1660s

1660

January–March

• January 1
  • At daybreak, English Army Colonel George Monck, with two brigades of troops from his Scottish occupational force, fords the River Tweed at Coldstream in Scotland to cross the Anglo-Scottish border at Northumberland, with a mission of advancing toward London to end military rule of England by General John Lambert and to accomplish the English Restoration, the return of the monarchy to England. By the end of the day, he and his soldiers have gone 15 mi (24 km) through knee-deep snow to Wooler while the advance guard of cavalry had covered 50 mi (80 km) to reach Morpeth.
  • At the same time, rebels within the New Model Army under the command of Colonel Thomas Fairfax take control of York and await the arrival of Monck's troops.
  • Samuel Pepys, a 36-year-old member of the Parliament of England, begins keeping a diary that later provides a detailed insight into daily life and events in 17th century England. He continues until May 31, 1669, when worsening eyesight leads him to quit. Pepys starts with a preliminary note, "Blessed be God, at the end of the last year I was in very good health, without any sense of my old pain but upon taking of cold. I lived in Axe-yard, having my wife and servant Jane, and no more in family than us three." For his first note on "January 1. 1659/60 Lords-day", he notes "This morning (we lying lately in the garret) I rose, put on my suit with great skirts, having not lately worn any other clothes but them," followed by recounting his attendance at the Exeter-house church in London.
• January 6 – The Rump Parliament passes a resolution requesting Colonel Monck to come to London "as speedily as he could", followed by a resolution of approval on January 12 and a vote of thanks and annual payment of 1,000 pounds sterling for his lifetime on January 16.
• January 11 – Colonel Monck and Colonel Fairfax rendezvous at York and then prepare to proceed southward toward London. gathering deserters from Lambert's army along the way.
• January 16 – With 4,000 infantry and 1,800 cavalry ("an army sufficient to overawe, without exciting suspicion"), Colonel Monck marches southward toward Nottingham, with a final destination of London. Colonel Thomas Morgan is dispatched back to Scotland with two regiments of cavalry to reinforce troops there.
• January 31 – The Rump Parliament confirms the promotion of Colonel George Monck to the rank of General and he receives the commission of rank while at St Albans.
• February 3 – General George Monck, at the head of his troops, enters London on horseback, accompanied by his principal officers and the commissioners of the Rump Parliament. Bells ring as they pass but the crowds in the streets are unenthusiastic and the troops are "astonished at meeting with so different a reception to that which they had received elsewhere during their march.".
• February 13 – Charles XI becomes king of Sweden at the age of five, upon the death of his father, Charles X Gustavus.
• February 26 – The Rump Parliament, under pressure from General Monck, votes to call back all of the surviving members of the group of 231 MPs who had been removed from the House of Commons in 1648 so that the Long Parliament can be reassembled long enough for a full Parliament to approve elections for a new legislative body.
• February 27 – John Thurloe is reinstated as England's Secretary of State, having been deprived of his offices late in the previous year.
• March 3 – General John Lambert, who had attempted to stop the Restoration, is arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London. He escapes on April 9 but is recaptured on April 24. Though spared the death penalty for treason in 1662, he remains incarcerated on the island of Guernsey for the rest of his life until his death at age 64 on March 1, 1684.
• March 16 – The Long Parliament, after having been reassembled for the first time in more than 11 years, votes for its own dissolution and calls for new elections for what will become the Convention Parliament to make the return from republic to monarchy.
• March 31 – The war in the West Indies between the indigenous Carib people, and the French Jesuits and English people who have colonized the islands, is ended with a treaty signed at Basse-Terre at Guadeloupe at the residence of the French Governor, Charles Houël du Petit Pré.

April–June

• April 2 – The Merces baronets, a British nobility title is created.
• April 4 – The Declaration of Breda, signed by Charles Stuart, son of the late King Charles I of England, promises amnesty, freedom of conscience, and army back pay, in return for support for the English Restoration. The Declaration is read to the new parliament on May 1.
• April 25 – The Convention Parliament, a new House of Commons for England, freely elected with no requirement for candidates to swear loyalty to the Commonwealth of England, assembles in London to work out the restoration of the monarchy.
• May 1 – The Convention Parliament votes to welcome the Declaration of Breda and unanimously approves a resolution for England declaring that "according to the ancient and fundamental laws of this kingdom, the Government is, and ought to be, by Kings, Lords and Commons."
• May 3 – In the Treaty of Oliva, peace is made between the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Habsburgs and Brandenburg-Prussia.
• May 8 – In exile in the Netherlands, Prince Charles Stuart receives word that the Parliament of England has declared his elevation to the throne as King Charles II of England.
• May 14 – The Irish Parliament declares Charles to be King of Ireland.
• May 15 – John Thurloe is arrested for high treason, for his support of Oliver Cromwell's regime.
• May 21 – The Desormeaux caravan and 300 Iroquois die in explosion at Long Sault.
• May 23 – With the way cleared for his return to England, King Charles II ends his exile at the Hague in the Netherlands and departs from Scheveningen harbor on the English ship Naseby, renamed for the occasion HMS Royal Charles , as part of a fleet of English warships brought by Admiral Edward Montagu. On commemorative memorabilia in the Netherlands, the date of Charles's departure is listed as June 2, 1660, the date on the Gregorian calendar used in continental Europe but not in England.
• May 25 – King Charles II lands at Dover.
• May 27
  • The Treaty of Copenhagen is signed, marking the conclusion of the Second Northern War. Sweden returns Trøndelag to Norway, and Bornholm to Denmark.
  • William Morice takes office as the first Secretary of State for the Northern Department in Great Britain, with responsibility for conducting foreign relations with the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Poland, Russia, and the Holy Roman Empire. Relations with France, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, the Italian states, and the Ottoman Empire are assigned to the Secretary of State for the Southern Department. The position will eventually evolve into the office of the Foreign Secretary.
• May 29 – King Charles II of England arrives in London and assumes the throne, marking the beginning of the English Restoration.
• June 1
  • The office of Secretary of State for the Southern Department begins operations in the Kingdom of Great Britain, with responsibility for the colonies of British America in what will later become Canada and the United States, as well as for Ireland and for the Channel Islands. Sir Edward Nicholas, a former British Secretary of State, takes office as the first Southern Department secretary.
  • Mary Dyer is hanged for defying a law banning Quakers from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
• June 29 – John Thurloe is released from custody.

July–September

• July 13 – (Ashadh Vadya 1 of Shaka 1582) The Battle of Pavan Khind takes place in India when a 600-member contingent of the Maratha Empire army, commanded by Baji Prabhu Deshpande, works to rescue Maratha General Shivaji, who had escaped the night before from the fort of Panhala, which was under siege by the Adilshah Sultanate. The Bijapur Sultanate, commanded by Siddi Masud with a force of 10,000 men, loses 5,000 in a fight against a vastly outnumbered contingent of Adilshah.
• July 24 – The Great Fire of 1660 begins in Constantinople, capital of the Ottoman Empire (now Istanbul in Turkey), and destroys two-thirds of the city over two consecutive days, consuming 280,000 buildings and killing 40,000 people.
• July – Richard Cromwell, the last Lord Protector of England during its years as a republic, leaves the British Isles quietly and goes into exile in France, taking on an alias as "John Clarke".
• August 19 – Dr Edward Stanley preaches a sermon in the nave of Winchester Cathedral, to commemorate the return of the Chapter, following the English Restoration.
• August 29 – The Indemnity and Oblivion Act, officially "An Act of Free and General Pardon, Indemnity, and Oblivion" is given royal assent. as a general pardon for everyone who had committed crimes during the English Civil War and Interregnum (with the exception of certain crimes such as murder, piracy, buggery, rape and witchcraft, and people named in the act such as those involved in the regicide of Charles I). It also said that no action was to be taken against those involved at any later time, and that the Interregnum was to be legally forgotten.
• September 1 – Grigore I Ghica becomes the new Prince of Wallachia (now in Romania)
• September 14 – The 13-day long Battle of Lyubar begins at Liubar (now in Ukraine) during the Russo-Polish War between soldiers of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth against Russia and ends with a victory by Poland.
• September 16 – Juan Francisco Leiva y de la Cerda arrives in Mexico City as the new Viceroy of New Spain.
• September 25 – Samuel Pepys has his first cup of tea (an event recorded in his diary).

October–December

• October 13 – The Rigsraad (High Council) of Denmark is abolished and Denmark-Norway becomes an absolute monarchy as King Frederik III is recognized by the nobility as being entitled to have his throne passed to his descendants by hereditary monarchy.
• October 13 to October 19 – Ten of the 57 "regicides" who signed the death warrant of Charles I of England in 1649 are executed over a period of one week, mostly at Charing Cross by being hanged, drawn and quartered, a process which includes being disemboweled (in some cases before they have died) and then and burned. The first to die is Thomas Harrison, a leader of the Fifth Monarchists. He is followed by John Carew (October 15); John Cook and Hugh Peter (October 16); (Adrian Scrope, John Moore, Gregory Clement and Thomas Scot) (October 17); and Daniel Axtell and Francis Hacker (October 19).
• November 28 – At Gresham College in London, twelve men, including Christopher Wren, Robert Boyle, John Wilkins, and Sir Robert Moray meet after a lecture by Wren, and decide to found "a College for the Promoting of Physico-Mathematicall Experimentall Learning" (later known as the Royal Society).
• December 8 – The first English actress appears on the professional stage in England in a non-singing role, as Desdemona in Othello at Vere Street Theatre in London, following the reopening of the theatres (various opinions have been advanced that the actress was Margaret Hughes, Anne Marshall or Katherine Corey). Historian Elizabeth Howe notes, however, that both William Davenant and Thomas Killigrew had women in their acting companies before 1660, and that Anne Marshall might be just one of the first rather than the actual first.
• December 15 – Andres Malong, a native chieftain of the town of Binalatongan (now San Carlos) in the Philippines, leads a successful revolt against the Spanish colonial administrators to liberate Pangasinan. He is proclaimed the King of Pangasinan, but the rebellion is suppressed on January 17, 1661, and Pangasinan is reconquered by February.
• December 18 – The Company of the Royal Adventurers into Africa, planned by Prince James, brother of King Charles II to capture persons along the coast of West Africa for resale as slaves, receives its charter. Prince James, later King James II, had started asking for investors (at 250 pounds sterling per share) starting on October 3, 1660.
• December 29 – The Convention Parliament is dissolved by King Charles II and elections are called for what will be called the Cavalier Parliament.

