Directory

1623 CE

A Dutch East India Company party, led by explorer Jan Carstenszoon, fights a skirmish with 200 indigenous Australian Wik peoples. Murat IV, age 11, succeeds his deposed uncle Mustafa I as Ottoman Emperor. Because Murat is a minor, his mother, Kösem Sultan, serves as regent until 1632. The Battle of Anjar is fought in modern-day Lebanon as the Druze emir Fakhr al-Din II defeats an invasion by Mustafa Pasha al-Hannaq, the Ottoman Governor of Damascus, and takes him prisoner.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • February 7 – France, Savoy and Venice sign the Treaty of Paris, agreeing to cooperate in removing Spanish forces from the strategic Alpine pass of Valtelline.source
  • August 5 – The English ship Little James arrives at Plymouth Colony, 26 days after the Anne.source
  • September 10 – Murat IV, age 11, succeeds his deposed uncle Mustafa I as Ottoman Emperor. Because Murat is a minor, his mother, Kösem Sultan, serves as regent until 1632.source

Conflict & Security

  • January – Battle of Mbanda Kasi: Forces from the Kingdom of Kongo defeat the Portuguese.source
  • February 25 – Thirty Years' War: Duke Maximilian I of Bavaria becomes Elector of the Electorate of the Palatinate.source
  • March 9 – Amboyna massacre: Ten English merchants in the service of the British East India Company, together with nine Japanese and one Portuguese, are executed by agents of the Dutch East India Company in Ambon, Maluku (Amboyna).source
  • April 11 – King Gwanghaegun of Joseon (in Korea) is deposed in the Injo coup and succeeded by King Injo.source
  • May 5 – Raja Gaj Singh of Marwar, along with Mahabat Khan and Parviz Mirza, is deputized by the Mughal Emperor Jahangir in India to hunt down Jahangir's rebel son, Shihab-ud-Din Muhammad Khurram. The search fails, and Khurram will become the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan after Jahangir's death in 1627.source
  • May 22 – After negotiations for the release of English women taken from Jamestown in the British North American colony of Virginia, conducted between Captain William Tucker of the English settlers and Chief Opchanacanough of the Powhatan Confederacy (Tsenacommacah), the English arrange a banquet with the Powhatan, and the drinking of wine. The wine is poisoned and many of the Powhatan Indians die, while 50 more are killed while ill. This follows the massacre of 347 English colonists of March 22, 1622, in the Powhatan uprising. Opchanacanough escapes, and the 20 women never return home.source
  • July 15 – Trịnh Tùng is deposed as ruler of the kingdom of Đại Việt in northern Vietnam after more than 50 years. His son, Trịnh Xuan, burns the palace. Trinh Tung is carried away by his servants in a sedan chair and abandoned in the road to die. Another son, Trịnh Tráng, succeeds to the throne of Đại Việt.source
  • August 6 – Thirty Years' War: Pursued by the army of the Catholic League (German) led by Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly, the army of the Protestant Electoral Palatinate led by Christian the Younger of Brunswick attempts to flee to the Dutch Republic. Tilly's army catches Brunswick five miles from the border. In the resulting Battle of Stadtlohn, Christian's army is destroyed. This brings the Palatinate campaign to an end.source
  • November 1 – The Battle of Anjar is fought in modern-day Lebanon as the Druze emir Fakhr al-Din II defeats an invasion by Mustafa Pasha al-Hannaq, the Ottoman Governor of Damascus, and takes him prisoner.source
  • December 4 – 50 Christians are executed in Edo, Japan, during the Great Martyrdom of Edo.source

Exploration & Expansion

  • January 21 – Voyage of the Pera and Arnhem to Australia: Captains Jan Carstenszoon of the Arnhem and Willem Joosten van Coolsteerdt of the Pera depart on an expedition for the Dutch East India Company from Ambon, Maluku (Amboyna) to explore the Australian coast.source
  • April 29 – A fleet of 11 Dutch ships depart for the coast of Peru, seeking to seize Spanish treasure.source
  • May 8 – A Dutch East India Company party, led by explorer Jan Carstenszoon, fights a skirmish with 200 indigenous Australian Wik peoples.source
  • July 10 – The English ship Anne becomes the third vessel to bring settlers to Plymouth Colony, the Puritan settlement in modern-day Massachusetts, carrying more settlers, after the Mayflower on November 21, 1620, and the Fortune on November 9, 1621.source
  • Zildjian begins the commercial manufacture of cymbals in Turkey. The company will still be operating, from Massachusetts, in the 21st century.source
  • Gabriel Bethlen, Prince of Transylvania, issues an order, dated at Kolozsvár/Klausenburg/Cluj, that allows Jews to settle, trade freely and practice religion in Transylvania, and exempts them from wearing the usual Jewish sign.source
  • On the coast of Massachusetts Bay, the settlement that will become the City of Gloucester, Massachusetts, is first inhabited by men from Dorchester, Dorset, England.source
  • On the coast of New Hampshire, the settlement of Hilton's Point, which will become Dover, New Hampshire, is established by men from London, England, the first European settlers in the state.source

Religion & Belief

  • January 21 – Viscount Falkland, England's Lord Deputy of Ireland, issues a proclamation ordering all Roman Catholic priests to leave Ireland, affecting negotiations over the "Spanish match" (which resume in March).source
  • August 6 – 1623 papal conclave: Pope Urban VIII (Maffeo Barberini) succeeds Pope Gregory XV, as the 235th pope.source
  • October 9 – Kara Mustafa Pasha is replaced as the Ottoman Governor of Egypt on orders of Sultan Murad IV.source
  • October 20 – Cardinal Antonio Marcello Barberini informs Galileo Galilei that his brother, the newly-enthroned Pope Urban VIII, wishes to receive a visit from Galileo.source
  • Procopius' long-lost Secret History is rediscovered, in the Vatican Library.source

