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• 1262 – Kublai Khan (1260-1294) ruled the Yuan dynasty from 1271 – 1294
• 1290 – King Edward I orders expulsion of Jews from England, this edict will remain in place for 350 years
• 1305 – William Wallace, Scottish patriot, was executed for high treason by Edward I of England
• 1372 – Frederick I van Hohenzollern, Monarch of Brandenburg (1417-40), was born in Free Imperial City of Nuremberg (d. 1440)
• 1386 – Władysław II Jagiełło (Jogaila) was crowned King of Poland
• 1386 – The University of Heidelberg was opened
• 1386 – The Treaty of Windsor between Portugal and England (the oldest diplomatic alliance in the world still in force) was signed
• 1412 – The Medici family was appointed official banker of the Papacy
• 1426 – Hubert (Huybrecht) van Eyck, painter, died
• 1540 – Michelangelo di Buonarroti painted the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel
• 1561 – The Council of Trent is reopened by Pope Pius IV for its third (and final) session
• 1581 – Sir Francis Drake returns to England after circumnavigating the globe; knighted by Queen Elizabeth I
• 1582 – Pope Gregory XIII implements the Gregorian calendar

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• 1606 – First known European landing in Australia by Dutch navigator Willem Jansz (or Janszoon) at the Pennefather River, Cape York, northern Australia
• 1614 – French King Louis XIII declared an adult at 13
• 1618 – Start of the Thirty Years’ War – Protestants revolt against Catholic oppression; Denmark, Sweden, and France invade Germany in later phases of war
• 1618 – Johannes Kepler proposes last of three laws of planetary motion
• 1620 – Pilgrims from England arrive at Plymouth, Massachusetts, on the Mayflower
• 1630 – Boston is founded by Massachusetts colonists led by John Winthrop
• 1631 – Work commences on the Taj Mahal in India (1631 – 1653)
• 1633 – The Spanish Inquisition forces Galileo Galilei to recant his belief in Copernican theory
• 1635 – France’s First Minister, Cardinal Richelieu declares war on Spain (Franco-Spanish War 1635–59)
• 1647 – After nine months of negotiations, Scottish Presbyterians sold captured Charles I to English Parliament for around £100,000

(Toggle the date range for persons & historical context – button next to ‘Earliest Locations’ in Map navigation)

• 1653 – Parliamentarian General Oliver Cromwell was appointed as Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland
• 1653 – New Amsterdam became a city (later renamed New York)
• 1653 – The Coonan Cross Oath was taken in the Saint Thomas Christian community in an effort to avoid submission to Portuguese rule in India
• 1655 – Christiaan Huygens discovered Titan (Saturn’s largest moon)
• 1655 – Fabio Chigi replaced Pope Innocent X as Pope Alexander VII
• 1655 – The biggest Town Hall in the world opened in Amsterdam
• 1656 – Oldest surviving commercial newspaper begins (Haarlem, Netherlands)
• 1656 – Brandenburg & Sweden sign Treaty of Königsberg
• 1672 – First ‘Copyright Law’ enacted by Massachusetts
• 1679 – Habeaus Corpus Act (strengthening person’s right to challenge unlawful arrest & imprisonment) passes in England
• 1682 – English astronomer Edmond Halley first observes the comet named after him
• 1683 – First settlers from Germany to US, leave aboard ‘Concord’
• 1684 – Patent granted for the thimble
• 1685 – Duke of York became King James II of England and VII of Scotland, upon the death of his brother Charles II
• 1687 – Sir Isaac Newton’s great work Principia is published by the Royal Society in England, outlining his laws of motion and universal gravitation
• 1687 – Acropolis in Athens attacked by Venetian army trying to eject Turks, damaging the Parthenon
• 1690 – The musical instrument, the clarinet is invented in Nürnberg, Germany
• 1692 – Last people hanged for witchcraft (8) in the US, 19 hanged overall, with six other deaths during Salem Witch Trials
• 1694 – The Royal Society censures Edmond Halley for suggesting in a paper titled ‘Some considerations about the cause of the universal deluge’ that the story of Noah’s flood could be an account of a cometary impact