1580 - 1666
Frans Hals.
1580 - 1645
Francisco de Quevedo.
1580
Cotton is established as a major crop in the Yangtze region of China.
1580 - 1589
Beaver fur is the preferred source for felt hat makers in France.
1580
Spain annexes Portugal.
1581 - 1647
Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft.
1581
The pendulum is invented by Galileo Galilei.
1581 - 1700
The Dutch Golden Age.
1581
The Levant Company is formed to trade with Turkey.
1581
Dutch United Provinces of the North declare independence from Spain.
1582
Richard Hakluyt publishes Divers Voyages Touching the Discoverie of America helping to promote the English colonisation of North America.
1582 - 1584
Martin Ignacio de Loyola circumnavigates the world, stopping to pursue missionary efforts in China.
1583 - 1589
Jan Huyghen van Linschoten sails from Portugal to Goa, where he keeps a detailed record of trade and accounts of sea routes to the Spice Islands, enabling the Dutch to challenge Portugal.
1584
Walter Raleigh plans to colonise America.
1584
Russia completes the conquest of Siberia.
1584
Mahogany discovered in the Americas is used in the building of the Escorial Palace.
1585
First shipment of cacao beans arrives in Spain from Mexico.
1585
Ginger grown in Jamaica is imported into Europe.
1585 - 1587
Walter Raleigh's settlement at Roanoke, Virginia, fails.
1585 - 1604
Anglo-Spanish War.
1585 - 1642
Cardinal Richelieu.
1585
Francis Drake captures a French ship carrying sugar and wine from the Azores.
1585 - 1589
Martin Ignacio de Loyola circumnavigates the world a second time, visiting China again.
1586
Virginia colonists returning to England create a sensation by smoking tobacco in long clay pipes.
1586 - 1588
Thomas Cavendish circumnavigates the world, raiding Spanish bullion ships and visiting Guam and the Philippines.
1587 - 1679
Joost Van den Vondel.
1587
Francis Drake brings Sherry back to England after his attack on Cadiz and it quickly gains popularity in England.
1587
Francis Drake raids Cadiz and sinks a large section of the Spanish fleet.
1587
Francis Drake captures a Portuguese ship carrying spices worth £140,000.
1588
The Spanish Armada is defeated in its attempt to invade England and Spanish sea power is broken.
1589
Henri IV of France, the first Bourbon monarch, accedes to the throne and converts from Protestantism to Catholicism.
1589
Water closet is invented by Sir John Harrington in England but the invention is ignored until 1778.
1590
Spenser writes about tobacco in The Faerie Queen.
1590 - 1599
The capotain or Puritan hat becomes fashionable in England.
1590 - 1598
Franco-Spanish War.
1590
Spanish begin importing porcelain to the Americas.
1590
Guido Pancirolli of Padua, Italy, talks of the mystical properties of porcelain and its inability to accept poisons. He claimed that it would break if it came into contact with poisoned food or drink.
1593
Galileo Galilei invents the thermometer.
1593
Cornelis Corneliszoon patents the sawmill with crank shaft.
1594 - 1595
Willem Barentsz and Jan Huyghen van Linschoten seek out the North East passage by Siberia, but turn back when they encounter frozen seas.
1594
In Baku, a 35-metre deep oil well is dug by a workman named Mamed Nur-oglu.
1595 - 1610
Jelali revolts weaken the Ottoman Empire.
1595
The first Dutch fleet sails for the Spice Islands, commanded by Cornelis van Houten.
1596 - 1687
Constantijn Huygens.
1596 - 1650
Rene Descartes.
1596
The Plague sweeps Spain killing 10% of the population in 6 years.
1597
Jan Huyghen van Linschoten, Dutch merchant and traveller, writes about tea.
1597 - 1601
65 ships in 14 fleets sailed from the Netherlands and established factories in Bantam, the Bandas, and the Moluccas.
