What happened in 1630–1639

World4

• 1630In China, General Yuan Chonghuan is invited to an audience with the Chongzhen Emperor and is arrested on charges of collusion with the enemy. Yuan is executed by the slow death on September 22.
• 1631War of the Mantuan Succession: The Treaty of Cherasco is signed, ending the War of the Mantuan Succession.
• 1634The Burchardi flood (also known as the second Grote Mandrenke) strikes the North Sea coast of Germany and Denmark, causing at least 8,000 deaths and perhaps as many as 12,000.
• 1635France declares war on Spain.

Japan4

• 1637The Shimabara Rebellion erupts in Japan, when 30,000 peasants in the heavily Catholic area of northern Kyūshū revolt.
• 1638Shimabara Rebellion: The siege of Shimabara Castle ends after 27 days in Japan's Tokugawa shogunate (part of modern-day Nagasaki prefecture) as the rebel peasants flee reinforcements sent by the shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu.
• 1638Shogunate forces defeat the last remnants of the Shimabara Rebellion, in the fortress of Hara. In the aftermath, suppression of Christianity is strictly enforced, Portuguese traders are expelled and Japan enters more than two centuries of isolationism.
• 1639Sakoku, the isolationist foreign policy of Japan, comes fully into effect.

North America9

• 1631In Dorchester, Boston, John Winthrop takes the oath of office, and becomes the first Governor of Massachusetts.
• 1632The Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye is signed, returning Quebec to French control, after the English had seized it in 1629.
• 1633English colonists settle what will become the town of Hingham, Massachusetts.
• 1635Boston Latin School, the oldest school in what will become the United States of America, is founded in Boston, Massachusetts.
• 1636September 18 (September 8 Old Style) – A vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony establishes New College (Harvard University), as the first college founded in the United States.
• 1636August 25 (August 15 Old Style) – The covenant of the Town of Dedham, Massachusetts Bay Colony is first signed.
• 1636Harvard University was founded.
• 1637Plymouth Colony grants the "tenn menn of Saugust" a new settlement on Cape Cod, later named Sandwich, Massachusetts.
• 1637Pequot War: Mystic massacre – A band of English settlers under Captain John Mason, and their Narragansett and Mohegan allies, set fire to a fortified village of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe near the Mystic River. Between 400 and 700 people, mostly women, children and old men, are killed.

Europe66

• 1631Thirty Years' War – Battle of Breitenfeld: Tilly's Holy Roman Imperial army is decisively defeated by Gustavus II Adolphus of Sweden, shattering the imperial army of the Holy Roman Empire, and marking the first significant victory for the Protestants in the war.
• 1632University of Amsterdam is established at the site of the Athenaeum Illustre of Amsterdam.
• 1632The University of Tartu is founded.
• 1632The University of Tartu officially opens, in Swedish Livonia.
• 1632November 16 (November 6 Old Style) – Thirty Years' War: Battle of Lützen in Saxony – Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus leads an assault on Wallenstein's army, but is killed early in the battle, despite which the Swedish commanders manage to rally the army and eventually defeat Wallenstein, who withdraws from Saxony. Following the death of Gustavus Adolphus, he is succeeded as ruler of Sweden by his six-year-old daughter Christina, while five regents (headed by Axel Oxenstierna) govern the country. On November 17, Gottfried zu Pappenheim, Field Marshal of the Holy Roman Empire, dies from wounds sustained in the battle.
• 1634The Battle of Nördlingen ends after two days with a decisive victory for the Imperial Army and Habsburg Spain over the Army of Sweden and Protestant German troops.
• 1634Cardinal Richelieu gathers members for the Académie Française which will be formally established in 1635).
• 1635The Académie française in Paris is formally constituted, as the national academy for the preservation of the French language.
• 1635Philipp Christoph von Sötern, the Archbishop-Elector of Trier, is taken prisoner in a surprise attack by Spanish Habsburg troops, leading to a declaration of war against Spain by France and the beginning of the Franco-Spanish War.
• 1635Thirty Years' War – The Peace of Prague is signed, which ends the German civil war aspect of the conflict.
• 1635Nagyszombat University (predecessor of Budapest University) is established.
• 1636Utrecht University is founded in the Dutch Republic.
• 1637Pierre de Fermat makes a notation, in a document margin, claiming to have proof of what will become known as Fermat's Last Theorem.
• 1639King Charles I of England arrives with his army at Berwick-upon-Tweed as the first of the Bishops' Wars breaks out between the English Army and the Scottish Covenanters.
• 1639The British East India Company buys a strip of land from King Peda Venkata Raya of the Vijayanagara Empire for the construction of Fort St. George, the first settlement of British India, so founding modern-day Chennai, capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu (celebrated as Madras Day).

51 more in the app

USSR / Russia1

• 1632Yakutsk, Russia is founded by Pyotr Beketov.

Asia9

• 1630Sinhalese–Portuguese War: In the Battle of Randeniwela on the island of Sri Lanka, King Senarat of Kandy leads more than 35,000 troops in killing most of an attack force led by Portuguese Ceylon governor Constantino de Sá de Noronha.
• 1630The Deccan Famine of 1630–32 in India begins; it will kill some two million.
• 1631The death in childbirth of Mumtaz Mahal at Burhanpur causes her husband Shah Jahan to commission the Taj Mahal at Agra, as a mausoleum for her. Construction is started in 1632, and finished in 1653.
• 1633Battle of Liaoluo Bay: A large Ming dynasty fleet under Zheng Zhilong defeats a Dutch East India Company fleet at the island of Quemoy.
• 1635The Peacock Throne of India's Mughal Empire is inaugurated in a ceremony in Delhi to support the seventh anniversary of Shah Jahan's accession to the throne as Emperor.
• 1635In the Mughal Empire, Shah Jahan's Pearl Mosque at Lahore Fort is completed.
• 1636Manchus occupy the Liaoning region in north China, select Shenyang (Mukden) as their capital, and proclaim the new Qing dynasty (pure).
• 1637Qing invasion of Joseon: The Manchu armies of China complete their invasion of northern Korea with the surrender of King Injo of the Joseon Kingdom.
• 1637The last five of the "16 Martyrs of Japan" are executed for illegally attempting to spread Christianity in Japan. Lorenzo Ruiz, Guillaume Courtet, Michael de Aozaraza, Vincent Shiwozuka and Lazarus of Kyoto are all put to death by the slow hanging torture of ana-tsurushi. They will be canonized 350 years later as saints of the Roman Catholic Church, on October 18, 1987.

Middle East3

• 1638Patriarch Cyril of Constantinople is deposed for high treason, strangled and thrown into the sea by Janissaries, on Ottoman Sultan Murad IV's command.
• 1638Capture of Baghdad by the Ottomans under Sultan Murad IV.
• 1639The Treaty of Zuhab is signed between the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire and Safavid Persia, delineating the modern Turkey-Iran and Iraq-Iran border lines.

Latin America1

• 1636The first synagogue of the New World, Kahal Zur Israel Synagogue, is founded in Recife by the Dutch.

Africa3

• 1631Algerian pirates sack Baltimore, County Cork, in Ireland.
• 1632Fasilides, Emperor of Ethiopia in succession to his father Susenyos, declares the state religion of the country again to be Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity, and confiscates the lands of the Jesuit missionaries, relegating them to Fremona.
• 1637Fighting in the modern-day West African nation of Ghana, troops of the Dutch West India Company capture the Portuguese territory of the Gold Coast after the five-day Battle of Elmina.