1637

Updated on Sep 22, 2024

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1637 (MDCXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday (dominical letter D) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Sunday (dominical letter A) of the Julian calendar, the 1637th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 637th year of the 2nd millennium, the 37th year of the 17th century, and the 8th year of the 1630s decade. As of the start of 1637, the Gregorian calendar was 10 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.

January–June

January – Pierre Corneille's tragicomedy Le Cid is first performed, in Paris, France.

February 3 – Tulip mania collapses in the Dutch Republic.

February 15 – Ferdinand III becomes Holy Roman Emperor.

February 18 – Eighty Years' War: Battle off Lizard Point: Off the coast of Cornwall, England, a Spanish fleet intercepts an Anglo-Dutch merchant convoy of 44 vessels escorted by 6 warships, destroying or capturing 20 of them.

April 10 – Plymouth Colony grants the "tenn menn of Saugust" a new settlement on Cape Cod, later named Sandwich, Massachusetts.

April 30 – King Charles I of England issues a proclamation attempting to stem emigration to the North American colonies.

May 26 – Pequot War: A band of English settlers under Captain John Mason, and their Narragansett and Mohegan allies, set fire to a fortified village of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe near the Mystic River in what is later known as the Mystic massacre. Between 400 and 700 people, mostly women, children and old men, are killed.

May – Chinese encyclopedist Song Yingxing publishes his Tiangong Kaiwu ("Exploitation of the Works of Nature"), considered one of the most valuable encyclopedias of classical China.

June 27 – The first English venture to China is attempted by captain John Weddell, who sails into port in Macau and Canton during the late Ming dynasty with six ships. The voyages are for trade, which is dominated here by the Portuguese (at this time combined with the power of Spain). He brings 38,421 pairs of eyeglasses, perhaps the first recorded European-made eyeglasses to enter China.

July–December

July 23 – After a court battle, King Charles I of England hands over title to the North American colony of Massachusetts to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, one of the founders of Plymouth Council for New England.

October 13 – English Royal Navy first-rate ship of the line HMS Sovereign of the Seas is launched at Woolwich Dockyard at a cost of £65,586, adorned from stern to bow with gilded carvings after a design by Anthony van Dyck.

December 17 – The Shimabara Rebellion erupts in Japan when 30,000 peasants in the heavily Catholic area of northern Kyūshū revolt.

Date unknown

Second Manchu invasion of Korea: The Joseon court reluctantly submits to the Manchu's demands of vassalhood while continuing to pledge loyalty to the Chinese Ming dynasty.

Pierre de Fermat makes a notation, in a document margin, claiming to have proof of what would become known as Fermat's Last Theorem.

René Descartes promotes intellectual rigour in his Discourse on the Method and introduces the Cartesian coordinate system in its appendix La Géométrie (published in Leiden).

France places a few missionaries in the Ivory Coast, a country it will rule more than 200 years later.

The first opera house, Teatro San Cassiano, opens in Venice.

Scottish army officer Robert Monro publishes Monro, His Expedition With the Worthy Scots Regiment Called Mac-Keys in London, the first military history in English.

Elizabeth Poole becomes the first woman to have founded a town (Taunton, Massachusetts) in the Americas.

The Blessed Virgin is proclaimed Queen of Genoa.