General
Population: 590 Million*
- Entertainment: Writers include William Wycherley (comedy), Poems of Basho help popylarize Japanese haiku poetry, Sir William Dugdale The Baronage of England,
Jacques Savary, Philipp Jacob Spencer, Spinoza (ethics), Thomas Traherne Christian Ethics (posthumous),
Art includes Jacob van Ruisdael "Jewish Cemetery",
Music includes Matthew Locke music to Thomas Shadwell's "Psyche"
- Science: Leibniz invents differential and integral calculus
Isaac Newton publishes "Opticks"
Anton van Leeuwenhoek discovers red blood corpuscles which eventually leads to germ theory
German astronomer Olaus Romer discovers finite velocity of light
- Deaths: Composer Andreas Hammerschmidt, Artist Jan Vermeer
St. Paul's Cathedral begun
Asia
- China: Zheng Jing's forces again attack Fujian province
Europe
- General: Alliance between France and Poland
"Great Elector" Frederick William of Brandenburg defeats Swedish army at Fehrbellin
War between Sweden and Denmark
- England: Charles II of England receives 500,000 crowns from Louis XIV and is able to prorogue parliament for 15 months
Greenwich Observatory established under John Flamsteed
Sir Christopher Wten begins rebuilding St. Paul's in London
- France: Paris becomes center of European culture with half-million inhabitants
- Spain: King Charles II of Spain attains majority