Unix Timestamp: 1072051200
Monday, December 22. 2003, 12:00:00 AM UTC

Armed robbers in Northern Ireland steal over £22 million from the headquarters of the Northern Bank. Unionist politicians and the Police Service of Northern Ireland blame the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and stall the peace process.

The re-run of the second round of the Ukrainian presidential election takes place. Opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko is declared the winner.

One of the worst natural disasters in recorded history hits Southeast Asia, when the strongest earthquake in 40 years hits the entire Indian Ocean region. The massive 9.3 magnitude earthquake, epicentered just off the west coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, generates enormous tsunami waves that crash into the coastal areas of a number of nations including Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Indonesia. The official death toll in the affected countries stands at 186,983 while more than 40,000 people are still missing.

"Time Magazine" announced that its Persons of the Year are three female whistleblowers – Coleen Rowley, FBI agent who wrote a memorandum to FBI Director Robert Mueller claiming that the Minneapolis, Minnesota, office had been remiss in its investigation of suspected terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui Cynthia Cooper, former WorldCom auditor, who alerted the company's Board of Directors of accounting irregularities and Sherron Watkins, former Enron Vice President, who reported to the company's former Chairman Kenneth Lay in 2001 that the company was about to collapse as a result of false accounting.

Korean Air CargoFlight 8509, a Boeing 747-200F crashes shortly after take-off from London Stansted Airport due to pilot error. All 4 crew members were killed.

The interim South African constitution is approved by Parliament 237–45.

President George H. W. Bush pardons six national security officials implicated in the Iran–Contra affair, including Caspar Weinberger.

President-elect Bill Clinton names the final members of his cabinet.

Archives of Terror discovered by Dr. Martín Almada detailing the fates of thousands of Latin Americans who had been secretly kidnapped, tortured, and killed by the security services of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay. This was known as Operation Condor.

Armed opposition groups launch a military coup against President of GeorgiaZviad Gamsakhurdia.

The Russian Mafia begins to expand with the decay of the Soviet Union.

Zebra mussels are found in the Great lakes.

Brazilian union and environmental activist Chico Mendes is assassinated.

TAT-8, the first transatlantic telephone cable to use optical fibers, is completed.

The U.S. Drought of 1988 causes big crop damage in many states, impacts many portions of the United States and causes around $60 billion in damage. Multiple regions suffer in the conditions. Heat waves cause 4,800 to 17,000 excess deaths while scorching many areas of the United States during 1988.

Indian Ocean Commission (Commission de l'Océan Indien) (COI) created by Port Louis Agreement.

Prime Minister Ian Smith declares that Rhodesia is already a republic.

İsmet İnönü of CHP forms the new government of Turkey (28th government, coalition partners independents, İnönü has served 10 ten times as a prime minister, this is his last government)

Walt Disney releases his 18th feature-length animated motion picture "The Sword in the Stone", about the boyhood of King Arthur. It is the penultimate animated film personally supervised by Disney.

The cruise ship "Lakonia" burns north of Madeira, with the loss of 128 lives.

Big Freeze in Britain: There are no frost-free nights until March 5, 1963.

The Asian Flupandemic begins in China.

Mao Zedong admits that 800,000 class enemies have been summarily liquidated between 1949 and 1954.

The Africanized bee is accidentally released in Brazil.

Gruppe SPUR is founded.

The CBS afternoon anthology series "Seven Lively Arts" presents Tchaikovsky's ballet "The Nutcracker" on U.S. television for the first time, although heavily abridged.

Citroën stops production of its Traction Avant motor car (production started in 1934).

The Consumers' Association is founded in the United Kingdom.

The Civil Rights Commission is established in the USA under the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

The so-called 'mound of Midas', the Great Tumulus near Gordium, is excavated.

Hugh Everett III publishes the first scientifically founded many-worlds theory.

Operation Dropshot, an all-out U.S. war with the Soviet Union, is expected to be triggered by the Soviet takeover of Western Europe, the Near East and parts of Eastern Asia, as it was anticipated in 1949.

The Confederation of African Football is founded.

American cytogeneticist Joe Hin Tjio discovers the correct number of human chromosomes, forty-six.

