Early Modern
Galileo's Telescope and Sidereus Nuncius (1610): Moons of Jupiter
Galileo's observations of the Moon, the stars and Jupiter's four moons made the telescope a scientific instrument and strengthened the case for Copernicus.
Era · c. 1500 – 1800
Early Modern
Voyages of exploration, the Reformation and the age of revolutions that reshaped Europe and the wider world.
Early Modern
Jesuit Reductions of Paraguay (1609): Missions of the Guaraní
Some thirty Guaraní mission towns flourished for over 150 years until the Spanish crown expelled the Jesuits in 1767, after which the towns declined.
Early Modern
Henry Hudson's Last Voyage and Mutiny in Hudson Bay (1610-1611)
Hudson, his son and seven men were cast adrift in June 1611 and never seen again; eight survivors brought the Discovery back to England.
Early Modern
Assassination of Henry IV of France (1610) by Ravaillac
Henry IV died within minutes; his eight-year-old son became Louis XIII, with Marie de' Medici as regent.
Early Modern
King James Bible (1611): The Authorized Version's Origins
A new English translation, printed in 1611, became the standard Bible of the English-speaking Protestant world for some three centuries.
Early Modern
Jahangir and Nur Jahan: Power and Art at the Mughal Court
Nur Jahan exercised unusual political power alongside Jahangir until his death in 1627, when Shah Jahan took the throne and she retired to Lahore.
Early Modern
Pendle Witch Trials (1612): England's Most Famous Witch Hunt
Ten people from the Pendle case were hanged, nine at Lancaster and one at York; another accused died in prison before trial.
Early Modern
Hasekura Tsunenaga (1613): A Samurai Embassy to Mexico and Rome
The embassy was received with honour in Madrid and Rome, but it failed to win a trade agreement, and Hasekura returned to a Japan that had banned Christianity.
Early Modern
Pocahontas (1613–1617): Captivity, Marriage and Death in England
Her capture and marriage brought a truce between the Powhatan and the English colonists; she died at Gravesend in March 1617, aged about 21.
Early Modern
Siege of Osaka (1614-1615): The Fall of the Toyotomi Clan
Decisive Tokugawa victory; Osaka Castle fell, Hideyori and his mother died, and the Toyotomi line was ended.
Early Modern
Le Maire and Schouten Round Cape Horn (1616): A New Route
The expedition found a sea route into the Pacific south of Tierra del Fuego, outside the Dutch East India Company's monopoly, though the VOC seized its ship at Java.
Early Modern
Dirk Hartog Plate (1616): Oldest European Relic in Australia
Hartog made the first recorded European landing on the west coast of Australia and left an inscribed plate, now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.