Directory

1672 CE

Willem, Prince of Orange, the 21-year-old Stadtholder of Gelderland and Utrecht, is approved by the States General of the Dutch Republic to command the Dutch States Army for the impending war with England. Charles II of England issues the Royal Declaration of Indulgence, suspending execution of Penal Laws against Protestant nonconformists and Roman Catholics in his realms; this will be withdrawn the following year under pressure from the Parliament of England. The Third Anglo-Dutch War begins as the Kingdom of England declares war on the Dutch Republic.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • October 18 – The Treaty of Buchach, between the Ottoman Empire and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, is signed.source

Conflict & Security

  • February 25 – Willem, Prince of Orange, the 21-year-old Stadtholder of Gelderland and Utrecht, is approved by the States General of the Dutch Republic to command the Dutch States Army for the impending war with England.source
  • March 17 – The Third Anglo-Dutch War begins as the Kingdom of England declares war on the Dutch Republic.source
  • April 8 – France declares war on the Dutch Republic, invading the country on April 29.source
  • June 1 – Münster and Cologne begin their invasion of the Dutch Republic; hence 1672 becomes known as het rampjaar ("the disaster year") in the Netherlands.source
  • June 7 – Third Anglo-Dutch War – Battle of Solebay: An indecisive sea battle results, between the Dutch Republic, and the joined forces of England and France.source
  • June 12 – Battle of Tolhuis: French forces under King Louis XIV cross the Rhine into the Netherlands; the city of Utrecht is occupied by the French Army.source
  • September 15 – In India, Admiral Mai Nayak Bhandari of the Maratha Empire captures the island of Khanderi.source
  • December 18 – An English invasion force captures the Caribbean island of Tobago from Dutch colonists and destroys the settlement.source
  • December 30 – Troops of the Dutch Republic, under the command of Carl von Rabenhaupt, are able to reclaim lost territory for the first time in the Third Anglo-Dutch War, liberating Coevorden, which had been forced to surrender to France on July 1. The moment, a boost for morale in what is remembered in Dutch history as the Rampjaar (the "Disaster Year"), is later memorialized in a painting by Pieter Wouwerman, The Storming of Coevorden.source

Religion & Belief

  • January 13 – Pope Clement X issues regulations for the prerequisites of removing relics of Roman Catholic saints from sacred cemeteries, requiring advance approval from the Cardinal Vicar in Rome before the remains of the saint can be allowed for view. The Cardinal Vicar is directed to bar regular persons from viewing remains, and to limit inspection to high prelates and to princes.source
  • March 15 – Charles II of England issues the Royal Declaration of Indulgence, suspending execution of Penal Laws against Protestant nonconformists and Roman Catholics in his realms; this will be withdrawn the following year under pressure from the Parliament of England.source
  • March 16 – At the Synod of Jerusalem, presided over by Dositheos II of Jerusalem, the 68 bishops and representatives from the whole of Eastern Orthodox Christendom close by approving the Orthodox dogma against the challenge of Protestantism, declaring against "the falsehoods of the adversaries which they have devised against the Eastern Church" and making a goal of "reformation of their innovations and for their return to the catholic and apostolic church in which their forefathers also were."source
  • September 16 – The Board of Trade is created in England by a merger of the Council of Trade and the Council of Foreign Plantations, both of which had been created by King Charles II in 1660, under the name The Board of Trade and Plantations. The Earl of Shaftesbury is appointed as the first Lord of Trade, administering the Board until its dissolution in 1676.source
  • September 26 – General Raimondo Montecuccoli, commander of the army of the Holy Roman Empire, joins forces with the Brandenburg troops commanded by Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg and the two groups assemble at Halberstadt, to attack the French and the bishops of Münster and Cologne.source
  • October 2 – Manuel de Cendoya, Spain's Governor of Florida, breaks ground for the construction of the Castillo de San Marcos, a masonry fortress designed to protect St. Augustine. Governor Cendoya follows on November 9 with the ceremonial laying for the first stone for the foundation.source

Economy & Finance

  • November 28 – After more than five years of administration of the Treasury of England by a five-member commission, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, one of the commission members, becomes the Lord High Treasurer of England.source
  • Richard Hoare becomes a partner in the London goldsmith's business which, as private banking house C. Hoare & Co., will survive through to the 21st century.source

Technology & Infrastructure

  • January 25 – The Theatre Royal, located at the time on Bridges Street in London, burns down. A replacement structure is built on Drury Lane in 1674.source