Date unknown

• Blaise Pascal's Lettres provinciales, a defense of the Jansenist Antoine Arnauld, is ordered to be shredded and burned by King Louis XIV of France.
• The Expulsion of the Carib indigenous people from Martinique is carried out by French occupying forces.
• Hopkins School is founded in New Haven, Connecticut.
• A permanent standing army is established in Prussia.

1661

January–March

• January 6 – The Fifth Monarchists, led by Thomas Venner, unsuccessfully attempt to seize control of London; George Monck's regiment defeats them.
• January 29 – The Rokeby baronets, a British nobility title is created.
• January 30 – The body of Oliver Cromwell is exhumed and subjected to a posthumous execution in London, along with those of John Bradshaw and Henry Ireton.
• February 5 – The Shunzhi Emperor of the Chinese Qing Dynasty dies, and is succeeded by his 7-year-old son the Kangxi Emperor.
• February 7 – Shah Shuja, who was deprived of his claim to the throne of the Mughal Empire by his younger brother Aurangzeb, then fled to Burma, is killed by Indian troops in an attack on his residence at Arakan.
• February 14 – George Monck’s regiment becomes The Lord General's Regiment of Foot Guards in England (which later becomes the Coldstream Guards).
• March 9 – Following the death of his mentor, Cardinal Jules Mazarin, who had been Minister of State since before the birth of King Louis XIV, King Louis, now 22, starts to rule independently without need for a regent.
• March 23 – General Zheng Chenggong of China, known as "Koxinga" leads an invasion of the island of Taiwan, at the time under the control of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), bringing 25,000 soldiers and sailors on hundreds of boats to claim the territory.

April–June

• April 7 – The siege of Fort Zeelandia, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) headquarters on the Chinese island of Taiwan (near modern Taoyuan City) is started by Koxinga and his invading force from China.
• April 23 (May 3 N.S.) – King Charles II of England, Scotland, and Ireland is crowned in Westminster Abbey.
• May 8 – The "Cavalier Parliament", the longest serving Parliament in British history, is opened following the first parliamentary elections since the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. The first session of the House of Commons and the House of Lords lasts until June 30 and then reopens on November 20. The Cavalier Parliament continues meeting, without new elections, until being dissolved on January 24, 1679.
• May 11 – The Indian city and territory of Bombay is ceded by Portugal to England in accordance with the dowry of King Joao IV of Portugal for the marriage of his daughter Catherine to King Charles II of England.
• May 17 – Leaders of the indigenous Taiwanese villages in the plains and mountains of the Dutch-ruled island begin surrendering to the Chinese forces led by Koxinga and agreeing to hunt down and execute Dutch people on the island.
• May 27 – The Marquess of Argyll, one of the first of the Scottish-born people sentenced to death as a regicide for his role in the conviction and execution of King Charles I of England and Scotland in 1649, is beheaded at the Tolbooth Prison in Edinburgh using the "Scottish Maiden," almost immediately after his conviction of collaboration with the government of Oliver Cromwell. His head is then placed on a spike outside the prison.
• June 1 – At Edinburgh, the public execution of Presbyterian minister James Guthrie, followed by Captain William Govan, takes place at the Mercat Cross at Parliament Square, days after both have been convicted of treason for their roles in the execution of King Charles I. The heads are severed from the corpses and displayed on spikes in the square.
• June 3 – Pye Min, younger brother of King Pindale Min of Burma, leads a bloody coup d'etat and ascends the throne. Pindale Min and his family (including his primary wife, a son and a grandson) are drowned in the Chindwin River. Pye Min reigns until 1672.
• June 14 – General Zheng Chenggong of China takes control of most of the island of Taiwan from the Dutch East India Company and proclaims the Kingdom of Tungning, with himself as the ruler.
• June 23 – The "Marriage Treaty" is signed between representatives of King Charles II of England and King João IV of Portugal, providing a military alliance between the two kingdoms and a marriage between Charles of the House of Stuart and João's daughter Catherine of the House of Braganza on May 21, 1662. The treaty also sets the transfer of Portuguese territory in India (at Bombay) and in North Africa (Tangier) to England as well as military aid from England to Portugal.
• June 28 – The innovative Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre opens in London with the first system for interchangeable scenery on a stage in the British Isles, and a production of William Davenant's opera The Siege of Rhodes.

July–September

• July 1 – The war between the empires of Russia and Sweden is ended with the signing of the Treaty of Cardis in what is now the Estonian city of Kärde. Russia returns those portions of Livonia and Ingria that it had taken earlier from Sweden.
• August 6 – Portugal and the Dutch Republic sign the Treaty of The Hague, whereby the Dutch Republic's South American colony of Nieuw-Holland is sold to Portugal for the equivalent of roughly 63,000 kilograms (139,000 lb) of gold, and incorporated into Brazil. The territory includes much of what will later become the Brazilian states of Ceará, Maranhão, Paraíba, Pernambuco and Rio Grande do Norte. Among the major Dutch settlements lost are Mauritsstad (Recife), Fort Schoonenborch (Fortaleza), Nieuw-Amsterdam (Natal), and Frederikstadt (João Pessoa).
• September 5 – Nicolas Fouquet, the Superintendent of Finances for France, is arrested in Nantes and charged with embezzlement of the state treasury. Spared the death penalty by a jury, Fouquet spends the rest of his life in prison until his death in 1680.

October–December

• October 6 – Guru Har Krishan becomes eighth of the ten Sikh gurus, and at age 5 the youngest, following the death of his father Guru Har Rai.
• October 31 – Köprülüzade Fazıl Ahmed Pasha is appointed as the new Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire at the request of his late father, the Grand Vizier Köprülü Mehmed Pasha, serving under the Sultan Mehmed IV for 15 years and continuing the Köprülü family dynasty whose members will serve as Viziers until 1711.
• November 4 – Polish and Lithuanian forces, led by King Jan II Kazimierz (who is also the Grand Duke of Lithuania) defeat the Russian Army at the Battle of Kushliki.
• December 14 – Prince Murad Bakhsh, younger brother of the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, is executed at Gwailor Fort on order of his brother.
• December 16 – Abraham Cowley's comedy The Cutter of Coleman Street premieres at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Playhouse in London as a production of the Duke's Company.
• December 21 – General Wu Sangui of China arrives in Burma with 20,000 troops and demands that the Burmese surrender Yongli, the last of the Ming dynasty rulers of Southern China before the Qing dynasty consolidated its rule. Burma's King Pye Min hands Yongli over to General Wu on January 15, and Yongli is subsequently executed.
• December 24 – The Indian city of Quilon (now Kollam in the Kerala state), ruled by Portugal since 1498, is captured by the Dutch East India Company.

Date unknown

• The first modern bank notes are issued in Stockholm, Sweden.
• Great Clearance in China: evacuation of Guangdong is required.

1662

January–March

• January 4 – Dziaddin Mukarram Shah becomes the new Sultan of Kedah, an independent kingdom on the Malay Peninsula, upon the death of his father, Sultan Muhyiddin Mansur.
• January 10 – At the age of 19, Louis Grimaldi becomes the new Prince of Monaco upon the death of his grandfather, Honoré II.
• January 14 – A Portuguese garrison invades Morocco and kidnaps 35 women and girls, then steals 400 head of cattle. The Moroccans counterattack and kill the garrison's commander, 12 knights and 38 other Portuguese soldiers before the surviving Portuguese are given sanctuary inside the English fortress at Tangier. A brief war ensues between England and Morocco.
• January 22 – Former Chinese Emperor Yongli, who had surrendered to General Wu Sangui in December, is put on a boat along with his sons and grandsons at Sagaing in Burma (at the time, Burma), leaving under the promise that they will be given safe passage elsewhere in Burma. Instead, the former Emperor is taken back to China and executed on June 1.
• January 23 – János Kemény, Prince of Transylvania for slightly more than a year, is killed during Transylvania's defeat by the Ottoman Empire in a battle at Nagyszőllős, now the city of Vynohradiv in Ukraine. An Ottoman appointee, Michael Apafi, replaces Kemény in September and the status of the principality of Transylvania (now part of Romania) is never regained.
• c. January – John Graunt, in one of the earliest uses of statistics, publishes statistical information about births and deaths in London.
• February 1 – Chinese general Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong) captures the Dutch East India Company's settlement at Fort Zeelandia (now Tainan) on the island of Taiwan after a nine-month siege, ending the company's rule on the island, then establishes the Kingdom of Tungning. In response, the Kangxi Emperor of the mainland Qing dynasty relocates all residents along the southern coast, by 50 miles.
• February 11 – A violent storm in the Indian Ocean strikes a fleet of seven ships of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) as they are traveling back to the Dutch Republic from Batavia in the Dutch East Indies (now Jakarta, Indonesia). Three of the freighters— Wapen van Holland, Gekroonde Leeuw and Prins Willem — are lost with all hands. The ships Vogel Phoenix, Maarsseveen and Prinses Royal make their way back to the Netherlands. The other ship, the freighter Arnhem remains afloat and its roughly 80 survivors are able to evacuate in boats to search for land.
• February 20 – The survivors of the wreck of the Dutch freighter Arnhem strike reefs but are able to make their way to an uninhabited island, probably the Ile D'Ambre or Ilot Fourneau both islands within the territory of Mauritius. During more than two months while shipwrecked, the survivors kill and eat the local wildlife, including the last surviving dodo. They are rescued by the English ship Truroe in May.
• March 18 – Carrosses à cinq sols, a short-lived experiment of the first public bus system (horse-drawn wagons holding eight passengers) begins in Paris as the idea of mathematician Blaise Pascal and financed by the Duc de Rouanez, with transportation to and from the Royal Square for the cost of five sous.