Technology & Infrastructure

  • March 20 – Richard Frethorne begins writing a letter to his parents from Jamestown, Virginia.source
  • Wilhelm Schickard devizes a Calculating Clock, an early mechanical calculator.source

Science & Discovery

  • July 16 – A great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, with the planets only 5 arc minutes apart, the closest between 1226 and 2874. This conjunction likely goes unobserved, as it occurs near the Sun and the telescope has been invented only recently.source

Health & Medicine

  • March 5 – The first American temperance law is enacted, in Virginia.source
  • Erotomania, a delusional disorder, is first mentioned, in a psychiatric treatise.source
  • The 1623 Malta plague outbreak is contained after killing around 40 people on the island of Malta.source

Crime & Justice

  • June 14 – The first breach-of-promise lawsuit: Rev. Gerville Pooley, in Virginia, files against Cicely Jordan, but loses.source

Disasters & Accidents

  • October 26 – "Fatal Vespers": 95 people are killed when an upper floor of the French ambassador's house in London collapses under the weight of a congregation attending a mass.source
  • November 1 – Fire at Plymouth Colony destroys several buildings.source

Culture & Society

  • March 7 – Charles, Prince of Wales, the future King Charles I of England, travelling incognito with royal favourite George Villiers, arrives in Madrid to pursue negotiations over the "Spanish match", the Protestant Charles's proposed marriage with the Catholic Habsburg Infanta Maria Anna of Spain.source
  • June 29 – Première of Pedro Calderón de la Barca's first play, Amor, honor y poder (Love, Honor and Power), at the Court of Habsburg Spain.source
  • July 30 (probable date) – The second Thanksgiving is celebrated in Plymouth Colony.source
  • August 30 – Negotiations, resumed in March, of the planned "Spanish match" break down. On October 5, Prince Charles returns to England from Spain without a bride.source
  • November 8–December 5 – Publication between these dates in London of the "First Folio" (Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies), a collection of 36 of the plays of Shakespeare, half of which have not previously been printed.source
  • Johannes Rudbeck founds Rudbeckianska gymnasiet, the first gymnasium in Sweden.source
  • Imprisoned Italian Dominican philosopher Tommaso Campanella's utopian The City of the Sun is published in Latin (as Civitas Solis) in Frankfurt.source
  • Italian poet Giambattista Marini's epic L'Adone is published in Paris.source

Births

  • January 15 – Algernon Sidney, British philosopher (d. 1683)source
  • March 23 – Deane Winthrop, English-born colonist of British America, 6th son of Governor John Winthrop (d. 1704)source
  • April 28 – Wilhelmus Beekman, Dutch politician (d. 1707)source
  • April 30 – François de Laval, French-born priest, first Catholic bishop of Quebec (d. 1708)source
  • May 26 – William Petty, English scientist, philosopher and economist (d. 1687)source
  • May 30 – Wallerant Vaillant, painter of the Dutch Golden Age (d. 1677)source
  • June 8 – Paluzzo Paluzzi Altieri degli Albertoni, Italian Catholic cardinal (d. 1698)source
  • August 4 – Friedrich Casimir, Count of Hanau-Lichtenberg (1641–1680) and Hanau-Münzenberg (1642–1680) (d. 1685)source
  • September 1 – Caspar Schamberger, German surgeon and merchant (d. 1706)source
  • October 9 – Ferdinand Verbiest, Flemish Jesuit missionary in China during the Qing dynasty (d. 1688)source
  • October 17 – Francis Turretin, Swiss-Italian Reformed scholastic theologian (d. 1687)source
  • October 28 – Johann Grueber, Austrian Jesuit missionary and astronomer in China (d. 1680)source
  • November 1 – Zhu Youlang, Prince of Gui, the Yongli Emperor, the 4th and last emperor of the Southern Ming dynasty of China (d. 1662)source
  • December 13 – Marc-René de Voyer de Paulmy d'Argenson, French politician and diplomat (d. 1700)source

Deaths

  • January 15 – Paolo Sarpi, Italian theologian (b. 1552)source
  • February 8 – Thomas Cecil, 1st Earl of Exeter, English politician (b. 1546)source
  • February – Malcolm Macfie, last chief of the Scottish clan Clan Macfiesource
  • March 7 – Luís Mendes de Vasconcellos, Portuguese 55th Grandmaster of the Knights Hospitaller (b. c. 1542)source
  • March 14 – In the Korean kingdom of Joseon, Crown Prince Yi Ji is deposed and exiled to Ganghwa Island, where he dies soon after.source
  • May 19 – Mariam-uz-Zamani, Empress of the Mughal Empire (b. 1542)source
  • July 4 – William Byrd, English composer (b. 1543)source
  • August 6 – Anne Hathaway, wife of English dramatist William Shakespeare (b. 1555)source
  • August 9 – George, Count of Nassau-Dillenburg, Count of Nassau-Beilstein (1607–1620), then Count of Nassau-Dillenburg (1620–1623) (b. 1562)source
  • September 27 – John VII, Count of Nassau-Siegen (b. 1561)source
  • October 31 – Deposed Queen Yu, consort of Yi Hon, King Gwanghae of Joseon (b. 1576)source
  • November 9 – William Camden, English antiquarian (b. 1551)source
  • November 12 – Josaphat Kuncevyc, Lithuanian archbishop (b. c. 1582)source
  • December 24 – Michiel Coignet, Flemish mathematician, astronomer, engineer and scientific instrument maker (b. 1549)source