Important events in 1619:

• The human eye is preserved and accurately drawn for the first time.
• The circulation of blood is discovered by Englishman William Harvey.
• Holy Roman Emperor Mathias dies. His place is taken by Ferdinand II.
• However, Ferdinand was an enemy of Bohemia. Frederick Elector Palatine attempted to delay the election of the Holy Roman Emperor and thus became ruler of the Confederation of Bohemian States, which was crushed by Ferdinand in 1620.
• In Jamestown, Virginia, the House of Burgesses is formed, representing the first step towards representative government.
• Also in Jamestown, women arrive, changing the colony's goals from gold rush towards permanence.
• Again in Jamestown, a ship carrying twenty African slaves arrives. This is the start of an institution which would last in America until 1865.
• England establishes its first outpost in India, after a treaty with Holland and its Dutch East India Company (or VOC.
• The Dutch VOC establishes an outpost at Batavia, Java (later Indonesia) which is key to their success in that region.
• In Virginia, the real first Thanksgiving is held by colonists from Berkeley Parish, England.
• The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth reaches its height.
• Johann Cysat discovers the Orion Nebula
• Johannes Kepler writes Harmonice mundi and Epitome astronomiae Copernicae, the former setting forth Kepler's third law of interplanetary motion and the latter defending the Copernican system. He also discovers solar wind. And if that weren't enough, he catalogues the thirteen Archimedean solids and gives them their modern names.
• Lucilio Vanini, an Italian philosopher, is burned at the stake for his proposal that men evolved from apes.
• René Descartes dreams that he is commanded to unify the sciences on a rational basis. This eventually leads to analytical geometry.
• John Spiedell publishes New Logarithmes, a treatise on trigonometric logarithms.
• In The Hague, statesmen Johan van Oldenbarnevelt is tried for treason and sentenced to death.
• English playwright Thomas Middleton writes The Masque of Heroes.

Births:

• French painter Charles le Brun is born on February 24.
• The actual Cyrano de Bergerac is born on March 6.
• Jan van Riebeek, head of the Dutch East India Company in Tonkin, Vietnam and later Dutch colonial administrator of South Africa, is born on April 21.
• Italian singer and composer Barbara Strozzi is born on August 6.
• French minister of finance Jean-Baptiste Colbert is born on August 29.
• Prince Rupert of the Rhine, commander of the Royalist cavalry during the English Civil Wars, is born on December 17.
• By a twist of fate, Parliamentarian officer John Lambert is also born around this time.
• Antoine Furetiêre, a French satirist, is born on December 28.
• French monk Jean Claude is born.

Deaths:

• English portrait painter Nicholas Hilliard dies on January 7.
• Lucilio Vanini, mentioned above, is burned at the stake on February 19.
• Queen Anne of Denmark, wife of King James I of England, dies on March 4.
• English actor Richard Burbage dies on March 13.
• Mathias, the Holy Roman Emperor mentioned above, dies on March 20.
• Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, the Dutch traitor mentioned above, is executed on May 13.
• Samuel Daniel, a Rennaissance English poet, dies on October 14.
• Hans Lippershey, a Dutch lensmaker (and the possible inventor of the telescope), dies.
• English portrait painter Nicholas Hilliard dies.

1618-1619-1620

17th century

The number 1619 is:

• The 256th prime number
• A safe prime—that is, it is expressible in the form 2p + 1, where p is prime (in this case, p = 809)
• A twin prime with 1621
• A prime whose cube is expressible as the sum of three prime squares in two ways: 1619³ = 3² + 24967² + 60169² = 3² + 28163² + 58741²