The Selangor Labour Party is founded in Selangor, Malaya.

The Havana Conference begins between U.S. organized crime bosses in Havana, Cuba.

WWII: Troopship "Leopoldville" is sunk in the English Channel by German submarine U-486. The ship was carrying reinforcements to the battle of the bulge and 763 soldiers of the 66th Infantry Division (United States) drown.

WWII: American troops repulse German forces at Bastogne.

WWII: Troopship \\\'\\\'Leopoldville\\\'\\\' is sunk in the English Channel by German submarine U-486. The ship was carrying reinforcements to the battle of the bulge and 763 soldiers of the 66th Infantry Division (United States) drown.

The first complete U.S. production of Tchaikovsky's ballet "The Nutcracker" is presented in San Francisco, choreographed by William Christensen. It will become an annual tradition there, and for the next ten years, the San Francisco Ballet will be the only ballet company in the United States performing the complete work, until George Balanchine premieres his version in New York in 1954.

The original stage version of "The Glass Menagerie" by Tennessee Williams premieres on Broadway.

WWII: Brigadier General Anthony C. McAuliffe, commander of the U.S. forces defending Bastogne, refuses to accept demands for surrender by sending a one-word reply, Nuts!, to the German command.

The Vietnam People's Army is formed in Vietnam.

WWII: The Bulge reaches its deepest point at Celles.

The 8th Congress of Soviets of the Russian SFSR adopts the GOELRO plan, the major plan of the economical development of the country.

The British Sopwith Camel aircraft makes its maiden flight. It was designed to counter the German's Fokker aircraft.

Sir William Ramsay and Lord Rayleigh discover the first noble gas, Argon.

Grace Kimmins founds the "Guild of the Poor Brave Things".

Western countries give up their extraterritorial rights in Japan.

Dreyfus Affair: French Army officer Alfred Dreyfus is convicted of treason.

In the U.S., the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects is founded.

New Zealand enacted the world's first minimum wage law.

Kate Chopin writes "The Story of An Hour" (fiction).

Oil is discovered on the Osage Indian reservation, making the Osage the "richest group of people in the world".

The National College of Music, London, is founded by the Moss family.

Edward B. Marks and Joe Stern published The Little Lost Child, promoting its release with the earliest version of music video known as the illustrated song.

In Korea, peasant unrest erupts in the Donghak Peasant Revolution, a massive revolt of followers of the Donghak movement. Both China and Japan send military forces, claiming to come to the Korean government's aid. They end up fighting each other instead.

Chatham Episcopal Institute (now known as Chatham Hall ) is founded in Chatham Virginia , U.S.

A cholera outbreak occurs in Hamburg, Germany.

Andrew Carnegie combines all of his separate businesses into the Carnegie Steel Company, allowing him to gain a monopoly in the steel industry.

The first Canadian National Rugby-Football Chionship game is played (Osgoode Hall defeats Montreal 45–5).

A tortoise called "Timothy" is brought to the estate of Powderham Castle in England, where she lives until her death in 2004.

Inter-Parliamentary Bureau for Permanent Arbitration

Construction of Trans-Siberian Railway begins.

Abu Dhabi becomes a British protectorate.

The Newcastle East End F.C. is renamed Newcastle United F.C., following the demise of the Newcastle West End F.C. and East End's move to St James' Park, formerly West End's home.

Worthington, Ontario, Canada is incorporated as a mining community.

Viruses are discovered by the Russian–UkrainianbiologistDimitri Ivanovski.

An oil fire in Oil City, Pennsylvania kills 130.

The first electric light bulb in Bulgaria is used at the Plovdiv Fair.

Founded Unione Sportiva Pro Vercelli

The Cadet Band (current day Highty-Tighties) of the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College (current day Virginia Tech) is established in the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets.

The Stanley Cup is donated by Sir Frederick Stanley.

The Community of the Resurrection, an Anglican religious community for men, is founded by Charles Gore and Walter Frere.

Thomas Ahearn is the first person to prepare a meal on an electric stove.

Seattle University is established.

Maria Skłodowska (later Marie Curie) enters the Sorbonne University.

Nikola Tesla invents the Tesla coil.