April–June

• April 19 – Three of the former members of the English Parliament who had signed the death warrant for Charles I of England in 1649 and then fled into exile in the Netherlands after the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 — Miles Corbet, John Okey and John Barkstead — are hanged after having been extradited, returned to England, and convicted of regicide. Their bodies are then drawn and quartered.
• April 22 – The Paugussett tribe, granted reservations in the British colony of Connecticut in North America, sell a large amount of tribal land to Captain Joseph Hawley including several towns in Fairfield County: Shelton, Trumbull, Derby and Monroe.
• April 24 – Chinese warlord Zheng Chenggong sends a message to the Spanish government of the Philippines demanding payment of tribute and threatening to send a fleet of ships to conquer the area. The message reaches the Spanish Governor-General on May 5, and preparations are made to resist the invasion.
• May 3 – John Winthrop the Younger, the son of the first governor of Massachusetts, is honored by being made a fellow of the Royal Society, England's new scientific society. Winthrop uses his election to the Society to gain access to the king, who grants him a new charter, uniting the colonies of Connecticut and New Haven.
• May 9 – Samuel Pepys witnesses a Punch and Judy show in London (the first on record).
• May 16 – The hearth tax is introduced in England and Wales.
• May 19
  • The Act of Uniformity 1662, officially "An Act for the uniformity of common prayer and service in the Church, and administration of the sacraments", is given royal assent after being passed by the English Parliament to regulate the form of public prayers, sacraments, and other rites of the Church of England to conform with the newest edition of the Book of Common Prayer, the 1662 prayer book.
  • Royal assent is also given to England's new hearth tax law, with one shilling charged for each stove or fireplace in a building, to be collected on 29 September and on 25 March each year in order to provide the £1,200,000 annual household income for King Charles II. The unpopular tax is abolished in 1689.
• May 21 – (May 31 N.S.); Princess Catherine of Braganza, daughter of King João IV of Portugal, marries Charles II of England. As part of the dowry, Portugal cedes Bombay in India, and Tangier in Morocco, to England.
• May 24 – Rioting in the Chinese section of Manila breaks out in the wake of calls to kill non-Christian Chinese residents of the Philippines, and the Spanish Army fires cannons at the rioting crowd. An order follows for non-Christian Chinese Filipinos to leave Manila, and for Christian Filipinos to register with the government. Boats begin transporting the non-Christians back to China
• May – The last credible report of a sighting of the dodo bird, now extinct, is made by Volkert Evertsz, a survivor of the shipwreck of the Dutch ship Arnhem, which struck reefs on February 12. The survivors had made their way in a small boat to Ile d'Ambre, an island in the Indian Ocean 200 kilometres (120 mi) northeast of Mauritius. When rescued by the English ship Truroe in May, Evertsz reports that he and his group had survived by eating the local wildlife, including the dodo.
• June 4 – The "Sangley Massacre" is ordered by Sabiniano Manrique de Lara, the Spanish Governor-General of the Philippines, with the directive for the government to kill all Filipinos of Chinese ancestry — Sangleys — who disobey orders to assemble at Manila for deportation.
• June 15 – The Matthews baronets British nobility title is created.
• June 21 – The Pierce baronets British nobility title is created.
• June 23 – Koxinga, who had founded the Kingdom of Tungning on the island of Taiwan a year earlier, names his successor while on his deathbed. He appoints his son, Zheng Jing, whom he had earlier ordered unsuccessfully to be executed, as the new King.

July–September

• July 15 – The Royal Society, founded by King Charles II of England and Scotland receives an official charter in London.
• August 20 – Ignatius Andrew Akijan is installed as the new Patriarch of the Syriac Catholic Church for Christians within the Muslim-ruled Ottoman Empire after his appointment is confirmed by the Sultan Mehmed IV.
• August 24 – The Act of Uniformity goes into effect on St Bartholomew's Day, making mandatory in the Church of England the forms of worship prescribed in the new edition of the Book of Common Prayer the deadline having been set for "every clergyman and every schoolmaster... to express, by August 24, his unfeigned consent to everything contained in the Book of Common Prayer. This is followed by the resignation of over 2,000 clergy who resign "for conscience sake". Those who refuse to take the required oath of conformity to the established church are subject to the Great Ejection from their jobs.
• September 9 – The Parliament of Scotland passes the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion, an amnesty (with numerous specific exceptions) for most political crimes committed by Scottish citizens during the years between January 1, 1637 (prior to the 1639 beginning of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and before the restoration of the monarchy on September 16, 1660.
• September 29 – The first payments under England's hearth tax law, enacted on May 19, become due.

October–December

• October 19 – An English Buccaneer force led by Royal Navy commodore Christopher Myngs launches an attack on Santiago de Cuba.
• October 27 – Charles II of England sells Dunkirk to France, for £400,000 (2.5 million French livres).
• November 28 – The English Royal Society holds its first meeting.
• December 4 – The Purefoy baronets British nobility title is created.
• December 20 – Nicolas Fouquet is banished from France.
• December 26 – Molière's play, The School for Wives, is given its première in Paris.
• November - December – Helen Guthrie is the last person accused during the Forfar witch trials to be executed.

Date unknown

• Robert Boyle publishes Nova experimenta physico-mechanica in Oxford (2nd edition), setting forth the law bearing his name.
• Joan Blaeu publishes Atlas Maior, sive cosmographia Blaviana in Amsterdam (first complete edition, 11 volumes in Latin).
• Milton, Massachusetts is incorporated as a town.
• The Akademie der Bildenden Künste Nürnberg is founded in Germany.
• The last widely accepted sighting of a dodo, now extinct.

1663

January–March

• January 10 – The Royal African Company is granted a Royal Charter by Charles II of England.
• January 23 – The Treaty of Ghilajharighat is signed in India between representatives of the Mughal Empire and the independent Ahom Kingdom (in what is now the Assam state), with the Mughals ending their occupation of the Ahom capital of Garhgaon, in return for payment by Ahom in silver and gold for costs of the occupation, and King Sutamla of Ahom sending one of his daughters to be part of the harem of Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb.
• February 5 – An earthquake estimated at least 7.3 magnitude strikes Canada's Quebec Province.
• February 8 – English pirates led by Christopher Myngs and Edward Mansvelt carry out the sack of Campeche in Mexico, looting the town during a two week occupation that ends on February 23.
• February 10 – The army of the Kingdom of Siam (now Thailand) captures Chiang Mai from the Kingdom of Burma (now Myanmar), using it as a base for launching a larger attack on the Burmese coast in November.
• March 4 – The Prince Edward Islands in the sub-antarctic Indian Ocean are discovered by Barent Barentszoon Lam, of the Dutch ship Maerseveen, and named Dina (Prince Edward) and Maerseveen (Marion).
• March 5 – Emperor Go-Sai's reign ends, and Emperor Reigen ascends to the throne of Japan.
• March 24 – King Charles II of England issues the Charter of Carolina, establishing the Province of Carolina, and dividing it between eight Lords Proprietors.

April–June

• April 17 – The Ottoman Empire declares war against Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor, beginning the Austro-Turkish War.
• May 7 – The King's Theatre, now called "Drury Lane", opens in London.
• June 7 – Under the pretext of working out a treaty with Dutch settlers in the colony of New Netherland, the Esopus tribe of the Delaware people enter the fortress at Wiltwijck (now the U.S. city of Kingston, New York) and stage a surprise attack. Unbeknownst to the Wiltwijck residents, another group of Esopus warriors had destroyed the village of Nieu Dorp (now Hurley, New York) earlier in the day. The episode begins the Second Esopus War.
• June 8 – The Portuguese and some English auxiliaries defeat the Spanish Army in the Battle of Ameixial.

July–September

• July 8 – King Charles II of England grants John Clarke a Royal Charter for the American colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
• July 19 – Acting as intermediaries between the Dutch and Esopus war parties, a group of three Mohawk Indians obtain the release of the first four hostages who had been taken hostage in the Esopus attack on Wildwyck, two women and two children.
• July 27 – The English Parliament passes the second Navigation Act, requiring that all goods bound for the American colonies have to be sent in English ships from English ports.
• August 15 – Oratam, leader of the Hackensack tribe of the Lenape nation, meets in New Amsterdam (now New York City) with Weswatewchy, Memshe and Wemessamy, three chiefs of the Monsiyok tribe, to ask for the Hackensacks to supply a cannon to defend their fort, and to confirm that the Monsiyok are not allied with the other major division of the Lenape, the Esopus tribe.
• August 21 – Concerned about the wintry weather, the Parliament of England holds an intercessory fast.
• August 28 – In an unseasonably cold summer, severe frost hits England.