1598 - 1680
Bernini.
1598
The term 'coffee' is coined, based on the Dutch 'koffie', based on the Tukish 'kahve', based on the Arabic 'qahwa'.
1598
The Marquis de la Roche-Mesgouez sails to the Newfoundland area catching fish and trading for furs.
1598
The Edict of Nantes - Henri IV guarantees the rights of Protestants in France and ends the French Wars of Religion.
1598
The Dutch build forts in Ghana.
1598 - 1601
Oliver van Noort becomes the first Dutchman to circumnavigate the world via the Spice Islands.
1598
The defenceless dodo bird is discovered in Mauritius but is extinct by 1700.
1599 - 1660
Diego Velazquez.
1599
The Globe Theatre opens in London.
1599 - 1641
Anthony Van Dyck. He leaves Belgium to become painter to the British court.
1599
Henry IV grants a 10 year fur trade monopoly to Pierre de Chauvin de Tonnetuit who establishes a trading post in Quebec. He gives another to the Marquis de la Roche-Mesgouez.
1600
Turkish traders bring coffee to Venice. Pope Clemente VIII blesses coffee, starting its acceptance in Europe.
1600
Cotton is a widespread crop in the warm zones of the Asias and Americas.
1600
David André settles in Nîmes and produces a new cotton weave fabric known as Serge de Nîmes (denim).
1600
The European Beaver has been virtually hunted to extinction.
1600
Timber in the UK becomes scarce and brick house construction becomes more common.
1600
The Marquis of Altamira starts to produce Tequila from a factory near Jalisco.
1600
The British East India Company (EIC) is founded.
1600 - 1603
James Lancaster commands the first East India Company fleet to the East Indies, where he successfully establishes an alliance with Aceh, Sumatra, and a trading base in Bantam, Java.
1600
Porcelain begins to be acquired by European upper-classes as well as aristocrats.
1601
Matteo Ricci establishes the Jesuit mission to China.
1602
Establishment of the Amsterdam Stock Exchange by the Dutch East India Company.
1602
Wheat is introduced to the English colonies in Massachusetts.
1602
Dutch East India Company founded and granted exclusive trading rights in Asia for the Netherlands.
1603
James I of England orders the burning of anthracite which does not produce as much smoke.
1604
James I writes A Counterblaste to Tobacco and raises tobacco taxes sharply.
1604 - 1607
Samuel de Champlain explores Acadia and establishes the colony at Port Royal.
1604
Two Portuguese ships full of porcelain captured by the Dutch and sold at auction in Holland, sparking a passion for blue and white porcelain.
1605
Don Quixote is written by Miguel de Cervantes.
1605
The French establish a settlement at Port Royal, Nova Scotia.
1606 - 1669
Rembrandt.
1606
Willem Janszoon sails to the East Indies on the Duyfken and lands briefly in Queensland, becoming the first European known to have set foot in Australia.
1607
The Virginia Company establish the Jamestown settlement for which tobacco will prove a profitable export.
1607
Cotton is grown in the Jamestown settlement.
1607
English settlers in Jamestown discover abundant sources of grapes in Virginia and soon start to produce an American wine.
1607 - 1608
The Muscovy Company sponsor Henry Hudson's voyages to Greenland and the Arctic looking for the North-West Passage to China and Russia.
1607
Flight of the Earls' and the beginning of the Protestant Plantations of Ulster.
1608
The telescope is invented by Hans Lippershey in Holland.
1608 - 1617
John Jourdain describes his travels in Arabia, India and Malaysia, including accounts of coffee houses in Arabia and spice markets in India.
1608 - 1619
Samuel de Champlain helps to found Quebec City and explores and maps the Great Lakes.
1609
Galileo Galilei invents the microscope.
1609
The British East India Company establishes a trading base in Bengal.
1609
The Dutch anger the locals by reinforcing Fort Nassau on Bandanaira Island and the Dutch Admiral and 40 of his men are ambushed and killed in the Verhoeven massacre.
