1609

Events

January–June

* January – The Basque witch trials begin.
* January 15 – One of the world's first newspapers, ''Avisa Relation oder Zeitung'', begins publication in Wolfenbüttel (Holy Roman Empire).
* January 31 – The Bank of Amsterdam is established.
* February 4 – The last day of Keichō 慶長 13 (according to the Japanese lunar calendar).
* March – Hugo Grotius publishes ''Mare Liberum'', his legal text on freedom of the seas, in Leiden.
* April 4
** King Philip III of Spain signs an edict to expel of all Moriscos from his country (''see'' September 11).
** English explorer Henry Hudson, in the service of the Dutch East India Company, sets out from Amsterdam in the ''Halve Maen''.
* April 5 – Invasion of Ryukyu in Japan: Soldiers of the Shimazu clan capture the castle on Ryukyu Island, beginning to make the Ryukyu Kingdom a vassal of Satsuma Han. But Ryukyu was still allowed to keep itself a tribute state of Ming dynasty and Qing dynasty.
* April 9 – Treaty of Antwerp: The Netherlands and Spain agree to the Twelve Years' Truce (1609–1621) in the Eighty Years' War, allowing the Dutch East India Company to trade within the Spanish Empire.
* May 20 – London publisher Thomas Thorpe issues '' Shake-speares Sonnets'', with a dedication to "Mr. W.H.", and the poem ''A Lover's Complaint'' appended; it is uncertain whether this publication has Shakespeare's authority.
* May 23 – The Second Virginia Charter is officially ratified; it is intended to replace the council with a governor, who has absolute control in the colony.

July–December

* July – Samuel de Champlain claims the Lake Champlain area of Vermont, for the Kingdom of France.
* July 9 – Bohemia is granted freedom of religion (''Letter of Majesty'').
* July 10 – The German Catholic League is formed to counteract the Protestant Union.
* July 23 – A hurricane at sea separates the nine London Company's ships (600 more settlers) ''en route'' to relieve the Jamestown settlement; one ship sinks, and the ''Sea Venture'' is driven ashore at Bermuda on July 25, thus effectively first settling the colony.
* July 30 – At what is now Crown Point, New York, Samuel de Champlain participates in a battle between the Huron and Iroquois, shooting and killing two Iroquois chiefs; this helps set the tone for French–Iroquois relations for the next 100 years.
* August 25 – Galileo Galilei demonstrates his first telescope to Venetian officials.
* August 28 – Henry Hudson is the first European to see Delaware Bay.
* August – Seven ships arrive at the colony of Jamestown, Virginia, with 200–300 men, women, and children, reporting the ''Sea Venture'' wrecked near Bermuda.
* September 2 – Henry Hudson enters New York Bay, aboard the ''Halve Maen''.
* September 10 – Jamestown: Capt. George Percy replaces Captain John Smith as president of the Council, and Smith returns to England.
* September 11 – Valencia expels all the Moriscos (''see'' April 4).
* September 11– 12 – Henry Hudson in the ''Halve Maen'' sails into Upper New York Bay, and begins a journey up the Hudson River.
* October 12 – A version of the rhyme ''Three Blind Mice'' is published in London. The editor, and possible author of the verse, is the teenage Thomas Ravenscroft.

Date unknown

* The Dutch East India Company imports tea to Europe.
* The Dutch East India Company establishes a trading post in Hirado, Japan.
* The Scrooby Congregation of Protestant English Separatists (predecessors of the Pilgrim Fathers) moves from Amsterdam to Leiden.
* Warsaw becomes the capital of Poland.
* The municipality of Buenavista in Marinduque, Philippines is founded.
* The Statutes of Iona are passed, marking the end of the bloody feuds between the clans in the Scottish Highlands.
* The Douay–Rheims Bible Old Testament translation from the Vulgate into English vol. 1 is published in Reims.
* English-born Sister Mary Ward founds the Sisters of Loreto at Saint-Omer, at this time in the Spanish Netherlands.
* Johannes Kepler publishes his first two laws of planetary motion in ''Astronomia nova''.
* Cornelis Drebbel invents the thermostat.
* "Egyptians" (i.e., Romany people) are expelled from the Kingdom of Scotland.

