Early Modern
Boyle's Law (1662): Robert Boyle, the Air Pump and Gas Pressure
Boyle published the inverse relation between the pressure and volume of a trapped body of air, later known as Boyle's law.
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
Battle of Saint Gotthard (1664): Montecuccoli Halts the Turks
Allied Christian victory that stopped the Ottoman advance toward Austria, followed ten days later by the Peace of Vasvar on terms favourable to the Ottomans.
Early Modern
Newton's Annus Mirabilis (1665-1666): Calculus, Light and Gravity
Newton laid the foundations of calculus, his theory of colours and his ideas on universal gravitation, though most were published only years later.
Early Modern
Robert Hooke's Micrographia (1665): Life Under the Microscope
Micrographia became a bestseller that popularised microscopy, introduced the biological term cell and promoted the Royal Society's experimental method.
Early Modern
Battle of Mbwila (1665): Portugal Defeats the Kingdom of Kongo
Portuguese victory; King António I was killed, and Kongo slid into decades of civil war, though Portugal did not conquer it.
Early Modern
Eyam Plague Village (1665): The Village That Quarantined Itself
The villagers' self-imposed quarantine is credited with keeping plague out of the surrounding area, but about 260 people in Eyam died.
Early Modern
Great Plague of London (1665-1666): The Last Major Plague
An estimated 75,000 to 100,000 or more Londoners died; it was the last major outbreak of bubonic plague in England.
Early Modern
Great Fire of London (1666): How the City Burned and Rebuilt
Most of the walled City of London was destroyed, leading to a rebuilding in brick and stone and a new St Paul's Cathedral.
Early Modern
French Academy of Sciences (1666): Colbert's Royal Academy
France gained a state-funded body of salaried scientists that became one of Europe's leading scientific institutions.
Early Modern
Castle of Good Hope (1666): South Africa's Oldest Building
The Dutch East India Company built a stone pentagonal fortress that served as the seat of government at the Cape for well over a century.
Early Modern
Raid on the Medway (1667): Dutch Fleet Humiliates England
Dutch victory: several of England's largest warships were burned and the flagship Royal Charles captured, hastening the Treaty of Breda that ended the Second Anglo-Dutch War.
Early Modern
Man in the Iron Mask: Louis XIV's Mysterious Prisoner (1669)
The prisoner died in the Bastille in 1703 without his identity being officially revealed; most historians identify him with a man arrested in 1669 under the name Eustache Dauger.