1609 - 1615
Samuel de Champlain fights against the Iroquois for control of the fur trade and enlists the support of the Algonquin and Huron people.
1609
Henry Hudson is sponsored by the Dutch VOC to find the North-West Passage and finds Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.
1610
Dutch and Portuguese traders start importing tea into Europe.
1610
Francis Bacon comments on increasing tobacco use and its addictive nature.
1610
English colonists send furs back from the Virginia Colony.
1610
Henri IV of France dies and is succeeded by his young son, Louis XIII. France is controlled by the regent, Marie de Medici.
1610
The Dutch establish a fur trading post on the edge of Lake Champlain to trade with the Iroquois.
1610 - 1611
Henry Hudson is sponsored by the Virginia Company and the British East India Company to find the North-West Passage and discovers Hudson's Bay.
1610 - 1611
Etienne Brulé lives for a year with the Algonquin Indians in the Great Lakes area.
1611
The completion of the King James Bible.
1611
Persian shah Abbas I, The Great, places his 1,162 pieces of Ming porcelain in the Ardebil Shrine (now in modern Iran).
1612
China's Emperor forbids the growing or consumption of tobacco.
1612
Sir Thomas Roe agrees terms with Mughal Emperor Jahangir to build a trading base in Surat.
1612
The French establish a colony in Brazil (Equinoctial France), but it is short lived and is suppressed by Portuguese forces in 1616.
1613
Robert Harcourt writes on the commercial value of tobacco.
1613 - 1676
Russia's Tsar forbids the consumption of tobacco.
1613
Samuel Purchas writes Purchas - his Pilgrimage describing travels to the Orient and describing the recreational consumption of Opium.
1613
Adriaen Block establishes trading relationships with the Mohawks and Mohicans.
1613
Jesuit Priest Pedro Paez sees Lake Tana in Ethiopia.
1614
There are now 7,000 tobacco shops in London according to Barnabee Rych and the first consignment of native Virginia tobacco arrives at the docks.
1614
King Philip III of Spain centralises the storage and processing of tobacco in Seville.
1614
New Amsterdam (now New York) is the trading hub of the Dutch fur trade.
1614
Pocahontas marries English colonist John Rolfe and bears him a son a year later.
1615
Nicotina Rustica is replaced with Nicotina Tabacum in Virginia plantations.
1615
George Sandys describes people smoking in Turkey.
1615 - 1616
William Baffin and Robert Bylot explore Hudson's Bay and discover Baffin Bay, but further attempts to find the North-West Passage are put on hold.
1615 - 1616
Willem Scouten sails from the Netherlands to the East Indies via Cape Horn.
1615
Great Mogul of Agra has a senior servant whipped for breaking a porcelain cup before sending him to China to buy a replacement.
1616
William Harvey produces new theories on the circulation of the blood.
1616
John Rolfe arrives in London from the Virginia Colony with Pocahontas.
1616
Essequibo is settled by Dutch traders.
1616
Dirk Hartog sails from the Netherlands to the East Indies but is blown off course and lands on an island off the coast of Western Australia.
1616
Pocahontas visits England with her son and husband and is presented at court. She dies in Gravesend a year later.
1617
The Portuguese trade 15,000 pieces of Indian cotton cloths to West Africa.
1618 - 1648
The Thirty Years' War, a costly religious and political war between the Habsburgs (Spain, Italy, some of Germany) and France, Sweden, the Netherlands and others. The Holy Roman Empire never recovers.
1619
The first African slaves arrive in Jamestown.
1619
Eight vignerons are sent to Virginia to plant new vineyards.
1619
The Dutch VOC establishes a trading port in Batavia (now Jakarta, Sumatra) to deal in spices and other goods.
1619
Jan Pieterszoon Coen is made head of the VOC.