Births

January–March

* January 18
** Ferdinando Hastings, 6th Earl of Huntingdon, English politician (d. 1656)
** Henry Oxenden, English poet (d. 1670)
* January 20 – Carlo Ceresa, Italian painter (d. 1679)
* January 30 – Václav Eusebius František, Prince of Lobkowicz, Austrian field marshal and prince (d. 1677)
* February 10
** Lancelot Lake, Member of the English Parliament of (d. 1680)
** John Suckling, English poet (d. 1642)
* February 14 – Bartram de Fouchier, Dutch painter (d. 1673)
* February 18 – Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, English statesman and historian (d. 1674)
* February 21 – Raimondo Montecuccoli, Italian general (d. 1680)
* March 16
** Michael Franck, German composer and poet (d. 1667)
** Agostino Mitelli, Italian painter (d. 1660)
* March 18 – King Frederick III of Denmark (d. 1670)
* March 22 – John II Casimir of Poland (d. 1672)
* March 23 – Johann Heinrich Schönfeld, German artist (d. 1684)
* March 25 – Paul Fréart de Chantelou, French collector and patron of the arts (d. 1694)

April–June

* April 6 – Walter Aston, 2nd Lord Aston of Forfar, second and eldest surviving son of Walter Aston (d. 1678)
* April 15 – Richard Winwood, English politician (d. 1688)
* May 6 – Antonie Waterloo, Flemish painter (d. 1690)
* May 10 – Mauritia Eleonora of Portugal, Princess of Portugal and through marriage countess of Nassau-Siegen (d. 1674)
* June 2 – Zsófia Bosnyák, Hungarian noblewoman (d. 1644)
* June 17 – John of Hesse-Braubach, German general (d. 1651)
* June 29 – Pierre-Paul Riquet, French engineer and canal builder (d. 1680)

July–September

* July 17 – Wilhelm Gumppenberg, German Jesuit theologian (d. 1675)
* July 28 – Judith Leyster, Dutch painter (d. 1660)
* July 29 – Maria Gonzaga, Duchess of Montferrat, Italian noble (d. 1660)
* August 6 – Richard Bennett, British Colonial Governor of Virginia (d. 1675)
* August 21 – Jean Rotrou, French poet and tragedian (d. 1650)
* August 25 – Giovanni Battista Salvi da Sassoferrato (d. 1685)
* August 30
** Sir Alexander Carew, 2nd Baronet, English politician (d. 1644)
** Artus Quellinus the Elder, Flemish sculptor (d. 1668)
* September 3 – Raymond Breton, French missionary (d. 1679)
* September 19 (or 1605) – Thomas Gouge, English minister (d. 1681)

October–December

* October 5 – Paul Fleming, German physician and poet (d. 1640)
* October 8 – John Clarke, English physician (d. 1676)
* October 9 – Thomas Weston, 4th Earl of Portland, younger son of the Richard Weston (d. 1688)
* October 14 – Ernest Günther, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein of its Sonderborg line (d. 1689)
* October 16 – Thomas Minors, English politician and merchant (d. 1677)
* October 18 – Josias von Rantzau, Marshal of France (d. 1650)
* October 19 – Gerrard Winstanley, English Protestant religious reformer (d. 1676)
* October 26 – William Sprague, English co-founder of Charlestown, Massachusetts (d. 1675)
* October 29 – Wadham Wyndham, English judge (d. 1668)
* November 1 – Matthew Hale, Lord Chief Justice of England (d. 1676)
* November 23 – Sophia Eleonore of Saxony, German duchess (d. 1671)
* November 25 – Henrietta Maria of France, queen of England, Scotland and Ireland (d. 1669)
* November 26 – Henry Dunster, first President of Harvard College (d. 1659)
* December 6 – Nicholas Francis, Duke of Lorraine (d. 1670)
* December 11 – Alexander Cooper, English Baroque miniature painter (d. 1660)
* December 13 – Isbrand van Diemerbroeck, Dutch physician (d. 1674)
* December 24 – Philip Warwick, English writer and politician (d. 1683)
* December 30 – Anna Maria von Eggenberg, née Brandenburg-Bayreuth, Austrian noble (d. 1680)

