1634
Wallenstein Assassinated
Albrecht von Wallenstein, the brilliant, astrology-mad imperial generalissimo, was murdered at Eger by his own Irish and Scottish officers on secret orders from Emperor Ferdinand II. He had been negotiating with enemies without authorization. The Catholic cause lost its most innovative, most dangerous commander, and the Thirty Years' War continued without the one general who might have shortened it.
Jean Nicolet Reaches Lake Michigan
The French explorer Jean Nicolet, sent west by Champlain to find a route to Cathay, paddled through the Straits of Mackinac in a birchbark canoe. Expecting to meet Chinese, he came ashore on Green Bay in a Chinese silk damask robe and surprised some Ho-Chunk hunters, who greeted him politely.
Treaty of Polianov
Russia and Poland concluded a peace ending the Smolensk War. Tsar Michael acknowledged Polish control of Smolensk; the Polish king Wladyslaw renounced his claim to the Russian throne. The exhausted peace bought Muscovy breathing room to rebuild, while Poland began its long and fatal slide toward the constitutional anarchy that would eventually erase it from the map.
Oberammergau Vows the Passion Play
Villagers of Oberammergau in Bavaria, spared the worst of the plague after making a vow to God, performed the first of what would become a decennial Passion Play reenacting the last days of Christ. The village has continued the practice, with modernizations, for nearly four centuries. A pandemic had fathered a tradition.