1686

• German physicist and instrument maker Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit.
• (or in 1684) German composer Silvius Leopold Weiss.
• Italian composer Benedetto Marcello.
• English mystic William Law.
• Scottish poet Allan Ramsay, Sr.
• English painter John Wootton.
• Italian composer Andrea Stefano Fiorè.
• French painter Jean-Baptiste Oudry.
• Danish physician and geologist Nicolaus Steno.
• Italian composer Giovanni Battista Somis.
• Italian composer Antonio Tonelli.
• Italian composer Nicola Antonio Porpora.
• English writer Thomas Tickell.
• Bavarian architect Kosmas Damian Asam.

• German physicist and Bürgermeister of Magdeburg Otto von Guericke.
• English historian and geographer Sir William Dugdale.
• Italian mathematician Pietro Mengoli.
• Italian painter Carlo Dolci.
• Russian icon painter Semen Ushakov.
• Infamously cruel English hangman Jack Ketch.
• Italian composer Niccolò Antonio Porpora.
• French engineer and architect Nicolas-François Blondel.
• German composer Augustin Pfleger.
• French sculptor Michel Anguier.
• Flemish painter Jacques Arthois.
• German composer and musical instrument maker Paul Hainlein.
• Sir William Wailer, pro-Parliament general during the English Civil War, but also one of the instigators of the Restoration.

• Bernard de Fontenelle publishes Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes¹. He states not only that earth is not the center of the Universe, but that other inhabited worlds might exist.
• Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz publishes an article describing integral calculus, the first appearance of ? !
• Aphra Behn's play The Lucky Chance premieres.
• Chikamatsu Monzaemon's puppet play Shusse Kagekiyo is performed for the first time.
• The Royal Society approves the publication of Isaac Newton's Principia, but:
• they make Edmond Halley responsible for all costs of publication
• Robert Hooke claims he came up with the idea of the inverse-square law of gravitation, but later admits he didn't understand the mathematics involved.
• Newton threatens to withhold the third book of the Principia until Hooke is silenced, putting Halley in a real pickle.
• Edmond Halley publishes the first weather map.
• A squall at Fort St. Louis dislodges the Belle, the French settlers' last ship, from its moorings, and blows it across Matagorda Bay, where it runs aground. Rene Robert Cavelier Sieur de la Salle and his followers are now stranded.
• Spanish settlers from St. Augustine retaliate against an English raid of the previous year.  They burn Stewart Town in Carolina to the ground, but a hurricane destroys the Spanish flotilla before it can attack Charles Town.
• Japanese Emperor Reigen abdicates or is deposed².  His twelve-year-old son Higashiyama will ascend the throne the following year.
• English king James II:
• replaces six judges, after which Godden v. Hales legitimizing James's his ability to veto acts of Parliament (the Test Act in this instance) is decided in his favor.  The revocation of the Test Act allows practicing Catholics to serve in official posts and the military.
• revokes the charters of Rhode Island and Connecticut, dissolves all colonial legislatures and hands all power to royal representatives (mostly royal governors).  He combines New York, Massachusetts, and Plymouth colonies into the Dominion of New England, naming Sir Edmund Andros as governor-general.  When Andros arrives in Boston he immediately marches into Rhode Island, suspends the legislature, and makes it part of his fiefdom.
• Louis XIV of France is again rattling his sabre, this time claiming the Palatinate as his. At the same time, Huguenot refugees are flooding Germany in the wake of Louis' revocation of the Edict of Nantes the preceding year.  Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I and Elector Frederick William of Brandenburg-Prussia conclude a military alliance early in the year. At a conference in Augsburg later in the year, this alliance is widened to include many other south German states, as well as Spain and Sweden (the "League of Augsburg").
• Louis also holds a spectacular reception for the ambassadors of Phra Narai, King of Siam.
• Duke Charles V of Lorraine and Elector Maximillian II of Bavaria lead an army capturing Buda Castle from the Ottoman Empire.  Most of the city's Jews, who had supported the Turkish side, are killed during the ransack that follows.  Buda and Pest belong to Christendom again, but lie in ruins.
• Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb conquers Bijapur, ending the Adil Shahi Dynasty.
• Poland and Russia sign a "Treaty of Perpetual Peace"; Poland transfers Kiev to Russian control.
• Irkutsk is allowed to call itself a city for the first time.
• The Chinese lift their siege of the Siberian fortress of Albazin on the Amur (Heilongjiang) River.  Only 150 of the Russian defenders remain alive, claiming protection because of a holy icon conmtained in the fortress.

1685 - 1686 - 1687

How They Were Made - 17th Century