Drexel University is founded as the "Drexel Institute of Art, Science and Industry".

Asteroid 323 Brucia becomes the first asteroid discovered using photography.

James Naismith invents basketball.

Brahmin teacher and nationalist Bal Gangadhar Tilak begins agitation for Indian home Rule.

Skansen is established as the world's first open air museum by Artur Hazelius on the island of Djurgården in Stockholm, Sweden.

New Scotland Yard becomes the HQ of the London Metropolitan Police.

Oba Ovonramwen seizes the throne of Benin.

The Australian Labor Party is founded.

The Auckland University Students' Association is founded.

Michelin patent the removable pneumatic bicycle tire.

The Tobacco Protest occurs in Iran.

Battle of Bocairente-Third Carlist War-Caigning in Valenica, Spanish Republican General Valeriano Weyler is attacked at Bocairente, northwest of Alcoy, by a greatly superior Carlist force under General José Santés. Weyler was initially driven back, losing some of his guns, but in a brilliant counter-attack he turns defeat into victory and Santés is heavily repulsed and forced to withdraw.

St duty is removed from newspapers in Britain, creating mass market media in the United Kingdom.

Dante Gabriel Rosetti paints Alfred, Lord Tennyson reading "Maud".

Palm oil sales from West Africa to Britain reach 40,000 tons.

Ramón Castilla starts to rule for a second time in Peru.

The Metropolitan Board of Works is established.

December 23 ndash Battle of Ferozeshah: British forces defeat Sikhs in Punjab.

Ludwig van Beethoven conducts and performs in concert at the Theater an der Wien, Vienna, with the premiere of his "Fifth Symphony", "Sixth Symphony", "Fourth Piano Concerto" (performed by Beethoven himself) and "Choral Fantasy" (with Beethoven at the piano).

1808 ndash 1865 ndash 500,000 African slaves arrive in Cuba.

Earliest preparation of magnesium metal by Sir Humphry Davy.

The British siege of Mauritius begins.

Goethe publishes "Faust", part I.

The Academy of Fine Arts, Munich is founded.

Ottoman EmperorSelim III (1789–1807) is deposed in favour of his nephew Mustafa IV,

The municipality of Mogpog in Marinduque, Philippines, is founded.

Battle of Abrantes: The French under Jean-Andoche Junot take the town.

The U.S. Congress passes the Embargo Act.

Napoleon purchases the Borghese art collection, including the Antinous Mondragone, and brings it to Paris.

The world's oldest international football stadium, the Racecourse Ground, opens in Wrexham, Wales, although it will not host football games until 1872.

A suggestion box is developed under the eighth shogun of Japan, Yoshimune Tokugawa.

Regular mail service between Long Island and New England is established.ref name=Clear

Philip V of Spain signs in Lerma a Royal Decree transforming the Seminary of Saint Rose of Lima in Caracas into the Universidad Real y Pontificia de Caracas.

Miners in Falun, Sweden find the apparently petrified body of Fet-Mats Israelsson in an unused part of the copper mine.

Andrew Bradford publishes the "American Weekly Mercury", Pennsylvania's first newspaper.

Raine's Foundation School, Bethnal Green, opens in Wapping (opened by Henry Raine).

Prussia conducts Europe's first systematic census.

Raine\\'s Foundation School, Bethnal Green, opens in Wapping (opened by Henry Raine).

Collections are made in England for needy French refugees.

King Charles II of England signs a warrant for the building of the Royal Hospital Chelsea.

France annexes the city of Strasbourg.

The Port of Honfleur in France is re-modelled by Abraham Duquesne.

The last dodo bird is killed.

Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer paints "The Art of Painting", his largest and most complex work.

The year is also known for having all the Roman numerals, used only once, in order from biggest to smallest value (MDCLXVI = 1666).

Expulsion of the Portuguese from the Bengal port city of Chittagong by Mughal forces of Emperor Aurangzeb under General Bujurg Umed Khan and renaming the city as Islamabad.

The "Académie des sciences" (French Academy of Sciences) is founded by Louis XIV.

Lund University is founded in Lund, Sweden.

Sir Isaac Newton uses a prism to split sunlight into its component colors, which helps us understand the nature of light more comprehensively (see optical spectrum). He made a huge number of discoveries and inventions during this year, leading it to be referred to as his Annus Mirabilis.

