Directory

1611 CE

The Colegio de Nuestra Señora del Santísimo Rosario is established in Manila, the Philippines (later renamed Colegio de Santo Tomas, and later still the University of Santo Tomas). The Authorized King James Version of the Bible is published for the first time, printed by Robert Barker in London. At Whitehall Palace in London, William Shakespeare's last solo play, The Tempest, is given its earliest reported performance.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • January 26 – Maximilien de Béthune, Duke of Sully is forced by Queen regent Marie's Regency Council to resign as chief minister of France. He is replaced by Nicolas de Neufville, seigneur de Villeroy.source
  • May 9 – At the age of 16, Emperor Go-Mizunoo succeeds his father Emperor Go-Yōzei as Emperor of Japan.source
  • July 12 – The Perpetual Edict is proclaimed for the government of the Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium) by Archduke Albert VII and his wife Isabella, the joint rulers of the Austrian-controlled nation.source
  • October 30 – At the age of 16, Gustav II Adolf succeeds his father Charles IX as King of Sweden.source

Conflict & Security

  • March 9 – Battle of Segaba in Begemder: Yemana Kristos, brother of Emperor of Ethiopia Susenyos I, ends the rebellion of Melka Sedeq.source
  • April 4 – Denmark-Norway declares war on Sweden, then captures Kalmar.source
  • April 7 (March 28 O.S.) – False Dmitry III, the third pretender to the Russian throne to claim to be Prince Dmitry of Uglich, son of Ivan the Terrible, arrives at Ivangorod and proclaims himself as the Tsar Dmitry Ivanovich I.source
  • June 13 – The Siege of Smolensk in Russia by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth succeeds after nearly two years of fighting that started on 29 September 1609. The conquest of the city is made possible by the discovery of a weakness in the walls of the fortress and the detonating of an explosive in a drainage canal.source
  • July 17 – The army of the Swedish Empire commanded by Jacob De la Gardie captures the Russian city of Novgorod after a nine-day battle. Novgorod will remain Swedish territory for the next eight years.source
  • August 2 – Jamestown's Deputy Governor Sir Thomas Gates returns to Virginia with 280 people, provisions and cattle on six ships and assumes control, ruling that the fort must be strengthened.source
  • December 5 (30 Ramadan 1020 A.H.) – To celebrate the end of the daily fasting of the month of Ramadan, the Mughal Empire Army commander, Mubariz Khan, hosts the celebration banquet and learns that Pashtun rebel leader Khwaja Usman and 250 of his men have evacuated Bokainagar (modern-day Gouripur in Bangladesh) during the Mughal Army's holiday observance.source
  • December – The week-long Conquest of Bakla leads to the fall of the Chandradwip kingdom and the Mughal annexation of Barisal into the Bengal Subahsource

Exploration & Expansion

  • June 22 – English explorer and sea captain Henry Hudson, his teenage son John, and seven crewmen are set adrift in or near Hudson Bay, after a mutiny on his ship Discovery. They are never seen again.source
  • Thomas Dale founds the city of Henricus on the James River, with the assistance of 350 men, a few miles south of present day Richmond, Virginia.source
  • Itoh Gofuku, a predecessor of Matsuzakaya, a famous department store, is founded for the sale of silk in Nagoya, Japan.source

Religion & Belief

  • March 4 – George Abbot is enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury in England.source
  • April 30 – The priest implicated in the Aix-en-Provence possessions in France is executed.source
  • May–December – Entrepreneur Thomas Sutton founds Charterhouse School, on the site of the old Carthusian monastery in Charterhouse Square, Smithfield, London.source
  • September 11 – Greek Orthodox bishop Dionysios Skylosophos leads an army of 700 men in a surprise attack on the city of Yanya (formerly the ancient Greek city of Ioannina) in an attempt to liberate the inhabitants from Ottoman Imperial rule. The Ottoman provincial governor, Osman Pasha, is forced to flee and his home is burned down, but Ottoman troops commanded by Aslan Pasha rout the rebels. Skylosophos is captured on September 14, then tortured to death in public.source