• September 5 – Dutch Captain Martin Kregier and Lieutenant Couwenhoven lead an attack against the Esopus Indians from the right and Lieutenant Stilwil and Ensign Niessen the left wing. In the battle, near what is now Mamakating, New York, Chief Papequanaehen and 14 other Esopus warriors are killed, along with seven civilians; three Dutch soldiers are killed, but 23 Dutch prisoners are rescued.
• September 8 – Diego de Salcedo becomes the new Spanish Governor-General of the Philippines, replacing Sabiniano Manrique de Lara, who had served for more than 10 years. Salcedo is overthrown in 1668.
• September 13
  • The Gloucester County Conspiracy, the first slave rebellion in British North America, is foiled after one of the plotters, John Birkenhead, reveals the plan of African slaves and English indentured servants to kill their masters. Birkenhead is freed by his master as a reward for betraying the rebels.
  • After a siege of more than a month, the Hungarian fortress at Érsekújvár (now Nové Zámky in Slovakia) surrenders to the Ottoman Empire. In accordance with the treaty of surrender negotiated by the Hungarian commander, Count Ádám Forgách, the European residents are allowed free passage to Austria, and the Ottoman Grand Vizier, Fazil Ahmed Pasha provides a document certifying that the fort's defenders fought bravely.

October–December

• October 12 – The Farnley Wood Plot, a conspiracy in the English county of West Yorkshire to overthrow the recently-restored monarchy and to return to the military rule that had been established by the late Oliver Cromwell, fails when only 26 men gather at Farnley. The group is arrested and 21 of the rebels are later executed for treason.
• October 16 – With 2,000 men under his command, Petar Zrinski, the Viceroy of Croatia within the Holy Roman Empire, defeats a much larger force of 8,000 Ottoman soldiers in the Battle at Jurjeve Stijene, near the modern town of Otočac. The Croatians lose 10 soldiers killed; the Ottoman invasion force suffers over 1,500 deaths.
• November 6 – The Kingdom of Sweden adopts a law creating the flag in use in the nation now, a yellow Nordic cross on a blue background. The original version, used as a state flag and on ships, had three pennants.
• November 19 – Alexandre de Prouville de Tracy is appointed by King Louis XIV of Frances as the new Governor General of the French West Indies as the colonies of Saint-Domingue, Saint Martin, Guadeloupe, Dominica, Saint Barthélemy, and Saint Croix are put under a unified rule for the colonies in the Caribbean Sea for the first time since 1651.
• November 24 – The General Court of Commissioners for Rhode Island and Providence Plantations convenes for the final time, meeting in Newport to formally receive the Rhode Island Royal Charter issued on July 8 by King Charles II.
• December 12 – The Dutch Republic prohibits practice of the common law custom of jus naufragii, the doctrine that permitted people to seize property that had washed ashore on their land after a shipwreck.
• December 17 – Queen Ana Nzinga of the Kingdom of Ndongo and the Kingdom of Matamba, both located in the northern part of what is now the Republic of Angola in Africa, dies after a 39-year reign in Ndongo and 32 years after conquering Matamba. She is succeeded by her sister, Barbara Mukambu Mbandi, who rules for less than three years.
• December 27 – Jacob Hustaert becomes the new Governor of Dutch Ceylon.

Date unknown

• The Prix de Rome scholarship is established in France for students of the arts.
• The first Maroon community arises in Suriname.
• Robert Hooke discovers that cork is made of "tiny little rooms", which he first calls "Cells".
• Publication at Cambridge in the Massachusetts Bay Colony of the "Eliot Indian Bible" (Mamusse Wunneetupanatamwe Up-Biblum God), which becomes the first complete Bible published in the Americas, a translation by English-born Puritan missionary John Eliot of the Geneva Bible, from English into the Massachusett language (Natic or Wômpanâak) variety of the Algonquian languages.

1664

January–March

• January 5 – Battle of Surat in India: The Maratha leader, Chhatrapati Shivaji, defeats the Mughal Army Captain Inayat Khan, and sacks Surat.
• January 7 – Indian entrepreneur Virji Vora, described in the 17th century by the English East India Company as the richest merchant in the world, suffers the loss of a large portion of his wealth when the Maratha troops of Shivaji plunder his residence at Surat and his business warehouses.
• February 2 – Jesuit missionary Johann Grueber arrives in Rome after a 214-day journey that had started in Beijing, proving that commerce can be had between Europe and Asia by land rather than ship.
• February 12 – The Treaty of Pisa is signed between France and the Papal States to bring an end to the Corsican Guard Affair that began on August 20, 1662, when the French ambassador was shot and killed by soldiers in the employ of Pope Alexander VII.
• February 14 – A peace treaty is signed in Turin in Italy to end the War of the Banished between the Duchy of Savoy and the Waldensians.
• February 26 – Alexandre de Prouville de Tracy, appointed by King Louis XIV of France as Lieutenant Général of the Americas, departs from the port of La Rochelle with 1,200 men and seven ships to expand France's property in the Caribbean Sea and in South America.
• March 12 – King Charles II of England makes royal charter for territory in North America that leases to his brother, James, Duke of York, a patent for a large amount of land in what is now the northeastern United States. According to the Charter, James receives "all that part of the mayne land of New England" between "New Scotland in America" and the river of Kenebeque", along with "Mattowacks or Long Island" and "Martins Vineyard and Nantukes", and the lands between the "Connecticutte and Hudsons rivers" and the lands "from the west side of "Connecticutte to the east side De la Warre Bay". The lease, which includes the territory claimed by the Dutch Republic as New Netherland is for most of the U.S. state of Maine and parts of Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
• March 19 – Polish astronomer Jan Heweliusz becomes the first native of Poland to be inducted into England's Royal Society.

April–June

• April 14 – All grants to the Compagnie des Isles de l'Amerique for development of French-claimed islands in the Caribbean Sea are revoked by King Louis XIV, including the rights to the islands of Martinique and Saint Lucia that had been sold to Marie Bonnard du Parquet prior to her death in 1659.
• April 28 – Juan Alonso de Cuevas y Dávalos is appointed as the new Roman Catholic Archbishop of Mexico by Pope Alexander VII, to allow Archbishop Mateo de Sagade de Bugueyro to return to Spain. Archbishop Cuevas is installed on November 15 upon his arrival in Mexico City.
• May 9 – Robert Hooke discovers Jupiter's Great Red Spot.
• May 12 – The original version of Tartuffe, a comedy by French playwright and actor Molière, is given its first performance, staged at the Palace of Versailles
• May 15 – Guerin Spranger, commander of the Dutch fortress at Cayenne in South America, surrenders without a fight to French commander Alexandre de Prouville de Tracy and 1,200 employees of the Compagnie de la France équinoxiale, giving France control of the territory that becomes the colony of French Guiana.
• May 28 – King Louis XIV of France establishes the Compagnie des Indes Occidentales by royal decree to replace the recently cancelled Compagnie des Isles de l'Amerique.
• June 3 – In the city of Mantua in Italy, the world's oldest continuously published private newspaper, Gazzetta di Mantova, publishes its first-known issue. The newspaper would celebrate its 350th anniversary in 2014.
• June 5 – The siege of the Croatian fortress at Novi Zrin (located near the village of Donja Dubrava in Croatia near its border with Hungary). After a 32-day defense, the Croatian defenders surrender to troops of the Ottoman Empire.
• June 9 – Kronenbourg Brewery (Brasseries Kronenbourg) is founded in Strasbourg.
• June 24 – The Second Anglo-Dutch War carries over to North America as soldiers of the English Army invade the Dutch colony of New Netherland, promised by King Charles II of England to his brother, the Duke of York.

July–September

• August 1 – Battle of Saint Gotthard: The Ottoman Empire is defeated by a Habsburg army, led by Raimondo Montecuccoli, leading to the Peace of Vasvár.
• August 11 – Sir John Lisle, a former member of the English House of Commons who had been designated a regicide for his role in signing the death warrant in the execution in 1649 of Charles I of England, is assassinated in a church courtyard in Lausanne in Switzerland. Lisle had gone into exile after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. The shooting of Lisle, done on order of King Charles II, is carried out by a team led by royal agent James Cotter.
• August 27 – The French East India Company (Compagnie des Indes Orientales) is founded.
• September 8 (August 29 O.S.) – Peter Stuyvesant, Director-General of the Dutch Republic colony of New Netherland, surrenders New Amsterdam to an English naval squadron, commanded by Colonel Richard Nicolls, without bloodshed.
• September 23 – The French Navy ship Tigre sinks off of the coast of the island of Sardinia, with the loss of 64 men. Another 58 of the crew are rescued.

October–December

• October 4 – New Netherland is captured by England. The English promptly rename the fledgling city New York, after the Duke of York (later King James II).
• October 28 – The "Duke of York and Albany's maritime regiment of foot" is formed in London and serves as a precursor to the Royal Marines of the United Kingdom.
• October 31 – Surrounded by a Berber army, the French Navy evacuates the presidio of Jijel, a Mediterranean Sea port in what is now the Republic of Algeria, after having captured it from the Algiers Regency on June 12.
• November 6 – The oldest hospital in India, the Government General Hospital, is opened at Madras by the English East India Company for the treatment of ill soldiers.
• November 17 – Latvian colonist Jacob Kettler, Duke of Courland, gives up all of his rights to his African colony at St Andrew's Island in the Gambia River to representatives of King Charles II, in return for keeping possession of the Caribbean island of Tobago.
• December 3 – The English warships HMS Nonsuch and HMS Phoenix are wrecked in a storm at Gibraltar.
• December 20 – All but 3 members of the over 200-person crew of the Dutch ship Kennemerland are killed when the trade ship sinks in a storm near the Out Skerries islands off of the coast of Scotland.

