Events
January–June
- January 16 – The first part of Miguel de Cervantes‘ satire on the theme of chivalry, Don Quixote (El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha, “The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha“), is published in Madrid. One of the first significant novels in the western literary tradition, it becomes a global bestseller almost at once.
- March 11 – A proclamation declares all people of Ireland to be the direct subjects of the British Crown and not of any local lord or chief.[2]
- April 1 – Pope Leo XI succeeds Pope Clement VIII as the 232nd pope as a result of the heated Papal conclave of March 1605.
- April 13 – Tsar Boris Godunov dies; Feodor II accedes to the Russian throne.
- May 16 – Pope Paul V succeeds Pope Leo XI as the 233rd pope, making this the last Year of Three Popes until 1978. He is elected as a compromise candidate after the Papal conclave of May 1605 leads to physical assault.
- June 1 – Russian troops in Moscow imprison Feodor II and his mother, later executing them.
- June 20 – Pretender Dmitriy and his supporters, including troops of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, march to Moscow.
July–December
- July 4 – A proclamation commands all Roman Catholic seminary priests and Jesuits to leave Ireland by December 10 and directs the laity to attend Church of Ireland services.[2]
- July 21 – Pretender Dmitriy is officially crowned Tsar Dimitriy Ioannovich of Russia in Moscow by Patriarch Ignatius.
- September 27 – Swedish armies are decisively defeated by Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth cavalry in the Battle of Kircholm.
- October
- First publication of Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien by Johann Carolus in Strasbourg (Holy Roman Empire), generally regarded as the world’s first newspaper. De Nieuwe Tijdinghen, a Dutch proto-newspaper, is also published this year.
- Francis Bacon‘s Of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Human is published in London.
- October 27 – The 3rd Mughal Emperor, Akbar “the Great” dies of dysentery at Fatehpur Sikri in India.
- October 28 – Eighty Years’ War: Spanish troops under Ambrogio Spinola, 1st Marquess of Los Balbases, Captain-General of the Army of Flanders (newly appointed a Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece), occupy Wachtendonk after a 20-day siege.
- November 3 – The 4th Mughal Emperor Jahangir begins his 22-year reign over the Mughal Empire.
- November 5 – Gunpowder Plot: A plot to blow up the English Houses of Parliament is foiled when, following a tip-off, Sir Thomas Knyvet, a justice of the peace, finds Catholic plotter Guy Fawkes in a cellar below the Parliament building and orders a search of the area. 36 barrels of gunpowder are found and Fawkes is arrested for trying to kill King James I of England and the members who are scheduled to sit together in Parliament the next day.
Date unknown
- Tokugawa Ieyasu abdicates as shōgun of Japan, becoming Ogosho (retired shōgun). His son Tokugawa Hidetada succeeds him to the office.
- Habitation at Port-Royal established by France, the first European colonization of Nova Scotia in North America (at this time part of Acadia)
- the Gregorian calendar is adopted.
- Crew of the Olive become the first English visitors to Barbados.
- Refugee French Huguenot merchants begin to settle in Dublin and Waterford.[4]
- The Priory of St. Gregory’s is founded at Douai, Flanders, at this time in the Spanish Netherlands, by its first prior, John Roberts, and other exiles, thus becoming the first English Benedictine house to renew conventual life after the English Reformation. More than two centuries later the community will establish Downside Abbey back in England.
- Central Mexico’s Amerindian population reaches one million.