1605

Updated on Sep 27, 2024

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1605 (MDCV) was a common year starting on Saturday (dominical letter B) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Tuesday (dominical letter F) of the Julian calendar, the 1605th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 605th year of the 2nd millennium, the 5th year of the 17th century, and the 6th year of the 1600s decade. As of the start of 1605, the Gregorian calendar was 10 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.

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.

April 1 – Pope Leo XI succeeds Pope Clement VIII as the 232nd pope.

April 13 – Tsar Boris Godunov dies; Feodor II accedes to the Russian throne.

April 16 – In England, John Winthrop, later governor of the future Massachusetts Bay Colony, marries his first wife (of 4), Mary Forth, daughter of John Forth, of Great Stambridge, Essex.

May 16 – Pope Paul V succeeds Pope Leo XI as the 233rd pope, making this the last Year of Three Popes until 1978.

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.

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 – Spanish troops of General Spinola occupy Wachtendonk. Mughal Emperor Akbar the Great dies

November 3 – Jahangir begins his 22-year reign of 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 shogun of Japan, becoming Ogosho. His son Tokugawa Hidetada succeeds him to the office.

Habitation at Port-Royal established by France under Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Mons, 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.

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.

The Irish College in Paris is co-founded by John Lee, an Irish priest, and John de l'Escalopier, President of the Parlement.

Central Mexico's Amerindian population reaches one million.