Moulay al-Rashid conquers Fes, marking the beginning of Morocco's still-reigning Alaouite Dynasty.

Jean Talon completes a census of New France, the first census in North America.

The Russian Orthodox Church holds a sobor (church council) which deposes Patriarch Nikon, but accepts his liturgical reforms. Dissenters from his reforms, known as Old Believers, continue to this day.

The Leicesterwitch trial, in which nine women were hanged on the testimony of a raving 13-year old boy named John Smith, is held under the 1604 Witchcraft Statute of King James I.Source: Robbins, Russell Hope. The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology. New York: Bonanza Books, 1959. This bill was supported by some of the most able and learned men in England, including the Earl of Northumberland, the Bishop of Lincoln, the Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, the Attorney General for England and Wales, the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and the Chief Justice of the King's Bench.

A fatal disease of cattle, probably rinderpest, spreads through the Italian provinces of Padua, Udine, Treviso, and Vicenza, introduced most likely from Dalmatia or Hungary. Great numbers of cattle die in Italy, as they had in previous years (1559, 1562, 1566, 1590, 1598) in other European regions when harvest failure also drives people to the brink of starvation (for exle, 1595–1597 in Germany). The consumption of beef and veal is prohibited, and Pope Paul V issues an edict prohibiting the slaughter of draught oxen that were suitable for plowing. Calves are also not slaughtered for a some time afterwards, so that Italy's cattle herds can be replenished.Clive A. Spinage. 2003. "Cattle plague: a history". New York: Springer. ISBN 0-306-47789-0.

The States of Holland set up a commission to advise them on the problem of Jewish residency and worship. One of the members of the commission is Hugo Grotius (Hugo de Groot), a highly regarded jurist and one of the most important political thinkers of his day.

An Indian youth (called one of the first fruits of India) is baptized with the name Peter in London at the St. Dionis Backchurch, in a ceremony attended by the Lord Mayor, the Privy Council, city aldermen, and officials of the Honourable East India Company. Peter thus becomes the first convert to the Anglican Church in India. He returns to India as a missionary, schooled in English and Latin.Rozina Visram. "Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History". Pluto Press. 504 pp. (ISBN 0-7453-1373-6)

In the Edo Era of Japan, Hideyori's forces are defeated during the Summer Battle of 1616, he commits suicide, and the house of Toyotomi is ended.

Week-long festivities in honor of the Prince of Urbano, of the Barbarini family, occur in Florence, Italy.From an etching in the "Guerre de Beauté", a series of six etchings depicting a celebration which took place in Florence in the year 1616 in honor of the prince of Urbino.

Thomas Middleton writes "The Witch", a tragicomedy that may have entered into the present-day text of Shakespeare's "Macbeth."

William Baffin sails as pilot on the "Discovery" for a second time.

John Cotta writes his influential book "The Triall of Witch-craft."

The first Thai embassy to Japan arrives.

With much legal strife and the encouragement of Sir Francis Bacon, Chief Justice Edward Coke is dismissed from the King's Bench, and the royal prerogatives of King James I triumph over English common law.

Elizabethanpolymath and alchemistRobert Fludd's "Apologia" is published. Fludd has become a cult figure, being linked with Rosicrucians and the Family of Love, without any historical evidence.

Moralist writer John Deacon publishes a quarto entitled "Tobacco Tortured in the Filthy Fumes of Tobacco Refined." (Even King James I writes against this fad.) Deacon writes the same year that syphilis is a Turkished, Spanished, or Frenchized disease that the English contract by trafficking with the contagious courruptions.

A second witch craze breaks out in Biscay, Spain. An Edict of Silence is issued by the Inquisition, but the king overturns the Edict and 300 accused witches are burned alive.

Jesuit astronomer Christoph Scheiner becomes the advisor to Archduke Maximilian, brother of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II in Vienna. In a series of published letters in 1612 and 1613, Scheiner had sparred with Galileo over the nature of sunspots and been roundly trounced since Galileo's careful observations indicated that sunspots could not be satellites around the Sun because they often disappear on the disk. In fact, Scheiner sought to remove these smudges to the celestial body's immaculate reputation. A life-long enemy of Galileo, Scheiner is credited with reopening the 1616 accusations against Galileo in 1633.

