"If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties."
- Sir Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning (1605)
In the year AD 1605...
- Remember Remember the Fifth of November: The Gunpowder Plot, an attempt by Catholic conspirators to assassinate English king James I by blowing up Parliament in order to return England to Catholicism is uncovered when Guy Fawkes is discovered in the cellar of the Parliament building with 35 kegs of gunpowder. November 5th is commemorated to this day as Guy Fawkes Day in Great Britain.
- The "Time of Troubles" continues in Russia. The attempted invasion led by False Dmitri is failing, when suddenly the news breaks that Russian tsar Boris Godunov has died. Russian troops flock to Dmitri's banner and the Russian nobles assassinate Boris's son, the newly crowned Feodor II, after only a few months in office. False Dmitri triumphantly parades into Moscow, where he is greeted by cheering crowds, and is crowned Tsar Dmitri II.
- Brilliant Polish general Jan Karol Chodkiewicz wins his greatest victory, defeating a Swedish army three times the size of his own at the Battle of Kircholm in what is now Latvia, as part of the ongoing Polish-Swedish War.
- Japanese shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu insures his line of succession by abdicating in favor of his son, Tokugawa Hidetada, after only two years of rule.
- Miguel de Cervantes publishes the first volume of his two-volume novel Don Quixote (the final volume would be published 10 years later, in 1615).
- William Shakespeare writes his play King Lear.
- François Hannibal d'Estrées, a marshal of artillery to French king Henry IV, presents the Carthusian monks with an alchemical manuscript containing a recipe for an "elixir of long life." This recipe would become the famous liqueur Chartreuse.
- The terms spectre, anorexia nervosa, and nonplussed appear in the English language for the first time.
These people were born in 1605:
These people died in 1605:
- Mughal emperor Akbar, succeeded by his son Jahangir
- Thai king Naresuan the Great.
- Tsar of Russia Boris Godunov, succeeded by his son Feodor II
- Tsar of Russia Fyodor II, murdered by his father's enemies after a few months of rule, succeeded by False Dmitri I.
- Pope Pope Clement VIII, succeeded by Pope Leo XI
- Pope Leo XI, nicknamed the "Lightning Pope" for the brevity of his reign, of illness after less than a month in office, succeeded by Pope Paul V.
- French Calvinist theologian Theodore Beza.
- Italian naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi, remembered as the "Father of Natural History."
- Italian composer Orazio Vecchi.
- English explorer John Davis, discoverer of the Falkland Islands among other things, killed by Japanese pirates off the coast of Sumatra.
1604 - 1605 - 1606
17th century
How they were made