1619
Frederik de Houtman explores the Western Australian coast around Perth.
1620
The slide rule is invented by William Oughtred.
1620 - 1680
Nearly 16,000 trappers are active in Siberia.
1620
English colonists start to send substantial consignments of fur from the Plymouth Colony.
1620
Samuel de Champlain establishes companies in Quebec to profit from the fur trade.
1620
The Pilgrim Fathers, a group including some religious exiles, sail to America to establish a new colony. They touch land in Cape Cod, but continue to New Plymouth.
1621
Suriname is settled by Dutch traders.
1621
Jan Pieterszoon Coen leads genocidal reprisals against the Bandanese, replacing them with slaves, convicts and immigrants. Spices are eradicated from islands they cannot control.
1621
Nutmeg remains a monopoly of the Dutch East India Company for nearly 200 years.
1622 - 1673
Moliere.
1622
Spain establishes a royal monopoly in the use of Mahogany for ship building.
1622
Portugal is forced to cede the Straits of Hormuz.
1623
Portuguese and Dutch traders introduce tobacco smoking to West Africa.
1623
The Ambon Massacre; 10 English, 10 Japanese and 1 Portuguese man are massacred by Dutch troops.
1624
Frans Hals' 'Laughing Cavalier' shows the fashion for Cavalier hats made from beaver fur.
1624
Cardinal Richelieu assumes the mantle of chief minister to Louis XIII and helps to steer France through the Thirty Years War.
1625
Saint-Domingue is founded by the French who settle North West Hispaniola.
1627 - 1691
Robert Boyle.
1627
Francis Bacon publishes New Atlantis with new ideas on the role of science in society.
1627
Britain establishes a colony in Barbados.
1627
Berbice is settled by the Dutch West India Company.
1627
Cardinal Richelieu founds the Compagnie des Cents-Associés to manage the French fur trade.
1628 - 1658
Shah Jehan becomes Mughal Emperor and his reign is a golden age for Mughal Architecture, including the Red Fort and the Taj Mahal.
1628
The Mohawk Iroquois defeat the Mohicans and establish a fur trade monopoly with the Dutch at Fort Orange (near what is now Albany, NY).
1628
The Compagnie des Cents-Associés send its first voyage to Canada.
1629
Cardinal Richelieau imposes a tax on tobacco.
1630
Wine is made in Massachusetts.
1631 - 1700
John Dryden.
1631
Tobacco cultivation starts on a large scale in Maryland.
1632 - 1682
Jean-Baptiste Lully.
1632 - 1675
Johannes Vermeer.
1632
Mughal Emperor Shah Jehan constructs the Taj Mahal.
1632
Galileo Galilei publishes Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems which describes the earth's movement around the sun.
1632
Britain establishes a colony in Antigua.
1634
Dutch establish exclusive trading relationship with Japan after Portuguese and Christian expulsion.
1635 - 1650
Tea drinking gains popularity in the Netherlands.
1635
First British ship arrives in China, at Macao; regular Sino-British trade begins to emerge in the late 1680’s.
1635
L'Académie française is established by Cardinal Richelieu and Louis XIII.
1635 - 1659
The Franco-Spanish War erupts because France is surrounded by Habsburg forces.
1636
Tabacalera is created, the oldest tobacco company in the world, with a monopoly over Spanish tobacco.
1636
The Worshipful Company of Distillers is created in Britain.
1637
Pedro Teixeira becomes the first European to sail up the Amazon.
1638
King Charles I issues a proclamation to support British hat makers.
1638 - 1666
The Beaver or French and Indian Wars between the French and their Huron and Algonquin allies and the Iroquois (armed by the British and Dutch), fighting for control of the declining beaver trade.
1639
The British East India Company establishes a trading base in Madras.
1639
Francis Day establishes a factory on the Coromandel coast for the British East India Company.
1640
Isaac Walton writes The Compleat Angler about fishing and conservation.