Orlando Gibbons' anthem "See, the Word is Incarnate" is written.

Physician Aleixo de Abreu is granted a pension of 16,000 reis for services to the crown in Angola and Brazil by Philip III of Spain, who also appoints him physician of his chamber.

Drink to me only with thine eyes comes from Ben Jonson's love poem, "To Celia". Ben Jonson's poetic lamentation "On my first Sonne" is also from this year.

Constantinople's Sultan Ahmed Mosque (also known as the "Blue Mosque") is completed during the rule of Ahmed I.

The Tepehuán Revolt in Nueva Vizcaya tests the limits of Spanish and Jesuit colonialism in western and northwestern Durango and southern Chihuahua, Mexico.

The first African slaves are brought to Bermuda, an English colony, by Captain George Bargrave to dive for pearls, because of their reputed skill in pearl-diving. Harvesting pearls off the coast proves unsuccessful, and the slaves are put to work planting and harvesting the initial large crops of tobacco and sugar cane.Virginia Bernhard. 1999. "Slaves and Slaveholders in Bermuda, 1616-1782". Columbia, University of Missouri Press. (At the same time, the freedom-loving English refused to purchase Brazilian sugar because it was produced by slave labor.Sidney W. Mintz. 1986. "Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History".)

Captain John Smith (1580–1631) publishes his book "A description of New England" in London. Smith relates one voyage to the coast of Massachusetts and Maine, in 1614, and an attempted voyage the following year (1615) when he was captured by Frenchpirates and detained for several months before escaping.

John Speed publishes his Atlas of England.

The Uskok War (1615-18) continues between the Austrians and Spanish (Habsburg Empire) on one side and the Venetians, Dutch, and English on the other. An Austro-Turkish treaty is signed in Belgrade under which the Austrians are granted the right to navigate the middle and lower Danube River by the Ottoman Empire.

At the behest of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Dr. Richard Vines, a physician, passes the winter of 1616—17 at Biddeford, Maine, at the mouth of the Saco River, that he calls Winter Harbor. This is the site of the earliest permanent settlement in Maine of which we have a conclusive record. Maine will become an important refuge for religious dissenters persecuted by the Puritans.

In SpanishFlorida, the Cofa Mission at the mouth of the Suwannee River disappears.

Scot John Napier's " Description of the Admirable Table of Logarithms" is published, a great boon to mathematics. The decimal point makes its first appearance in Napier's book "Descriptio." Astronomer Johannes Kepler soon thereafter begins to employ logarithms in his description of the solar system.

The witch trial of in-keeper Harmonia Applegate, who was arrested on February 20, for poisoning 32 of her guests over the course of 12 years, is held. When questioned, Applegate gives excuses ranging from non-payment of debt to offence at guests' body odour.

Fort San Diego, in Acapulco Bay, Mexico, is completed by the Spanish as a defence against their erstwhile vassals, the Dutch.Engel Sluiter. 1949. The Fortification of Acapulco, 1615-1616. "The Hispanic American Historical Review", Vol. 29, No. 1, pp. 69–80. Today the fort houses the Acapulco Historical Museum.

Richard Steel and John Crowther complete their journey from Ajmeer in Mogul India, to Ispahan, Persia.

Father Christmas is a main character of the Christmas masque written by Ben Jonson and presented at the court of King James I of England. Father Christmas is considered a papist symbol by Puritans, and later banished from England until the Restoration of Charles II shortly after Oliver Cromwell's death. The traditional, comical costume for this jolly figure, as well as regional names, leaves little doubt that he is descended from the presenter of the medieval Feast of Fools. (Ben Jonson received a royal pension of 100 marks in 1616, causing some historians to identify him as England's first Poet Laureate, even though John Fletcher was more popular).

Mohammad Baqer Majlesi, known as Allameh Majlesi, is born in the city of Isfahan.

In Sardinia, the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery of the University of Sassari is founded.

Tommaso Canella’s book "In Defence of Galileo" is written.

