Born in 1643: Died in 1643:


Events of 1643:

  • Francesco Cavalli's opera Egisto appears.
  • Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici appears.
  • Pierre Corneille's play Polyeucte appears.
  • Girolamo Cardano's autobiography De vita propria liber appears.
  • Abel Tasman is the first European to visit Fiji and Tonga.
  • The Taj Mahal is completed and Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan's dead wife Mummtaz Mahal is finally interred there.
  • Vasily Poyarkov's Cossacks explore the Amur River.
  • Across the Amur, the Manchus are busy raiding south into China.  Abahai has already captured the Ming fotress of Jinzhou in present-day Liaoning, but the gateway mountain pass into China, Shanhaiguan, is blocked by general Wu Sangui. The Ming army sent relieve Jinzhou is destroyed piecemeal, 50,000 at the battle of Songshan alone.
  • Chinese rebel Li Zicheng defeats the last Ming army between himself and Beijing, led by Sun Chuanting.
  • English Civil War. The Cavaliers make large advances against the Roundheads but are checked at critical points:
    • Parliament lays he first excise taxes to finance its struggles with King Charles I.
    • (February) Royalists make large gains in the Midlands, taking Newark, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Tamworth, Lichfield, Stafford and Stratford-on-Avon.
    • (March 4) Lord Brooke is killed but the Roundheads re-take Lichfield, when the Cavaliers holed up in a fortified Lichfield Cathedral surrender.
    • (March) Sir Thomas Fairfax is badly defeated by Lord Goring while covering the retreat of his father, Lord Ferdinando Fairfax, Leeds.
    • Roundhead Major General Thomas Ballard fails to take Newark from dug-in Royalists under Sir John Henderson. Ballard loses his command.
    • (April) Charles's brother Prince Rupert, now in charge of Royalist forces, takes Birmingham.  He then lays siege to Lichfield. In an ironic echo of their victory in March, the Roundheads hole up in the cathedral, surrendering only after Rupert blows a hole in it with a mine.
    • (June 30) Royalists takes control of the West Riding of Yorkshire, forcing the Fairfaxes to retreat to Hull.
    • July 13 The Rondheads lose all of their cannon at Roundaway Down in Wiltshire; Charles has little opposition in the West Country.
    • (July 26) Prince Rupert takes Bristol after four days of siege.
    • (July) The Marquis of Newcastle takes Gainsborough, scattering the Roundhead army.
    • (August 10-September 5) King Charles ignores Prince Rupert's advice and decides to besiege Gloucester rather than storm it. Many Londoners take heart at the slowing of the Royalist tide, drive the Cavaliers from London, and raise several regiments under the Earl of Essex to relieve Gloucester; Charles has to withdraw.
    • (September) Prince Rupert attacks Essex's army at Aldbourne Chase] near Swindon, stalling Essex's march back to London long enough for the Royalist army to occupt Newbury, blocking his route.
    • (September 20) The First Battle of Newbury is a tactical Royalist victory, but it is such a bloody affair that Charles decides to withdraw.  Essex exploits Charles's mistake and marches on to Reading.  While attacking Essex's rearguard, Prince Rupert has a close shave when a pistol aimed at him misfires. Essex arrives in London on September 28.
    • (September 25) Parliament makes a Solemn League and Covenant with Scottish Presbyterians, gaining crucial military support from Scottish Covenanters.  To fulfill the covenant, Parliament calls the Westminster Assembly, setting it the task of making the Church of England Calvinist. The covenant, architect, John Pym, succumbs to cancer in December.
    • The Marquis of Newcastle decides to lay siege to Hull rather than pursue the Parliamentarian army. It is a rather lethargic siege, allowing Oliver Cromwell to enter and leave the city.  Hunger and desertion make the siege ineffective.
    • (October 11) Roundhead cavalry under Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell and Thomas Fairfax routs Royalist cavalry under William Saville at Winceby, breaking the siege of Hull, and Lincolnshire is under Parliamentary control.
  • While the English are spilling each other's blood, a 25-year-old religious bloodbath on the Continent continues:
    • (January) At the Queen's urging, Spanish king Philip IV dismisses his prime minister and best adviser, Gaspar de Guzmán y Pimental, Conde-Duque de Olivares.
    • (May 14) Shortly before Louis XIII dies, he claims to have a vision of a great victory by his nephew, Louis, duc d'Enghien.
    • (May 19) The Spanish army attempts to take advantage of Louis XIII's death by invading from Flanders, but the old king's prophecy comes true, as the French under Enghien crush the Spanish army at the Battle of Rocroi, securing the throne for Louis XIV, knocking Spain out of the war, ending Spanish military supremacy forever.
    • (July 11) The Congress of Westphalia officially opens after a year of delay. The French delegates don't show up, being busy intriguing against each other, as well as negotiating an alliance with the Netherlands.
    • (Septenber 2) Swedish chancellor Axel Oxenstierna decides that Danish King Christian IV is too much of a threat. He orders General Torstensson to break off his siege of Brno, with draw all forces from Germany, and send them all into Denmark.
    • (November 24) de Guébriant, commander of the Armee d'Allemagne, captures Rothwell from the Bavarians, but dies of wounds suffered during the battle.  The mercenary left in charge is unable to stop a combined Imperial-Bavarian attack at Tuttlingen, and the French are badly defeated.  Henri Turenne is transferred from the Italian front to put the shattered army back together again.
    • (December 22) the Swedes overrun Jutland.
  • The French make the first settlement in their Guiana colony at Cayenne.
  • English King Charles I grants a patent organizing the 'Providence Plantations' around Narragansett Bay into a new colony.

1642 - 1643 - 1644

How They Were Made - 17th Century



1In the old calendar, Newton was born December 25, 1642. In today's caldendar this adjusts to January 4, 1643.