History
1608
General
Population: 541 Million*
- Entertainment: Writers include George Chapman (tragedy), Joseph Hall (virtues and vices), Thomas Middleton (satire), Shakespeare Pericles,
Richard West (book of epigrams), St. Francis de Sales, Philosopher Alberico Gentili, Edward Grimestone (history of Netherlands), William Perkins (witchcraft, posthumous),
Captain John Smith A True Relation of Virginia
Art includes Domenichino "Scourging of St. Andrew", El Greco "Golgotha" and "Cardinal Taverna"
Music includes Monteverdi "Lamento d'Arianna"
- Science: Johann (Hans) Lippershey invents telescope (see 1600) - applies for patent
Galileo constructs astronomical telescope
- Deaths: Sculptor Giovanni da Bologna, Earl of Dorset Thomas Sackville,
Americas
- Canada: Quebec founded by French under Samuel de Champlain
- Paraguay: Jesuit state of Paraguay established
Asia
- India: English East India Company receives first trading concessions
Europe
- England: The King's Men – London acting company – play at Blackfriar's theater
Sir Walter Cope builds Holland House in London
Separatists in England move to Netherlands (Pilgrims)
- German States: Protestant States of Rhineland form Protestant Union under Christian of Anhalt and Frederick IV of Palatinate
- Holland: First checks (cash letters) in use
- Holy Roman Empire: Emperor Rudolf II cedes Austria Hungary and Moravia to brother Matthias
- Ireland: O'Dogherty rebellion collapses
- Italian States: Girolamo Frescobaldi made organist at St. Peter's in Rome
- Russia: Second "False Dmitri" defeats Czar Vasili Shuisky and advances toward Moscow
End of Cossack and peasant uprisings
South
- Virginia: Starvation in Virginia – Jamestown as drought continues