Date unknown

• Austere reforms introduced in the Cistercian La Trappe Abbey in Normandy by Armand de Rancé, origin of the Trappists.
• John Evelyn's Sylva, or A Discourse of Forest-Trees and the Propagation of Timber is published in London, in book form.

1665

January–March

• January 5 – The Journal des sçavans begins publication as the first scientific journal in France.
• February 15 – Molière's comedy Dom Juan ou le Festin de pierre, based on the Spanish legend of the womanizer Don Juan Tenorio and Tirso de Molina's Spanish play El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra, premieres in Paris at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal.
• February 21 – In India, Shivaji Bhonsale of the Maratha Empire captures the English East India Company's trading post at Sadashivgad (in the modern-day Indian state of Karnataka).
• February – In England, Dr. Richard Lower performs the first blood transfusion between animals. According to his account to the Royal Society journal Philosophical Transactions in December, Dr. Lower "towards the end of February... selected one dog of medium size, opened its jugular vein, and drew off blood, until its strength was nearly gone. Then, to make up for the great loss of this dog by the blood of a second, I introduced blood from the cervical artery of a fairly large mastiff, which had been fastened alongside the first, until this latter animal showed it was overfilled by the inflowing blood."
• March 4 – The Second Anglo-Dutch War begins.
• March 6 – The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London begins publication in England, the first scientific journal in English and the oldest to be continuously published.
• March 11 – A new legal code is approved for the Dutch and English towns of New York, guaranteeing all Protestants the right to continue their religious observances unhindered.
• March 16 – Bucharest allows Jews to settle in the city, in exchange for an annual tax of 16 guilders.

April–June

• April 12 – The burial of Margaret Porteous is recorded; hers is the first known death during the Great Plague of London. This last major outbreak of Bubonic plague in the British Isles has possibly been introduced from the Netherlands. Two-thirds of Londoners leave the city, but over 68,000 die. The plague spreads to Derbyshire.
• May 19 – Great fire of Newport, Shropshire, England.
• June 11 – Shivaji, leader of the Bhonsale clan of the Marathas in India, signs the Treaty of Purandar with the Mughal Empire, giving up 23 of the 35 forts under his control, agreeing to pay reparations to the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, and sending his son to stay as a hostage at Agra.
• June 12 – England installs a municipal government in New York City (the former Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam).
• June 13 (June 3 O.S.) – Second Anglo-Dutch War – Battle of Lowestoft: The English Navy, under James Stuart, Duke of York, is victorious against the Dutch.
• June 17 – Battle of Montes Claros between Spanish and a combined Anglo-Portuguese force ends with a decisive Portuguese victory.
• June 30 – King Charles II of England issues a second charter for the Province of Carolina, which clarifies and expands the borders of the Lords Proprietors' tracts.

July–September

• July 7 – King Charles II of England leaves London with his entourage, fleeing the Great Plague. He moves his court to Salisbury, then Oxford.
• July 9 – The colonization of the south Indian Ocean island Réunion begins, with Louis XIV's East India Company (Compagnie des Indes Orientales) sending 20 permanent settlers, under the command of Etienne Regnault, from the French ship Taureau.
• July 11 – Pierre de Beausse, an envoy of France's King Louis XIV, formally claims possession of the African island of Madagascar on behalf of the French East India Company after landing on the coast in the 32-gun frigate Saint-Paul.
• August 2 – The Dutch fleet defeats the English in the Battle of Vågen off Norway in the Second Anglo-Dutch War.
• August 8 – The Great Plague forces the closure of the University of Cambridge, where Isaac Newton is a student. Newton retires to his home in Lincolnshire for safety, and stays there for two years. During this time alone, Newton will make groundbreaking discoveries in mathematics, calculus, mechanics and optics, and lay the foundations for his books Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica and Optiks.
• August 27 – Ye Bare & Ye Cubbe, the first play in English in the American colonies, is given its first performance. The presentation takes place at Cowles Tavern in Pungoteague, Virginia. The event is documented in 1958 in a historical marker with the heading "The Bear and the Cub" which says "This first play recorded in the United States was presented August 27, 1665. The Accomack County Court at Pungoteague heard charges against three men 'for acting a play,' ordered inspection of costumes and script, but found the men 'not guilty.'"
• September 17 – Charles II of Spain becomes king while not yet four years old.
• September 22 – Molière's L'Amour médecin is first presented, before Louis XIV, at the Palace of Versailles, with music by Jean-Baptiste Lully.
• September – Robert Hooke's Micrographia is published in London, first applying the term 'cell' to plant tissue, which he discovered first in cork, then in living organisms, using a microscope.

October–December

• October 5 – Kiel University is founded in the Duchy of Holstein.
• October 21 – Louis XIV and Jean-Baptiste Colbert found the Manufacture royale des glaces of Saint Gobain, which is the oldest French company of the CAC 40, with 350 years in 2015.
• October 29 – Battle of Mbwila: Portuguese forces defeat and kill King António I of Kongo.
• November 7 – The London Gazette is first published as The Oxford Gazette.
• December 10 – The Royal Netherlands Marine Corps is founded by Michiel de Ruyter.

Date unknown

• Joan Blaeu completes publication of his Atlas Maior (Theatrum Orbis Terrarum) in Amsterdam.

1666

January–March

• January 17 – The Chair of Saint Peter (Cathedra Petri, designed by Bernini) is set above the altar in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.
• January 27 – Mughal conquest of Chittagong: Mughal forces of Emperor Aurangzeb, in alliance with the Portuguese, under Shaista Khan and his son Buzurg Umed Khan, expel the Maghs from the Bengal port city of Chittagong, renaming the city as Islamabad.
• February 1 – The joint English and Scottish royal court returns to London as the Great Plague of London subsides.
• March 11 – The tower of St. Peter's Church, Riga, collapses, burying eight people in the rubble.
• March – The Tavernier Blue, precursor to the Hope Diamond, is first recorded, when French gem merchant Jean-Baptiste Tavernier purchases it from the Kollur Mine in the Mughal Empire in uncut form.

April–June

• April 20 – In colonial British North America, "Articles of Peace and Amity" are signed between the governments of the Province of Maryland and 12 Eastern Algonquian tribes — the Piscataways, Anacostancks, Doegs, Mattawomans, Portobackes, Chopticos, Mikikiwomans, Manasquesends, Chingwawateicks, Hangemaicks, Sacayos, and Panyayos.
• April 23 – On Saint Christopher Island more commonly called St Kitts, a Caribbean Sea island divided between colonies of England and France, a battle near Sandy Point Town over control of the territory ends with a victory by the French over a numerically-superior English force two days after English Deputy Governor William Watts of Anguilla had sent an expedition to capture the neighbouring island of Saint Martin. Governor Watts and the French Governor of Saint-Christophe, Charles de Sales, are both killed in the battle.
• May 12 – In India, General Shivaji Bhonsale of the Maratha Empire arrives at the Agra Fort for a meeting with Emperor Aurangzeb of the Mughal Empire, as part of the terms of peace under the 1665 Treaty of Purandar. After taking offence at the disrespect shown to him, he gets angry and attempts to leave; he and his son Sambhaji are immediately placed under arrest and imprisoned at the fort.
• May 13 – French theologian Louis-Isaac Lemaistre de Sacy is imprisoned in the Bastille after his conviction for heresy in connection with the Jansenist movement. Sacy uses his two and one-half years of incarceration (which lasts until November 14, 1668), to create the Bible du Port-Royal, a first French language rendition of the Bible, finishing a translation of the Old Testament from the Vulgate, written in Latin, that had been started by his brother Antoine, and then beginning work on the New Testament.
• May 21
  • The Holy Roman Empire, ruled by Leopold I, repurchases the territory of the Duchy of Opole and Racibórz (Oppeln und Ratibor), which it had ceded to Poland in 1645, for the sum of 120,000 guldens and consolidates it with Upper Silesia. The territory will be ceded from Germany to Poland in 1945 at the end of World War II.
  • Iliaș Alexandru becomes the ruler of Moldavia, part of modern-day Romania.
• June 4 – Molière's comedy of manners The Misanthrope is premièred at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal in Paris by the King's Players with himself in the title role.
• June 6 – Moulai al-Rashid is let into Fes by the city's Jews, establishing the power of Morocco's Alawi dynasty, which will continue into the 21st century.
• June 14 (June 4 Julian calendar) – The Four Days' Battle between the Dutch Republic fleet (84 ships under the command of Admiral Michiel de Ruyter) and the English Royal Navy (79 ships led by the Duke of Albemarle) in the North Sea, one of the longest naval engagements in history, ends with a retreat by the English after having started on June 11. A part of the Second Anglo-Dutch War, the battle ends with a Dutch victory, but heavy losses are sustained on both sides: the English lose 1,000 men and 10 ships are sunk, while the Dutch lose four ships and 1,550 men. Damaged, but not destroyed, the English fleet sets about repairs and refitting, and meets the Dutch fleet again on July 25 in the St. James's Day Battle.