Francesco Albani paints the ceiling frescoes of "Apollo and the Seasons" at the Palazzo Verospi in Via del Corso for Cardinal Fabrizio Verospi. Italy still houses most of the Renaissanceartwork of Europe.

Danishnatural philosopherOle Worm collects materials that will later be incorporated into his museum in Copenhagen. His museum is the nucleus of the University of Copenhagen's Zoological Museum.

The Swiss Guard is appointed part of the household guard of King Louis XIII of France.

In Tunis, Tunisia, the mosque of Youssef Deyis is built. Today it has an octagonal minaret crowned with a miniature green-tiled pyramid for a roof.

The Ottoman Empire attempts landings at the shoreline between Cadiz and Lisbon.

John Vaughan, 1st Earl of Carbery is appointed to the post of comptroller in the newly-formed household of Prince Charles Vaughan later claims that serving the Prince had cost him £20,000.

Italiannatural philosopherGiulio Cesare Vanini publishes a radically heterodox book in France after his English interlude "De admirandis naturae reginae deaeque mortalium arcanis," for which he is condemned and forced to flee Paris. For his opinion that the world is eternal and governed by immanent laws, as expressed in this book, he is executed in 1619.

In London and neighboring towns, an epidemic of louse-borne typhus ravages the poor, crowded English. Lack of bathing encourages body lice that, when scratched, defecate on the skin, where a minor cut or sore can serve as an entry portal for the typhus-infected feces to enter the bloodstream, leading to high fever, delirium, and gangrenous sores.

Human deformities are seen as producing monsters. Italian Fortunio Liceti publishes his book "De monstrorum natura caussis et differentiis" ("On the nature, causes and differences of monsters").

An important Englishdictionary is published by Dr. John Bullokar with the title "An English Expositour teaching the Interpretation of the hardest Words used in our Language with sundry Explications, Descriptions and Discourses".

Pierre Vernier is employed, with his father, in making fine-scale maps of France (Franche-Comté area).

With much legal strife and the encouragement of Sir Francis Bacon, Chief Justice Edward Coke is dismissed from the King\\'s Bench, and the royal prerogatives of King James I triumph over Englishcommon law.

Francis de Sales' literary masterpiece "Treatise on the Love of God" is published, while he is Bishop of Geneva.

Dutch traders smuggle the coffee plant out of Mocha, a port in Yemen on the Red Sea, and cultivate it at the AmsterdamBotanical Gardens. Dutch later introduce Mochacoffee to Java.

William Harvey gives his views on the circulation of blood as Lumleian Lecturer at the College of Physicians. It is not until 1628 that he gives his views in print.

EnglishmathematicianHenry Briggs goes to Edinburgh to show John Napier his efficient method of finding logarithms by the continued extraction of square roots (unfortunately, Napier dies in April, 1617).

Nurhaci declares himself khan (emperor) of China and founds the Later Jin Dynasty.

The New England Indian smallpox epidemic of 1616–1619 begins to depopulate the region, killing an estimated 90% of the coastal native peoples.Timothy Bratton. 1988. Identity of the New England Indian Epidemic of 1616-1619. "Bulletin of the History of Medicine", 62(3): 352–383.

Saint Ambrose Edward Barlow, recently graduated from the College of Saint Gregory, Douai, France, and the Royal College of Saint Alban in Valladolid, Spain, enters the Benedictine Order. In 1641 he is hanged, drawn and quartered in Lancaster, England, for preaching.

Isaac Beeckman (1588–1637), Dutch intellectual and friend of René Decartes, has his own candle factory in Zierikzee, Netherlands, until 1616, when he returns to Middelburg to study medicine. In 1618, he takes his degree at the French university of Caen, with the defence of his "Theses de febre tertiana intermittente". His notebooks, unfortunately not fully published until the 20th century, reveal a coherent mechanical philosophy of nature with incipient atomism, a force of inertia, and mathematical interpretations of natural philosophy are present.K. van Berkel. 1983. "Isaac Beeckman (1588-1637) en de mechanisering van het wereldbeeld". Amsterdam. (An English edition is forthcoming.)

Manchurian leader Qing Tai Zu crowns himself king.

