Piazzetta.
• French composer Jean-François Dandrieu.
• Archibald Campbell, later Lord Treasurer of Scotland and 3rd duke of Argyll.
• French composer Jean Joseph Mouret.
• (approx) German composer Johann Christian Schickhardt.
• Italian mathematician Giulio Fagnano.
• Dutch painter Jan van Huysum.
• German alchemist Johann Friedrich Böttger.
• Careless English collector John Warburton.
• Future King Karl XII of Sweden.

• English physician and theologian Sir Thomas Browne.
• Solomon Eccles, a musician who burned his instruments after becoming a Quaker.
• English composer Thomas Greeting.
• French painter Claude Lorraine.
• Italian composer Alessandro Stradella.
• Dutch painter Jacob van Ruisdael.
• English composer Edward Lowe.
• Spanish mathematician Juan Caramuel y Lobkowitz.
• Heneage Finch, 1st Earl of Nottingham, Lord Chancellor of England.
• Prince Rupert of Bohemia, nephew of English King Charles I, royalist general during the English Civil War, Elector of The Palatinate, and amateur engraver.
• Japanese painter Kiyohara Yukinobu.
• German painter Johann Heinrich Schönfeldt.
• Spanish painter Bartolomé Esteban Murillo.
• David Leslie, 1st Baron Newark, Scottish royalist general during the English Civil War.
• Italian mathematician Michelangelo Ricci.
• Jesuit scholar Johannes Bisselius.
• French astronomer Jean Picard.
• Emperor Yohannes I of Ethiopia, succeeded by Iyasu I the Great.
• Fyodor III, Tsar of all the Russias, nineteen years old..

• John Bunyan publishes his moral allegory The Holy War as well as the first part of The Pilgrim's Progress.
• John Dryden publishes Religio Laici, MacFlecknoe, and The Medal.
• Aphra Behn's play The City Heiress; Or, Sir Timothy Treatall premieres.
• Thomas Otway's tragic play Venice Preserv'd: Or, A Plot Discovered premieres.
• Charles II appoints Henry Purcell his court composer.
• Louis XIV moves the French court to the sumptuous Versailles Palace. Everybody who was anybody was there, upon pain of death.
• French Roman Catholic bishops publish articles which declare the principles of the 'Gallican' church; most importantly, the limitation of Papal authority to spiritual matters only.
• William Penn's friend the Duke of York grants him the rights to 'three lower counties' south of Pennsylvania, the lands granted him by Charles II. He leads many of his Quaker followers to the new colony. Smallpox breaks out during the voyage; the survivors land at New Castle and set up Philadelphia.
• Rene Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle sets off on a second attempt to journey all the way down the Mississippi River. This time, he succeeds and claims the entire Mississippi River valley for France, naming it "Louisiana".
• A large comet is visible over Europe; Edmond Halley calculates its orbit and later predicts its 1755 return.
• Factions in the Kremlin line up behind Fyodor's brothers Ivan (15) and Peter (9).  Ivan is older but feeble-minded; the streltsy want Ivan.  After a rumor of Ivan's murder, the Streltsy rampage through the Kremlin, murdering people they believe responsible.  In the aftermath, it is agreed that Peter and Ivan be made co-tsars, with Ivan's sister Sofia as regent.

1681 - 1682 - 1683

How They Were Made - 17th Century