History
1669
General
Population: 578 Million*
- Entertainment: Writers include Dryden (comedy), Molière, Last entry in Samuel Pepys' "Diary", Racine (tragedy), Johann Jakob Christoph von Grimmelshausen (spiritual adventure novel),
William Penn No Cross No Crown, Madame de Sévigné begins letters to daughter detailing life in Paris and at French court
Art includes Vermeer "Girl at the Spinet"
Music includes Matthew Locke with book The Treasury of Musick, Pierre Perrin granted Academie Royale des Operas patent,
Edmund Castell composes "Lexicon Heptaglotton"
Antonio Stradivary makes first violin
- Science: Italian anatomist Marcello Malpighi studies life and activities of silkworms
Nicolaus Steno begins modern study of geology
Phosphorus prepared for first time by alchemist Hennig Brand of Hamburg
Jan Swammerdam writes "History of the Insects"
- Deaths: Satirist Johann Michael Moscherosch, Artist Rembrandt van Rijn, Poet John Denham, Composer Marc' Antonio Cesti, Philosopher Arnold Geulinex,
Pope Clement IX,
Asia
- China: Cholera outbreak
- India: Drought and famine
Aurangzeb and the Mughals ban Hinduism
Earliest French trading station in India
Religious persecution prompts rebellions by Jats and Sikhs in Mughal empire
Europe
- General: Last meeting of the Hanseatic League
- France: Le Vau begins remodeling Versailles
Paris academy of Music founded
Arrest in France of "The man in the velvet mask" - possibly the true father of Louis XIV – listed as Eustache Dauger
- Holy Roman Empire: Abraham a Sancta Clara made court preacher in Vienna
- Italian States: Eruption of Mt. Etna kills 20,000 and destroys Catania
Candian War between Venice and Ottoman Turks ends - Venetians lose Crete to the Turks
- Poland: Michael Wisniowiecki a Lithuanian elected King
Middle East
- Ottoman Empire: Candian War between Venice and Ottoman Turks ends
Midwest
- Robert Cavalier explores Midwest – possibly first European in region
South
- South Carolina: John Lock's constitution for Carolina approved and S Carolina formed
General
- John Mack becomes Joseph Smith's first maternal grandparent to leave England for Massachusetts