Technology & Infrastructure

  • Construction begins on Naqsh-e Jahan Square in Isfahan, Persia.source

Science & Discovery

  • February 27 – Sunspots are observed by telescope, by Frisian astronomers Johannes Fabricius and David Fabricius. Johannes publishes the results of these observations, in De Maculis in Sole observatis in Wittenberg, later this year. Such early discoveries are overlooked, however, and the first sighting is claimed a few months later, by Galileo Galilei and Christoph Scheiner.source
  • At Jamestown, John Rolfe imports tobacco seeds from the island of Trinidad (Nicotiana tabacum); the native tobacco is Nicotiana rustica.source

Climate & Environment

  • December 2 (Keichō 16, 10th month, 28th day) – The 1611 Sanriku earthquake of 8.1 magnitude strikes off of the coast of Japan and causes a tsunami that kills almost 5,000 people in the northern section of Honshu island.source
  • Famine in Ethiopia resulting from crop failure in the north due to weather conditions and the outbreak of a plague.source

Culture & Society

  • April 28 – The Colegio de Nuestra Señora del Santísimo Rosario is established in Manila, the Philippines (later renamed Colegio de Santo Tomas, and later still the University of Santo Tomas).source
  • May 2 – The Authorized King James Version of the Bible is published for the first time, printed by Robert Barker in London.source
  • May 11 – The first known performance of William Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, probably new this year, is given at the Globe Theatre in London.source
  • November 1 – At Whitehall Palace in London, William Shakespeare's last solo play, The Tempest, is given its earliest reported performance.source

Births

  • January 3 – James Harrington, English political theorist of classical republicanism (d. 1677)source
  • February 2 – Ulrik of Denmark, Danish prince-bishop (d. 1633)source
  • February 5 (bapt.) – Philip Sherman, English-born founder of Rhode Island (d. 1687)source
  • February 19 – Andries de Graeff, Dutch politician (d. 1678)source
  • February 24? (bapt. March 4) – William Dobson, English portrait painter (d. 1646)source
  • February 28 – William Brereton, 2nd Baron Brereton, English politician (d. 1664)source
  • March 17 – Robert Douglas, Count of Skenninge, Swedish field marshal (d. 1662)source
  • March 25 – Evliya Çelebi, Ottoman Turk, travels around the Ottoman Empire for 40 years (d. 1682)source
  • May 19 – Joachim Irgens von Westervick, Dano–Norwegian noble (d. 1675)source
  • July 15 – Jai Singh I, Maharaja of Jaipur (d. 1667)source
  • July 16 – Cecilia Renata of Austria, queen consort of Poland (d. 1644)source
  • August 9 – Henry of Nassau-Siegen, German count, officer in the Dutch Army, diplomat for the Dutch Republic (d. 1652)source
  • September 11 – Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne (d. 1675)source
  • December – Leonora Baroni, Italian singer (d. 1670)source

Deaths

  • February 26 – Antonio Possevino, Italian Jesuit protagonist of Counter Reformation, papal diplomat (b. 1533)source
  • March 3 – William Douglas, 10th Earl of Angus, son of William Douglas (b. 1552)source
  • March 5 – Shimazu Yoshihisa, Japanese warlord and samurai (b. 1533)source
  • March 19–20 – The Moscow Uprising, an armed rising of the inhabitants of Moscow in the Tsardom of Russia against the military Polish–Lithuanian occupation of Moscow (Fall 1610–Fall 1612), results in the occupying forces starting a major fire in the city and the death of 6–7,000 Muscovites.source
  • August 2 – Katō Kiyomasa, Japanese warlord and samurai (b. 1561)source
  • August 5 – Nasuh Pasha becomes the new grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire after the death of Kuyucu Murad Pasha.source
  • August 12 – Herman van den Bergh, Dutch soldier in the Eighty Years' War (b. 1558)source
  • August 27 – Tomás Luis de Victoria, Spanish composer (b. c. 1548)source
  • August – Antoni Clarassó i Terès, Spanish priestsource
  • September 9 – Eleanor de' Medici, Italian noblewoman (b. 1567)source
  • September 17 – Johannes Corputius, Dutch engineer, cartographer and military leader (b. 1542)source
  • October 3 – Margaret of Austria, Queen of Spain (b. 1584)source
  • October 3 – Charles of Lorraine, Duke of Mayenne, French military leader (b. 1554)source
  • November 17 – Nicolas Henri, Duke of Orléans, French duke (b. 1607)source