Directory

1607 CE

The year 1607 was a significant year in world history, with the beginning of the British colonization of the Americas with the Jamestown settlement, as well as the Battle of Gibraltar culminating in the Twelve Years’ Truce.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • June 10 – In Jamestown, Captain John Smith is released from arrest and sworn in as a member of the colony Council.source
  • June 15 – At Jamestown, the triangular fort is completed and armed: "The fifteenth of June we had built and finished our Fort, which was triangle wise, having three Bulwarkes, at every corner, like a halfe Moone, and foure or five pieces of Artillerie mounted in them. We had made our selves sufficiently strong for these Savages. We had also sowne most of our Corne on two Mountaines." The colony reportedly bears extreme toil in strengthening the fort.source
  • July 2 – Luis de Velasco returns to office as the Spanish Viceroy of New Spain, which at this time includes Mexico, parts of the future United States and much of Central America. Velasco had previously been Viceroy from 1590 to 1595, then served as Viceroy of Peru (encompassing much of South America) from 1596 to 1604. He serves as New Spain's viceroy until 1611.source
  • August 3 – After Catholics and Protestants clash in Donauwörth, emperor Rudolph II declares an imperial ban over the city and orders Bavarian duke Maximilian I to execute the ban leading to the occupation of the city by a force of 15,000 in December. This in turn leads to the creation of the Protestant Union in 1608.source
  • September 10 – Jamestown President Edward Maria Wingfield is deposed and John Ratcliffe elected.source

Conflict & Security

  • March 10 – Battle of Gol in Gojjam: Susenyos defeats the combined armies of Yaqob and Abuna Petros II, which makes him Emperor of Ethiopia.source
  • April 25 – Battle of Gibraltar: A Dutch fleet of 26 warships, led by Admiral Jacob van Heemskerck, stages a surprise attack on a Spanish fleet anchored in the Bay of Gibraltar. In the battle that ensues, Spain loses as many as 10 galleons and 12 smaller ships, and at least 300 men are killed. The disaster causes Spain to go into bankruptcy by October.source
  • May 26 – At Jamestown, the president of the governing council, Edward Wingfield, directs the fort to be strengthened and armed against the many attacks of the natives: "Hereupon the President was contented the Fort should be pallisadoed, the ordinance mounted, his men armed and exercised, for many were the assaults and Ambuscadoes of the Savages ..." 200 armed Indians attack the Jamestown settlement, killing two people and wounding 10.source
  • May 28 – A wooden defensive wall (palisade) is built by settlers around the Fort at Jamestown. Gabriel Archer writes in his journal, "we laboured, pallozadoing our fort".source
  • June 8 – Newton rebellion: The Tresham landowning family kills more than 40 peasants during protests against the enclosure of common land in Newton, Northamptonshire, England, at the culmination of the Midland Revolt.source
  • July 5 – Zebrzydowski Rebellion: The Battle of Guzów is fought in Poland near Guzów against rebels by the combined armies of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, led by Poland's Hetman, General Stanisław Żółkiewski, and the Hetman of Lithuania, Jan Karol Chodkiewicz. The rebels, led by Mikołaj Zebrzydowski and Janusz Radziwiłł, are forced to retreat.source
  • July 17 – In the (modern-day) South Kalimantan province of Indonesia, Sultan Mustain Billah of Banjar orders the massacre of the crew of a Netherlands East India Company ship visiting the capital at Banjarmasin.source
  • November 9 – King Philip III of Spain announces that his government had run out of money and that it is suspending payments on its foreign debts. effectively declaring the state bankrupt. The decision in the wake of the destruction of most of the ships of Spain's Navy at the April 25 Battle of Gibraltar.source
  • In the Midland Revolt against Enclosures in England, the term Levellers is first used.source

Exploration & Expansion

  • April 26 – English colonists make landfall at Cape Henry, Virginia, later moving up the James River.source
  • May 14 – Jamestown, Virginia, is established as the first permanent English settlement in North America, beginning the American frontier.source
  • May 15 – From Jamestown, Christopher Newport, George Percy, Gabriel Archer and others travel six days exploring along the James River up to the falls and Powhatan's village.source
  • June 22 – Christopher Newport sails back to England.source
  • July 10 – Ottoman Grand Vizier Kuyucu Murad Pasha launches a secret expedition to confront rebel Kurdish tribal chief Ali Janbulad, who has seized control of Aleppo in what is now Syria.source
  • August 13 – The ship Gift of God of the Plymouth Company arrives at the mouth of the modern-day Kennebec River in Maine. English colonists establish Fort St. George, also known as the Popham Colony. The settlement lasts little more than a year, before residents return to England in the first oceangoing ship built in the New World, a 30-ton pinnace called The Virginia.source
  • September 5 – Hamlet is performed aboard the East India Company ship Red Dragon, under the command of Capt. William Keeling, anchored off the coast of Sierra Leone, the first known performance of a Shakespeare play outside England in English, and the first by amateurs.source
  • November 7 – A Dutch warship commanded by Admiral Cornelis Matelief de Jonge arrives at the Malay Peninsula to attempt opening trade with the Pahang Sultanate, and get Pahang's assistance in the Dutch Navy's fight against the Portuguese Navy in Asian trade. Sultan Abdul Ghafur agrees to assistance in return for Dutch technical assistance.source
  • December 22 – A fleet of 13 Dutch warships under the command of Admiral Pieter Verhoeff departs the Netherlands on an expedition to the Indian Ocean to open trade with Asian nations and to fight hostile resistance. Verhoeff never returns, and he and many of his crew will be ambushed and killed on May 22 at the Banda Islands in Indonesia.source
  • Missionary Juan Fonte establishes the first Jesuit mission among the Tarahumara, in the Sierra Madre Mountains of Northwest Mexico.source