July–September

• July 1 – During the Portuguese Restoration War between Portugal and Spain, the Battle of the Berlengas ends after four days as a fleet of 15 Spanish warships obtains the surrender of Fort of São João Baptista.
• July 6 – On 3 Muharram 1077 AH on the Muslim calendar, Sa'd ibn Zayd, a descendant of Hasan ibn Ali and of Muhammad (founder of Islam) becomes the new Sharif of Mecca, in modern-day Saudi Arabia. His ascension to the post follows the death of his father, Zayd ibn Muhsin, who had been the Sharif since 1631.
• July 13 – The Battle of Matwy, the bloodiest engagement of Lubomirski's rebellion, takes place in Poland at the village of Matwy. Jerzy Sebastian Lubomirski, who has led the revolt against Poland's King Jan II Kazimierz, defeats a larger number of troops led by John III Sobieski of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Poland and Lithuania sustain 4,000 deaths compared to 200 rebel casualties.
• July 31 – The Agreement of Legonice is signed, with Poland restoring the titles of Jerzy Sebastian Lubomirski and Lubomirski's officers, granting amnesty to all the rebels, and King Jan II Kazimierz abandoning further reform plans.
• August 2 (July 23 Julian calendar) – A hurricane sweeps through the Caribbean Sea near Guadeloupe five days after Barbados colonial Governor Francis Willoughby led a force of two Royal Navy frigates, 12 commandeered vessels and over 1,000 men in a battle against French colonies during the Second Anglo-Dutch War. Willoughby and most of his crew die in the sinking of his flagship, HMS Hope
• August 4 (July 25 Julian calendar) – In the St. James's Day Battle of the Second Anglo-Dutch War, the English Royal Navy, under the command of Prince Rupert of the Rhine and George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle, defeats the Dutch Republic navy off the North Foreland of England. The victory comes 6 weeks after the British fleet had sustained a heavy loss in the Four Days' Battle. The Dutch ships Sneek and Tholen are sunk, with the loss of 800 men, while 300 Englishmen die in the sinking of HMS Resolution.
• August 17 – In India, General Shivaji Bhonsale, future ruler of the Maratha Empire, and his son Sambhaji escape from house arrest at the Agra Fort, where they have been held prisoner since May 12.
• August 19 (August 9 Julian calendar) – Rear Admiral Robert Holmes leads an English Royal Navy raid on the Dutch island of Terschelling, destroying 150 merchant ships in the Vlie estuary over a period of two days, and pillaging the town of West-Terschelling. The action becomes known as "Holmes's Bonfire".
• September 2 – The Great Fire of London begins as a blaze in a bakery owned by Thomas Farriner on Pudding Lane, near London Bridge. Over a period of four days, the fire destroys more than 13,000 buildings (including Old St Paul's Cathedral), but only six people are known to have died, while at least 80,000 are left destitute and homeless. The events are recorded by Samuel Pepys in his diary. The resurveying of property is credited with advancing both cartography and the practices of surveying, as well as resulting in the modern definition by John Ogilby of the statute mile, as 1,760 yards.
• September 4 – Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb grants the French East India Company a royal mandate to trade at the port of Surat.
• September 6 – The Cestui Que Vie Act 1666 is passed by the Parliament of England, to provide for the disposal of the property of missing persons.
• September 16 – The Apostasy of Sabbatai Zevi begins in Istanbul.

October–December

• October 10 – A "day of humiliation and fasting" is held in London churches a month after the Great Fire of London.
• October 11 – The Sieur de Buat, Captain Henri de Fleury de Coulan of the Army of the Dutch Republic, is beheaded in public at The Hague after being convicted of attempting to overthrow Dutch leader Johan de Witt.
• October 17 – In North America, a French Army regiment led by Alexandre de Prouville de Tracy erects crosses in the Mohawk lands of the eastern Iroquois Confederacy territory along the Mohawk River as part of an invasion that started on September 29. During the expedition, Prouville's forces find four abandoned Mohawk villages in the area, located in the modern U.S. state of New York near the village of Schenectady but never confront any Mohawk defenders, and the French never attempt to enforce their claim.
• October 23 – The most intense tornado on record in English history, an F4 storm on the Fujita scale or T8 on the TORRO scale, strikes the county of Lincolnshire with a path of destruction through the villages of Welbourn, Wellingore, Navenby and Boothby Graffoe, with winds of more than 213 miles per hour (343 km/h).
• October 26 – Abbas II, the Shah of Iran, dies at the age of 34 after a reign of 24 years, without designating a successor. His 18-year old son Sam Mirza is crowned as the new Safavid dynasty emperor six days later.
• October 27 – Robert Hubert, a Frenchman who has made a false confession to having started the Great Fire of London (despite not arriving in England until two days after the blaze started), is executed based on his statements.
• November 28 – The Battle of Rullion Green takes place in the Pentland Hills near Midlothian in Scotland as the culmination of the brief 'Pentland Rising' which began on November 15 as a rebellion by the Covenanters who oppose changes in the Church of Scotland. At least 2,000 men of the Scottish Royal Army, led by General Thomas Dalyell, defeat more than 750 Covenanter rebels who have been under the command of James Wallace of Auchens.
• December 12 – A sobor (church council) of the Russian Orthodox Church deposes Patriarch Nikon of Moscow, but accepts his liturgical reforms. Dissenters from these, known as Old Believers, continue into the 21st century.
• December 19 – Lund University is founded in Lund, Sweden.
• December 22 – The French Academy of Sciences, founded by Louis XIV, first meets.

Date unknown

• Isaac Newton uses a prism to split sunlight, as referenced in his alchemical works as Lux Dei, into the component colours of the optical spectrum, assisting the understanding of the scientific nature of light. He also develops differential calculus simultaneously with Leibniz. 1666 is consequently referred to as his Annus mirabilis or Newton's "Year of the Morning Star".
• Jean Talon completes a census of New France, the first census in North America.
• Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer paints The Art of Painting, his largest and most complex work.
• The first completed printed Bible translation into Armenian, Astuacašunč hnoc' ew noroc' ktakaranac (Oskanean Bible), is published in Amsterdam, edited by Bishop Oskan Yerevantsi.

1667

January–March

• January 11 – Aurangzeb, monarch of the Mughal Empire, orders the removal of Rao Karan Singh as Maharaja of the Bikaner State (part of the modern-day Rajasthan state of India) because of Karan's dereliction of duty in battle.
• January 19 – The town of Anzonico in Switzerland is destroyed by an avalanche.
• January 27 – The 2,000 seat Opernhaus am Taschenberg, a theater in Dresden (capital of the Electorate of Saxony) opens with its first production, Pietro Ziani's opera Il teseo.
• February 5 – In the Second Anglo-Dutch War, the English Royal Navy warship HMS Saint Patrick is captured less than nine months after being launched, when it fights a battle off the coast of England and North Foreland, Kent. Captain Robert Saunders and 8 of his crew are killed while fighting the Dutch ships Delft and Shakerlo. The Dutch Navy renames the ship the Zwanenburg.
• February 6 (January 27 O.S.) – The Treaty of Andrusovo is signed during the Russo-Polish War. Poland cedes eastern Ukraine, including Kiev and Smolensk, to Russia, ending Poland's status as a major Central European power.
• February 8 – The first part of the Rebuilding of London Act 1666, following the destruction by the Great Fire of London of 1666, goes into effect as royal assent is given to the Fire of London Disputes Act 1666, which establishes the Fire Court. The Court, sitting at Clifford's Inn near Fleet Street, hears cases starting on February 27 and continuing until the end of 1668.
• February 22 – The Lejonkulan ("lion's den") opens at Stockholm in Sweden as the first permanent theater in Scandinavia, with the performance of Jean Magnon's Orontes en Satira.
• February 25 – During the Second Anglo-Dutch War, a Dutch Navy force commanded by Admiral Abraham Crijnssen arrives at the English colony of Surinam in South America and sails up the Suriname River to Fort Willoughby (later Fort Zeelandia at Paramaribo). Bombardment of the fort begins the next day, and its commander, William Byam surrenders, effectively giving control of Surinam to the Dutch Republic. The cession is confirmed with the signing of the Peace of Breda on July 31.
• February 27 (February 17 O.S.) – Joasaphus II is elected by the Council of Bishops as the new Patriarch of Moscow, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, after conservative clerics depose Patriarch Nikon for his reformation of the Church.
• March 27 – In North America (Canada), explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle is released from the Society of Jesus (Jesuits).
• March – Louis XIV of France abolishes the livre parisis (Paris pound), in favor of the much more widely used livre tournois (Tours pound). He also designates Gabriel Nicolas de la Reynie as the first chief of "police" of Paris.