Science & Discovery

  • January 11 – The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, national science academy for England, elects Isaac Newton to its membership, and then demonstrates Newton's reflecting telescope to King Charles II.source
  • February 16 (February 6, 1671 O.S.) – Isaac Newton sends a paper for publication regarding his experiments on the refraction of light through glass prisms and makes the first identification of the "primary colors" of visible light on the electromagnetic spectrum, reporting that "The Original or primary colours are, Red, Yellow, Green, Blew, and a Violet-purple, together with Orange, Indico, and an indefinite variety of Intermediate gradations."source
  • December 23 – French astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini discovers Rhea, a previously-unknown satellite of the planet Saturn. Rhea is the second-largest overall, and the third moon of Saturn to be discovered by Earth astronomers, Titan having been found by Christiaan Huygens on March 25, 1655 and Iapetus by Cassini on October 25, 1671.source

Health & Medicine

  • September 10 – William III of Orange, Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic, dismisses nine of the regenten who lead cities in the Netherlands, after being granted authority by the States-General.source

Crime & Justice

  • August 20 – Johan de Witt, Grand Pensionary of Holland and his brother Cornelis de Witt are killed by an Orangist mob in The Hague.source

Disasters & Accidents

  • March 12 – Action of 12 March 1672, a 2-day naval engagement between an English coastal patrol and a Dutch Smyrna convoy off the south coast of England. The English fleet suffers severe damage while most of the Dutch convoy escapes, although one of the Dutch commanders (De Haaze) is killed and one warship taken as a prize (Klein Hollandia) sinks; the latter will be rediscovered in 2019.source

Culture & Society

  • May 2 – John Maitland becomes Duke of Lauderdale and Earl of March.source
  • July 4 – William III of Orange is appointed Stadtholder of Holland and Zeeland.source
  • Foundation of the Chorina Comedy, the first theater in Russia.source

Births

  • January 4 – Hugh Boulter, Irish Archbishop of Armagh (d. 1742)source
  • January 18 – Antoine Houdar de la Motte, French writer (d. 1731)source
  • February 13 – Étienne François Geoffroy, French chemist (d. 1731)source
  • February 26 – Antoine Augustine Calmet, French theologian (d. 1757)source
  • May 1 – Joseph Addison, English politician and writer (d. 1719)source
  • June 9 – Emperor Peter the Great of Russia (d. 1725)source
  • June 11 – Francesco Antonio Bonporti, Italian priest and composer (d. 1749)source
  • July 13 – Nicolás Salzillo, Spanish artist (d. 1727)source
  • August 2 – Johann Jakob Scheuchzer, Swiss scholar (d. 1733)source
  • September 8 – Nicolas de Grigny, French organist and composer (d. 1703)source
  • October 11 – Pylyp Orlyk, Ukrainian Zaporozhian Cossack starshina, diplomat (d. 1742)source
  • October 21 – Ludovico Antonio Muratori, Italian historian, scholar (d. 1750)source
  • October 27 – Maria Gustava Gyllenstierna, Swedish writer (d. 1737)source
  • Ann Baynard, English natural philosopher (d. 1697)source

Deaths

  • March – Archibald Armstrong, court jester to James VI and I and Charles I of Englandsource
  • April 2 – Diego Luis de San Vitores, Spanish Jesuit missionary to Guam (b. 1627)source
  • April 2 – Pedro Calungsod, Filipino saint (b. 1654)source
  • April 13 – Marguerite of Lorraine, princess of Lorraine, duchess of Orléans (b. 1615)source
  • April 30 – Marie of the Incarnation, French foundress of the Ursuline Monastery in Quebec (b. 1599)source
  • May 28 – Edward Montagu, 1st Earl of Sandwich (b. 1625)source
  • July 3 – Francis Willughby, English biologist (b. 1635)source
  • July 21 – Captain John Underhill, English settler and soldier (b. 1597)source
  • October 8 – Johan Nieuhof, Dutch traveler who wrote about his journeys to Brazil (b. 1618)source
  • November 19 – John Wilkins, English Bishop of Chester (b. 1614)source
  • November 19 – Franciscus Sylvius, Dutch physician and scientist (b. 1614)source
  • December 6 – King John II Casimir of Poland (b. 1609)source
  • December 7 – Richard Bellingham, Massachusetts colonial magistrate (b. 1592)source
  • December 18 – Hedwig Eleonora of Holstein-Gottorp ends her regency of the Swedish Empire after more than 12 years, having exercised power in the name of her minor son, Charles XI, since the death of her husband Karl X Gustav in 1660. Hedwig Eleonora had served as the chair of the six-member Regency Council.source