1637
Descartes Publishes Discourse on Method
A French philosopher living in quiet Dutch lodgings published a slim book in French, not Latin, arguing that true knowledge must begin with systematic doubt. Cogito, ergo sum, he wrote. I think, therefore I am. Western philosophy would need, from that moment, a different starting point, and the division between mind and matter that Descartes proposed would haunt thinkers for centuries.
Shimabara Rebellion
On Kyushu, some thirty thousand peasants, many of them secret Christians, rose in revolt against crushing taxation and religious persecution. They seized the ruined castle at Hara and held out for four months under a young charismatic leader named Amakusa Shiro. The shogunate crushed them and nearly exterminated Japanese Christianity.
Pequot War Ends
English colonists from Connecticut and Massachusetts, with Narragansett and Mohegan allies, surrounded a Pequot fortified village on the Mystic River and set it ablaze, burning several hundred men, women, and children inside. The Pequot nation was broken as a political power. New England's land grab had found its method, and the pattern of alliance, betrayal, and annihilation was set.
First Opera House Opens in Venice
The Teatro San Cassiano in Venice opened its doors as the first public opera house, charging admission to paying audiences rather than entertaining a court. Opera ceased to be an aristocratic amusement and began its messy career as a popular art. Within a decade, Venice had sixteen such theaters, and the lagoon city had reinvented itself as the capital of musical drama.