April–June

• April 6 – The 1667 Dubrovnik earthquake in the Republic of Ragusa (part of modern-day Croatia) kills as many as 5,000 people, roughly one sixth of the population, and levels most of the buildings in Dubrovnik.
• April 27 – The blind, impoverished, 58-year-old John Milton seals a contract for publication of Paradise Lost with London printer Samuel Simmons, for an initial payment of £5. The first edition is published in October and sells out in eighteen months.
• April 29–May 1 – Second Anglo-Dutch War: A Dutch flotilla under Admiral van Ghent enters the Firth of Forth in Scotland and bombards Burntisland.
• May 8 – Prince Prithviraj Singh, eldest son of the Maharaja Jaswant Singh of the Kingdom of Marwar (within India's Mughal Empire, part of the modern-day Rajasthan state) dies painfully at the age of 14, supposedly after putting on a khalat (a ceremonial robe) given to him by the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb. According to the folklore of Marwar, the khalat was actually a garment infused with poison that penetrated the skin.
• May 22 – Fabio Chigi, Pope Alexander VII, dies at the age of 68 after a reign of 12 years. The election to find a successor opens on June 2.
• May 24 – After King Philip IV of Spain reneges on payment of a large dowry to King Louis XIV of France, promised to Louis as a gift for Louis' marriage to Philip's daughter Princess Maria Theresa, the War of Devolution begins between France and Spain. The French Army invades the Spanish Netherlands (modern-day Belgium), entering Flanders and Franche-Comté. By the time the war ends on May 2, 1668, parts of the Spanish Netherlands are ceded to France.
• June 15 – The first human blood transfusion is administered by Dr. Jean-Baptiste Denys. He transfuses the blood of a sheep to a 15-year-old boy. (Though this operation is a success, a later patient dies from the procedure and Denys is accused of murder).
• June 19–24 – The raid on the Medway in England is carried out when a fleet from the Dutch Republic under Admiral Michiel de Ruyter takes Sheerness fort, sails up the River Medway, raids Chatham Dockyard, and tows away the royal flagship The Royal Charles.
• June 20 – Giulio Rospigliosi is elected by the College of Cardinals to succeed the late Pope Alexander VII, after receiving 61 of the 64 votes of the cardinals present. He takes the regnal name Pope Clement IX, becoming the 238th head of the Roman Catholic Church.
• June 26 – Louis XIV of France conquers Tournai.
• June 27 – George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, one of the five members of the Cabal ministry in England (Lords Chudleigh, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley and Lauderdale), turns himself in after a warrant for his arrest is issued on February 25 on charges of treason (including the casting of the horoscope of King Charles II). He is held in the Tower of London for four years before being released on July 17, 1671.

July–September

• July 31 – Second Anglo-Dutch War – The Treaty of Breda ends the war by England against the Dutch Republic, France and Denmark and Norway. In the Americas, the Dutch retain control of Surinam, the English retain New Netherland and the French Acadia.
• August 5 – The province of Holland in the Dutch Republic passes the "Perpetual Edict" declaring that it will no longer acknowledge the authority of the republic's Stadtholder, and other provinces soon follow suit.
• August 10 – The Siege of Lille, at this time part of the Spanish Netherlands (modern-day Belgium) begins and becomes the only major engagement of the "War of Devolution" between France and Spain. The Spanish Army surrenders after 16 days.
• August 15
  • The League of the Rhine is dissolved by agreement of its members, nine years and one day after its formation as a military alliance between German kingdoms in the western part of the Holy Roman Empire.
  • John Dryden's comedy Sir Martin Mar-all, or The Feign'd Innocence is given its first performance, presented by the players of the King's Theatre in London.
• August 18 – In an effort to prevent narrow streets from being blocked from all light by tall buildings, the city of Paris enacts its first building code limiting the height of new construction. Buildings may be no taller than eight toise – 15.6 metres (51 ft) – tall. In 1783, rules are implemented to consider the width of the street.
• August 24 – The Treaty of Breda goes into effect after having been signed on July 31, bringing an end to hostilities between England and its three opponents.
• August 25 – In China, 14-year-old Xuanye, the Kangxi Emperor, participates in an ascension ceremony to take full power to rule China, bringing an end to the domination of the "Four Regents" who had been ruling in his name when he had first inherited the throne at the age of 6. The move comes shortly after the August 12 death of one of the regents, Sonin, when it becomes clear that the regents were planning to expand their power in advance of Kangxi's coming of age.
• September 6 – The "Dreadful Hurricane of 1667" ravages southeast Virginia, bringing 12 days of rain, blowing down plantation homes and stripping fields of crops.

October–December

• October 18 – Yohannes I becomes king of Ethiopia, following the death of his father Negus Fasilides.
• November 2 – In India, Assam troops led by General Lachit Borphukan, dispatched by King Supangmung, captures the Mughal Empire city of Guwahati after a victory in battle at Itakhuli.
• November 25 – A devastating earthquake rocks Caucasia and kills 80,000 people.
• December 19 – Emperor Aurangzeb, ruler of the Mughal Empire in India, orders a massive counterattack on Assam's Ahom kingdom after learning that Mughal troops had captured Guwahati. Aurangzeb appoints Raja Ram Singh to command a force of 36,000 infantry, 18,000 cavalry, 2,000 archers and 40 ships to conquer Ahom. The war lasts until the defeat of the Mughals by the smaller Ahom force in March 1671.

Date unknown

• After Shivaji's escape, hostilities between the Marathas and the Mughals ebb, with Mughal sardar Jaswant Singh acting as intermediary between Shivaji and Aurangzeb for new peace proposals.
• The first military campaign of Stenka Razin is conducted in Russia.
• The French army uses grenadiers.
• Robert Hooke demonstrates that the alteration of the blood in the lungs is essential for respiration.
• Isaac Newton has investigated and written on optics, acoustics, the infinitesimal calculus, mechanism and thermodynamics. The works will be published only years later.

1668

January–March

• January 23 – The Triple Alliance of 1668 is formed between England, Sweden and the United Provinces of the Netherlands.
• February 13 – In Lisbon, a peace treaty is established between Afonso VI of Portugal and Carlos II of Spain, by mediation of Charles II of England, in which the legitimacy of the Portuguese monarch is recognized. Portugal yields Ceuta to Spain.
• c. February – The English Parliament and bishops seek to suppress Thomas Hobbes' treatise Leviathan.
• March 8 – In the Cretan War, the navy of the Republic of Venice defeats an Ottoman Empire naval force of 12 ships and 2,000 galleys that had attempted to seize a small Venetian galley near the port of Agia Pelagia.
• March 22 – Notable Privateer Henry Morgan lands in Cuba to raid and plunder the inland town of Puerto del Príncipe during the latter stages of the Anglo-Spanish War (1654–1660).
• March 23 – The Bawdy House Riots of 1668 take place in London when a group of English Dissenters begins attacking brothels, initially as a protest against the harsh enforcement of laws against private worshippers and the lack of enforcement of laws against prostitution. Over a period of three days, rioters who join in the violence destroy brothels in the London districts of Poplar, Moorfields, East Smithfield, St Leonard's, Shoreditch, St Andrew's and Holborn.
• March 27 – King Charles II of England signs an agreement with representatives of the English East India Company to lease the Indian city of Bombay (modern-day Mumbai) to the company for a rent of 10 pounds sterling per year, with transfer taking effect on September 21.

April–June

• April 21 – Henry Brouncker is expelled from the English House of Commons for treason during the 1665 Battle of Lowestoft during the Second Anglo-Dutch War.
• April 22 – Tenzin Dalai Khan is proclaimed as the new Protector King of Tibet by the 5th Dalai Lama, following the death of Tenzin's father, Dayan Khan.
• April 24 – The Treaty of Breda, signed in 1667 and ending the Second Anglo-Dutch War, goes into effect worldwide.
• April 25 – The Swedish Empire signs a treaty with England and the Dutch Republic to join the Triple Alliance.
• May 2 – The first Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle ends the War of Devolution.
• May 18 – Charles Sedley's comedy The Mulberry-Garden premieres at the Theatre Royal in London.
• June 4 – Tangier, a city in Morocco that had come under control of the English colonial empire in 1661, is elevated by the English crown to the status of "free city".
• June 12 – John Dryden's play An Evening's Love, or The Mock Astrologer premieres at the Theatre Royal in London in a performance by the King's Company players for King Charles and Queen Catherine.
• June 16 – A group of Spanish Jesuit missionaries become the first European settlers to arrive at the island of Guam, founding a mission to convert the Chamorro people of the Mariana Islands to Christianity.
• June 18 – Petro Doroshenko is proclaimed by the Russian Empire as the hetman of all of Ukraine, after having previously been granted leadership of the western half. Ivan Briukhovetsky, who had ruled the eastern half and then led an uprising, is executed on the same day.

July–September

• July 7 – Bishop Isaac Barrow founds the Bishop Barrow Trust with the intention of establishing a university on the Isle of Man; this becomes King William's College.
• July 10 – Henry Morgan's raid on Porto Bello: Welsh privateer Henry Morgan and 450 men under his command plunder the city of Portobello on the Isthmus of Panama and spend 14-days in the attack before withdrawing.
• July 25 – The magnitude 8.5 Shandong earthquake kills at least 43,000 people in China's Shandong province.
• August 17 – The magnitude 8.0 North Anatolia earthquake causes 8,000 deaths in northern Anatolia, Ottoman Empire, and is the most powerful earthquake recorded in Turkey.
• September 9 – Molière's comedy The Miser (L'Avare) is first performed, in Paris.
• September 16 – Jan II Kazimierz Waza abdicates his titles of King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania after a 20-year reign.
• September 21 – The British East India Company takes over Bombay under a Royal Charter of March 27.
• September 28 – Diego de Salcedo is overthrown from his position as the Spanish Governor-General of the Philippines in a coup d'etat led by Juan Manuel de la Peña Bonifaz. Salcedo and other members of his administration are jailed and then sent into exile from Luzon to the island of Panay, and his fortune is confiscated.