Religion & Belief

  • January 19 – San Agustin Church, Manila, is officially completed; by the 21st century it will be the oldest church in the Philippines.source
  • The rule of Andorra passes jointly to the king of France, and the Bishop of Urgell.source

Economy & Finance

  • January 13 – The Bank of Genoa fails.source

Science & Discovery

  • October 27 – Halley's Comet is seen by Johannes Kepler.source

Crime & Justice

  • September – The Scrooby Congregation of Protestant English Separatists attempt to flee to the Dutch Republic from Boston, Lincolnshire, but are betrayed, arrested and imprisoned for a time.source

Disasters & Accidents

  • September 14 – Flight of the Earls: Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone, and Rory O'Donnell, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell, flee Ireland for Spain with 90 followers, to avoid capture by the English crown, never to return.source

Climate & Environment

  • January 30 – Coastal flooding around Britain, probably a storm surge, including Bristol Channel floods in which a massive wave sweeps along the Bristol Channel, killing an estimated 2,000 people.source

Culture & Society

  • February 24 – Claudio Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, the earliest fully developed opera in the modern-day repertoire, premieres at the Ducal Palace of Mantua.source
  • June 5 – Dr John Hall marries Susanna, daughter of William Shakespeare, at the Church of the Holy Trinity, Stratford-upon-Avon (England).source
  • July 20 – The second "False Dmitry", one of three people claiming to be Dmitry Ivanovich, son of the late Tsar Ivan the Terrible, appears at the Russian town of Starodub and persuades residents that he is the rightful heir to the Russian throne.source
  • October 4 – Flight of the Earls: The Earl of Tyrone and the Earl of Tyrconnell, along with their followers, reach the European continent, landing on St. Francis' Day at Quilleboeuf in France with 99 people. after having departed Rathmullan in Ireland on September 12.source

Births

  • January 10 – Isaac Jogues, French Jesuit missionary to the Native Americans (d. 1646)source
  • January 31 – James Stanley, 7th Earl of Derby (d. 1651)source
  • March 8 – Johann Rist, German poet and dramatist known for hymns (d. 1667)source
  • March 10 – Thomas Wriothesley, 4th Earl of Southampton, English statesman (d. 1667)source
  • March – Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyll, Scottish clan chief (d. 1661)source
  • July 13 – Václav Hollar, Bohemian etcher (d. 1677)source
  • August 5 – Antonio Barberini, Italian Catholic cardinal (d. 1671)source
  • August 15 – St. Francisco Fernandez de Capillas, Spanish saint (d. 1648)source
  • November 1 – Georg Philipp Harsdörffer, Baroque-period German poet and translator (d. 1658)source
  • November 5 – Anna Maria van Schurman, Dutch painter (d. 1678)source
  • November 26 – John Harvard, English-born American clergyman (d. 1638)source
  • November 28 – Francesco Sforza Pallavicino (d. 1667)source
  • December 4 – John Frescheville, 1st Baron Frescheville, English politician (d. 1682)source
  • December 19 – Remigius van Leemput, painter from the Southern Netherlands (d. 1675)source

Deaths

  • January 6 – Guidobaldo del Monte, Italian mathematician, astronomer and philosopher (b. 1545)source
  • January 19 – Anne Morgan, Baroness Hunsdon, English Baroness (b. 1529)source
  • April 27 – Edward Cromwell, 3rd Baron Cromwell, Governor of Lecale (b. 1560)source
  • May 3 – Agnes Douglas, Countess of Argyll, Scottish noblewoman (b. 1574)source
  • May 21 – John Rainolds, English scholar and Bible translator (b. 1549)source
  • May 25 – Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi, Italian Carmelite nun and mystic (b. 1566)source
  • June 10 – John Popham, Lord Chief Justice of England (b. 1531)source
  • June 30 – Caesar Baronius, Italian cardinal and historian (b. 1538)source
  • July 7 – Penelope Blount, Countess of Devonshire, English noblewoman (b. 1563)source
  • August 22 – Bartholomew Gosnold, English explorer and privateer (b. 1571)source
  • September 16 – Mary Stuart, English-Scottish princess (b. 1605)source
  • September 22 – Alessandro Allori, Italian portrait painter of the late Mannerist Florentine school (b. 1535)source
  • October 31 – Wawrzyniec Grzymała Goślicki, Polish philosopher (b. 1530)source
  • November 8 – Elisabeth of Anhalt-Zerbst, Electress of Brandenburg (b. 1563)source