• Swiss mathematician Nicolaus Bernoulli.
• Scottish mathematician Robert Simson.
• Italian composer Francesco Geminiani.
• English archaeologist William Stukeley, the first person to scientifically examine Stonehenge.
• English composer Raphael Courteville.
• Italian painter Giovanni Battista Pittoni.
• French composer Jean-Baptiste Maurice Quinault.
• French composer Jean-Baptiste Senaillé.
• German rococco architect Johann Balthasar Neumann.
• German composer Johann Balthasar Christian Freisslich.
• Italian violin maker Domenico Montagnana.
• Italian violin maker Giuseppe Guarneri.
• German violinist and composer Johann Adam Birkenstock.
• Chinese calligrapher and painter Huang Shen.

• English poet Edmund Waller.
• English Platonist philosopher Henry More.
• English economist Sir William Petty.
• English nobleman and dramatist George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham.
• Italian-born French composer Jean-Baptiste Lully.
• Italian composer Ercole Bernabei.
• French explorer Robert Cavalier, Seiur de LaSalle.  See below.
• Dutch painter Caesar van Everdingen.
• Dutch painter Willem Wissing.
• Dutch poet  Constantijn Huygens.
• Polish astronomer Jan Hewelke.
• English composer Michael Wise.
• English composer William Gregory.
• Eleanor 'Nell' Gwyn, former mistress of Charles II.
• Ottoman sultan Mehmed IV, deposed by the Janissaries, who put his brother Süleymân II on the throne.
• Mehmed's concubine Turhan, bringing the 150-year "Reign of Women" to an end.

• Edmond Halley finances the publication of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophae Naturalis Principia Mathematica.
• John Dryden publishes A Song for St Cecilia's Day and his allegorical poem The Hind and the Panther.
• English King James II makes some extremely unpopular moves, relaxing the Penal Laws prohibiting Roman Catholic and dissenter worship in England and Scotland.   His wife Mary of Modena conceives, alarming those who want an end to rule by Catholic monarchs.
• Sir Edmund Andros, governor-general of the Dominion of New England, manages to get James to revoke the charter of Connecticut.  His troops march into New Haven, the legislature is dissolved, and Andros is in control.
• The Ottoman Empire is crumbling, and the powers of Europe have formed an unHoly Alliance to pick up the crumbs.
• Russia invades the Khanate of the Crimiea but the army is routed.
• Poland captures Podolia and its borders now extend to the Black Sea].
• A Venetian force is besieging Athens.  The Ottoman army has turned the Parthenon (which has survived for two thousand years virtually intact) into an arsenal, storing all their gunpowder there.  A shell hits the Parthenon and the arsenal blows up, taking the Parthenon's roof with it.
• The Venetians besiege Mostar.
• Austrian armies capture Hungary from the Turks.  Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I has his son Josef crowned King of Hungary; Paul Esterhazy is made a prince of Hungary.
• La Salle is on an expedition in search of the Mississippi delta, based from his Texas Fort St. Louis.  His party runs out of food, and in a fight over some bones containing marrow, La Salle is killed.  The site of his murder is now called Marrow Bone Springs.
• Japanese Kampaku (chancellor) Ichijô Fuyutsune becomes Sesshô (regent) as Higashi-yama ascends the Throne.
• Cossacks in control of the Dneiper's left bank elect Ivan Stepanovych Mazepa their hetman

1686 - 1687 - 1688

How They Were Made - 17th Century