October –December

• October 5 (September 25 O.S.) – The English blockade of the Moroccan port of Salé begins as HMS Garland and HMS Francis retaliate for raids from the port by the Barbary pirates. The blockade lasts for 10 days.
• October 7 – French Jesuit missionary Jean Pierron arrives at the Mohawk Nation city of Tionondogen (near modern-day Palatine, New York, U.S.) to replace Jacques Frémin in attempting to convert members of the Iroquois tribe to Christianity.
• October 31 – The English ship HMS Providence is wrecked at Tangier on the North African coast.
• November 8 – Iliaș Alexandru steps down as the voivode or elected ruler of Moldavia (now part of Romania and the Republic of Moldova) and is replaced by his predecessor, Gheorghe Duca.
• December 6 – The Order of the Jesuati, founded in 1360 by Giovanni Colombini, is abolished by Pope Clement IX.
• December 16 – In China, the 1661 edict of the "Great Clearance", the forcible evacuation of the coastal areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangnan, and Shandong in order to fight a rebellion, is rescinded by the Kangxi Emperor after lobbying by Zhou Youde, the Viceroy of Liangguang.
• December 28 – Fritz Cronman arrives in Moscow as the Swedish Empire's ambassador to the Russian Empire, accompanied by a staff of 35 people.

Date unknown

• One of the world's earliest central banks, the Sveriges Riksbank, is founded in Stockholm, Sweden.
• Emperor Yohannes I of Ethiopia convenes a church council in Gondar, which decides to expel all Roman Catholics from the country.
• English scientist Isaac Newton builds the first reflecting telescope (Newton's reflector).

1669

January–March

• January 2 – Pirate Henry Morgan of Wales holds a meeting of his captains on board his ship, the former Royal Navy frigate Oxford, and an explosion in the ship's gunpowder supply kills 200 of his crew and four of the pirate captains who had attended the summit.
• January 4 – A 5.7 magnitude earthquake strikes the city of Shamakhi in Iran (now in Azerbaijan) and kills 7,000 people. Fourteen months earlier, an earthquake in Shamakhi killed 80,000 people.
• February 13 – The first performance of the Ballet de Flore, a joint collaboration of Jean-Baptiste Lully and Isaac de Benserade is given, premiering at the Palais du Louvre in Paris. King Louis XIV finances the performance and even appears in a minor role in the production as a dancer.
• February 23 – Isaac Newton writes his first description of his new invention, the reflecting telescope.
• March 11 – Mount Etna erupts, destroying the Sicilian town of Nicolosi.
• March 28 – Radu Leon is deposed by the Ottoman Sultan as Prince of Wallachia (now part of Romania and is replaced by Antonie Vodă din Popești.

April–June

• April 9 – Aurangzeb, the Muslim Emperor of the Mughal Empire in India, issues a firman decree for the protection of all Hindu temples and schools in his kingdom.
• May 1 – the Spanish Armada de Barlovento is defeated by an English Privateer fleet led by Captain Henry Morgan during his raid on Lake Maracaibo.
• May 19 – The first people executed in Sweden's Mora witch trial are put to death, with seven women and one man beheaded after being convicted of "abduction of children to Satan."
• May 31 – Samuel Pepys stops writing his diary.
• June 22 – Roux de Marsilly, accused of plotting the assassination of King Louis XIV, is publicly tortured in Paris, France.
• June 25 – François de Vendôme, Duke of Beaufort, disappears in battle, during the siege of Candia in Crete.

July–September

• July 13 – Trịnh Tạc, the warlord who administers the Kingdom of Vietnam, issues an order banning all foreign vessels from entering the harbor at Hanoi, requiring to anchor no closer than the river port at Pho Hien, 35 miles (56 km) down the Red River from Hanoi.
• July 16 – A rockfall from the Mönchsberg mountain above Salzburg in Austria kills 230 people as tons of the mountainside fall onto a neighborhood on a street, the Gstättengasse.
• July 24 – During an attempt by a fleet of French Navy ships to stop the siege of Candia by bombardment of Ottoman positions on the island of Crete, the arsenal of gunpowder on the French flagship, the 56-gun warship Thérèse, catches fire and explodes. Out of 350 crew on the Thérèse, only seven survive. Demoralized, the remaining French commanders halt the bombardment and the fleet withdraws.
• July 25 – Pieter Bickel, a Lutheran pastor and a mountaineer in Austria, becomes the first person to climb to the peak of the tallest of the Southeastern Walsertal Mountains, the 8,310 foot (2,530 m) Großer Widderstein.
• July – The Hanseatic League, after 400 years of operation, holds its last official meeting, taking place at the city of Lübeck. At its height, the economic alliance of German cities had 180 members; only nine (Lübeck, Hamburg, Bremen, Danzig, Braunschweig, Cologne, Hildesheim, Osnabrück and Rostock) are represented for the final gathering. The final series of meetings had started on May 29.
• August 17 – A group of English settlers, led by Joseph West, departs from The Downs on the ship Carolina with instructions to make the first European settlement in the modern-day U.S. state of South Carolina. After a long voyage with stops in Ireland and Barbados, the Carolina settlers arrive at Port Royal on March 17 next.
• August 24 – "The Man in the Iron Mask", a prisoner identified as "Eustache Dauger", arrives at the French fortress of Pignerol, with Bénigne Dauvergne de Saint-Mars in charge of his incarceration. The identity of the prisoner is kept secret with a mask – actually of velvet – over his face, so legends as to his true identity grow.
• August 25 – The day after the verdicts at the Mora witch trial in Sweden, 14 women and one man are publicly beheaded after having confessed to various crimes involving the use of "enchanted tools" on behalf of the Devil. Another 47 are convicted and taken away for a later execution.
• September 6 – Francesco Morosini, capitano generale of the Venetian forces in the siege of Candia, surrenders to the Ottomans.
• September 23 – Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor grants the status and privileges of a university to the Jesuit Academy in Zagreb, the precursor to the modern University of Zagreb.
• September 29 – The formal coronation of Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki as King of Poland (and Grand Duke of Lithuania) takes place in Kraków.

October–December

• October 4 – Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn dies at the age of 63, after completing his final known work Self-Portrait at the Age of 63. Despite his wealth, is buried in an unmarked grave in Amsterdam's Westerkerk. After 20 years, his remains are removed and destroyed in accordance with church custom.
• October 6 – Molière's comedy ballet Monsieur de Pourceaugnac (with music by Jean-Baptiste Lully and choreography by Pierre Beauchamp is performed for the first time, premiering at the Château of Chambord.
• October 9 – The English ship Nonsuch returns to London with the first products acquired from trade around Canada's Hudson Bay, a cargo of fine furs. The bounty from the Nonsuch expedition attracts investors for the soon-to-be-chartered Hudson's Bay Company.
• October 15 – The University of Innsbruck is chartered in Austria by Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor. After being reduced to a lesser function on November 29, 1781, it is rechartered in 1826.
• October 19 – The Parliament of Scotland holds its first new session in six years (although two Conventions of Estates had been held briefly in 1665 and 1667). The session is opened in Edinburgh by Charles II of England in his capacity as King of Scotland.
• October 29 – Ukrainian Cossack General Mykhailo Khanenko is defeated by Petro Doroshenko at the Battle of Stebliv after attempting to wrest control of Ukraine's territory on the west side of the Dnieper River from Doroshenko.
• November 28 – In India, the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb learns of a rebellion of Hindu residents of in various parts of the Mathurá where he had given the order for the destruction of non-Muslim temples, with rioting in Mauza' Rewarah, Chandarkah, and Surkhrú. The Emperor's historian, Saqi Mustaid Khan, records Aurangzeb's dispatch of General Hasan 'Ali Khán to attack the rebels, and 300 of them are "sent to perdition" while the Mughals lose "many imperial soldiers". Another 250 surviving rebels are arrested. Kokilá Ját, leader of the rebels, is among the prisoners put to death a month later.
• December 8 – The Sultanate of Bima, located on the now-Indonesian island of Sumbawa and ruled by Abu'l-Khair Sirajuddin, surrenders its authority to the Dutch East Indies Company, the VOC.
• December 9 – Pope Clement IX dies at the age of 69 after a reign of two and a half years.
• December 13 – Jean Racine's five-act tragic play Britannicus is performed for the first time, premiering at the Hôtel de Bourgogne in Paris. The play continues to be performed more than 350 years later, including a 2011 version translated by Dr. Howard Rubenstein.
• December 18 – The Battle of Cádiz begins off of the coast of the Spanish city as the English warship HMS Mary Rose encounters seven pirate ships from Algeria. Although none of the ships on either side are sunk, the Algerians are forced to retreat with an unknown number of casualties, and the Mary Rose loses 12 dead and 18 wounded.
• December 21 – A papal conclave that will last for four months begins in Rome to select a successor to Pope Clement IX, who had died 12 days earlier. At the opening, 54 of the 70 members of the College of Cardinals are present. At least 21 Cardinals are considered for the papacy before Emilio Altieri is selected on April 29 to become Pope Clement X.

Date unknown

• Shakushain's revolt breaks out in Hokkaido, Japan.
• Ottoman units burn the eastern part of Kolárovo.
• The Chinese Kangxi Emperor allows coastal residents deported in the Great Clearance of 1662 to return home.
• Famine in Bengal kills 3 million people.
• Phosphorus is discovered by German alchemist Hennig Brand, the first chemical element to be discovered that was not known since ancient times.
• Antonio Stradivari makes his first violin in Cremona.
• Okaya & Co. is founded as Sasaya, a trading company in Nagoya, Japan.
• The Chinese herbal medicine company Tong Ren Tang (同仁堂) is established in Beijing.
• Blaise Pascal's Pensées is posthumously published in Paris.
• Jan Swammerdam publishes his Algemeene Verhandeling van de bloedeloose dierkens, a groundbreaking work in microscopy, as well as entomology.
• The Orange College of Breda is wound up.
• Jean Picard begins measurement of 1 degree of Earth's meridian arc in France.