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Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote de la Mancha, the first modern novel.
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Jamestown, Virginia, established-first permanent English colony on American mainland. Pocahontas, daughter of Chief Powhatan, saves life of John Smith.
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Johannes Kepler publishes his Laws of Planetary Motion which explained the movement of planets around the sun.
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Galileo Galilei sees the moons of Jupiter through his telescope. Galileo also showed the Copernican system in which the planets circle the sun was correct.
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William Shakespeare dies.
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Start of the Thirty Years' War - Protestants revolt against Catholic oppression; Denmark, Sweden, and France invade Germany in later phases of war. Johannes Kepler proposes last of three laws of planetary motion.
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Pilgrims from England arrive at Plymouth, Massachusetts, on the Mayflower.
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Boston is founded by Massachusetts colonists led by John Winthrop.
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The Taj Mahal is built in India (1631 - 1653)
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End of Ming Dynasty in China-Manchus come to power. René Descartes's Principles of Philosophy.
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Oliver Cromwell dies; son Richard resigns and Puritan government collapses.
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Charles II is crowned King of England. Louis XIV begins personal rule as absolute monarch; starts to build Versailles.
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Isaac Newton's experiments with gravity. The English seize New Amsterdam from the Dutch. The city is renamed New York.
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Great Plague in London kills 75,000.
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French settlers move into Mississippi and Louisiana.