History
1679
General
Population: 598 Million*
- Entertainment: Writers include Beaumont and Fletcher (posthumous plays), Dryden and Nathaniel Lee Oedipus, P'u-Sungling (story collection),
Gilbert Burney (history of Church of England), William Petty (taxes), Abraham a Sancta Clara (sermons against corruption in Vienna),
Music includes Lully (Bellerophon opera), Alessandro Scarlatti (opera)
- Science: Edmund Halley writes about astronomy
Lheyd publishes description of "flatfish" (trilobite)
- Technology: Denis Papin invents pressure cooker
- Deaths: Dramatist Joost van den Vondel, Philosopher Thomas Hobbes, Psysiologist Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, Cardinal de Retz Jean de Gondi,
Poet Christian Hofmann von Hofmannswaldau, Artist Jan Steen
Americas
- Canada: Jesuit Father Louis Hennepin reaches Niagara Falls
Asia
- India: War between Mughals and Hindu Rajputs
Europe
- General: Peace of Nijmegen extends between Louis XIV and Leopold I
Peace of St. Germain-en-Laye between Sweden and Brandenburg
Peace treaty of Lund between Denmark and Sweden
- England: Habeas Corpus Act ensures no imprisonment without court appearance
Elias Ashmole founds museum at Oxford
Exclusion bill tries to stop Charles II's brother James (Duke of York) from being king – blocked by Charles –
Charles also blocks petitions calling for new Parliament – petitioners Whigs and royalists known as Tories
- France: Charles Lebrun decorates Galerie des Glaces at Versailles
Edict against dueling
Colbert issues order that all French merchants be examined in bookkeeping and commercial law
- German States: First German coffeehouse in Hamburg
Chemist Johann Kunckel von Lowenstern becomes director of glass works in Potsdam
- Holy Roman Empire: Plague outbreak in Austria
- Spain: King Charles II of Spain marries Marie Louise of Orleans
Hapsburg influence reestablished in Madrid by Queen Mother Marie of Austria
East
- General: New Hampshire separated as special province from MA - receives charter from Charles II, becomes royal company