A slave ship carries smallpox from the Kongo to Salvador, Brazil.Henry F. Dobyns. 1993. Disease Transfer at Contact. "Annual Review of Anthropology", 22: 273–291.

The Dutch establish their colony of Essequibo in the region of the Essequibo River in northern South America (present-day Guyana) for sugar and tobacco production. The colony is protected by the Kyk-Over-Al fort, now in ruins. The Dutch also map the Delaware River in North America.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680) sculpts "Bacchanal: A Faun Teased by Children", at the age of 18 years. This work is now in New York, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Croatian mathematician Faustus Verantius publishes his book "Machinae novae," a book of mechanical and technological inventions, some of which are applicable to the solutions of hydrological problems, and others concern the construction of clepsydras, sundials, mills, presses, and bridges, and boats for widely different uses.

Anti-Christian persecutions break out in Nanking, China, and Nagasaki, Japan. The Jesuit-lead Christian community in Japan at this time was over 3000,000 strong.

The Collegium Musicum is founded in Prague.

Captain Nathaniel Courthope reaches the nutmeg-rich island of Run in the Moluccas to defend it against the Dutch East India Company. A contract with the inhabitants accepting James I of England as their sovereign makes it part of the English colonial empire.

Marie Venier, dite Laporte, is the first female actress to appear on the stage in Paris. She is either a dramatic actress or a comedienne.Searles, Colbert (1925) Allusions to the Contemporary Theater of 1616 by Francois Rosset. Modern Language Notes, 40(8): 481–483.

Master seafarer Henry Mainwaring (1587–1653), Oxford graduate and lawyer turned successful Newfoundland pirate, returns to England, is pardoned after rescuing a Newfoundland trading fleet near Gibraltar, and writes a revealing treatise on piracy.

Italian naturalist Fabio Colonna states that tongue stones (glossopetrae) are shark teeth in his treatise "De glossopetris dissertatio".

Ngawang Namgyal arrives in Bhutan, having escaped Tibet.

The Accademia dei Lincei, the oldest scientific academy in the world, is founded in Rome by Federico Cesi.

Ottoman Dynasty: Sultan Mehmed III of the Ottoman Empire dies and is succeeded by his son Ahmed I.

The earliest of eight companies that would eventually merge to form the Kikkoman Corporation, the ubiquitous producers of soy sauce, is founded in Japan.

Johann Bayer publishes the star atlas "Uranometria", the first to cover the entire celestial sphere.

French Huguenot Pierre de Gua is granted royal permission to settle in North America, founding the colony of Acadia.

Russian famine of 1601–1603.

A rebellion breaks out in Transylvania.

Yaqob is deposed as Emperor of Ethiopia by Za Sellase, who appoints his cousin Za Dengel to replace him.

The newly born Commune of Rome conquers and destroys the rival neighboring city of Albano.Jean-Claude Maire Vigueur (2010) "L'autre Rome. Une histoire des Romains à l'époque communale (XIIe-XIVe siècle)." Paris: Tallandier. pp.314.

King Valdemar I of Denmark conquers Arkona on the Island of Rügen, the strongest pagan fortress and temple in Northern Europe.

Prince Richard of England becomes duke of Aquitaine. He later becomes King Richard I of England.

Afraid that the Egyptian capital Fustat (in today's Old Cairo) will be captured by the Crusaders, its Fatimid vizier, Shawar, orders the city set afire. The city burns for 54 days.

Emperor Takakura ascends to the throne of Japan.

Another deadly earthquake strikes Damghan, Iran, killing 200,000 people.

Ordoño I of Asturias is said to have begun the repopulation of the town of León.

November ndash An earthquake in Corinth, Greece, kills an estimated 45,000.

Ethelbald usurps the throne of Wessex from his father Ethelwulf.

Bardas becomes regent for the Byzantine EmperorMichael III.

Judea: The Jewish Revolt – Vespasian lays siege to Jerusalem, the city is captured the following year by his son Titus.

Legio I "Macriana liberatrix" is disbanded.

Josephus, Jewish rebel leader, is dragged before Vespasian and becomes his historian. He prophesied him his elevation to the purple.

Vitellius is captured and murdered by the Gemonian stairs. Vespasian becomes emperor.

The Flavian dynasty starts.