1642
English Civil War Begins
Charles I raised the royal standard at Nottingham and declared parliament rebels. A strong wind blew the banner down within hours, which observers called an omen. For the next four years, cavaliers and roundheads would clash across England in the most destructive war the country had ever fought on its own soil.
Abel Tasman Sights New Zealand
The Dutch navigator Abel Tasman, having already sighted the island he named for Van Diemen (now Tasmania), reached the west coast of what he called Staten Landt. A skirmish with Maori in Golden Bay discouraged him from landing. He called it, later, Nieuw Zeeland, and Europeans would not return for another century until James Cook charted its coasts.
Isaac Newton Born
A premature, sickly baby, small enough to fit in a quart mug, was born on Christmas Day at Woolsthorpe Manor in Lincolnshire, a few months after his father's death. He was not expected to survive. He would live eighty-four years and remake human understanding of the physical universe, leaving behind a legacy that still governs how we calculate the motion of worlds.
Charles I Tries to Arrest Five Members
Charles I marched into the House of Commons with a guard of soldiers to arrest five parliamentary leaders for treason. They had been warned and slipped out the back. The Speaker, William Lenthall, famously knelt and said he had no eyes to see but as the House directed. The king had lost London.
Galileo Dies at Arcetri
Still under house arrest near Florence, blind, and bearded like a patriarch, Galileo Galilei died at seventy-seven, dictating notes to a young assistant named Vincenzio Viviani. The Church forbade a public funeral. His body was quietly buried in a side chapel until the eighteenth century, when Florence honored him properly.
Rembrandt Paints The Night Watch
Commissioned by a company of Amsterdam civic militia, Rembrandt painted an enormous canvas bristling with movement, partial faces, and dramatic chiaroscuro. The Night Watch would eventually become the most famous Dutch painting of all time, although the militia men, several of whom were half-hidden in shadow, grumbled at the time.
Westminster Assembly Convenes
English parliament summoned a conference of divines to Westminster to reform the Church of England along Presbyterian lines. The assembly would meet for years and produce the Westminster Confession, the theological backbone of English-speaking Presbyterianism for the next three centuries. The Long Parliament had reshaped a church while fighting a war.