Date unknown

* Luc d'Achery, French Benedictine (d. 1685)
* Samuel Cooper, English miniature painter (d. 1672)
* Alberich Mazak, Austrian composer (d. 1661)
* Elizabeth Isham, English diarist (d. 1654)
* Hannibal Sehested, Danish statesman (d. 1666)
* Thomas Greene, Colonial governor of Maryland (d. 1651)

Probable

Gauthier de Costes, seigneur de la Calprenède, French novelist and dramatist (d. 1663)

Deaths

January–March

* January – Thomas East, English printer (born c. 1540)
* January 9 – Joannes Bochius, civic officeholder and neo-Latin poet in the city of Antwerp (b. 1555)
* January 21 – Joseph Justus Scaliger, French Protestant scholar (b. 1540)
* February 17 – Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (b. 1549)
* February 28 – Paul Sartorius, German composer (b. 1569)
* March – James Hamilton, 3rd Earl of Arran (b. c. 1537)
* March 9 – William Warner, English poet (b. c. 1558)
* March 17 – Olaus Martini, Swedish Archbishop of Uppsala (b. 1557)
* March 22 – Al-Jilani, Persian physician
* March 25
** Isabelle de Limeuil, French noble (b. 1535)
** John William, Duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg (b. 1562)

April–June

* April 4 – Charles de L'Ecluse, Flemish botanist (b. 1526)
* April 6 – Merkelis Giedraitis, Lithuanian bishop (b. 1536)
* April 8 – Mark Kerr, 1st Earl of Lothian, Scottish statesman (b. 1553)
* April 9 – William Overton, English bishop (b. 1525)
* April 11 – John Lumley, 1st Baron Lumley, English Baron (b. 1533)
* April 14 – Gasparo da Salò (Gasparo Bertolotti), Italian violin maker(b. 1540)
* May 15 – Giovanni Croce, Italian composer (b. 1557)
* May 19
** Jacob Lorhard, German philosopher (b. 1561)
** García Hurtado de Mendoza, 5th Marquis of Cañete (b. 1535)
* June 15 – Yamada Arinobu, Japanese nobleman (b. 1544)

July–September

* July 15 – Annibale Carracci, Italian Baroque painter (b. 1560)
* July 20 – Federico Zuccari, Italian painter (b. 1543)
* August 4 – Cecily Bulstrode, English courtier (b. 1584)
* August 7 – Eustache Du Caurroy, French composer (b. 1549)
* August 6 – André du Laurens, French physician (b. 1558)
* August 28 – Francis Vere, English soldier (b. c. 1560)
* September 2 – Thomas Scrope, 10th Baron Scrope of Bolton, English general (b. 1567)
* September 3 – Jean Richardot, Belgian diplomat (b. 1540)
* September 17 – Maharal of Prague, Jewish mystic and philosopher (b. 1525)
* September 29 – Ebba Lilliehöök, Swedish countess (b. 1529)

October–December

* October 1 – Giammateo Asola, Italian composer (b. c. 1532)
* October 9 – John Leonardi, Italian founder of the Clerks Regular of the Mother of God of Lucca (b. 1541)
* October 16 – Dorothea Hedwig of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst (b. 1587)
* October 19 – Jacobus Arminius, Dutch Reformed theologian (b. 1560)
* December – Barnabe Barnes, English poet (b. c. 1571)
* December 4 – Alexander Hume, Scottish poet (b. 1560)
* December 16 – Arild Huitfeldt, Danish historian (b. 1546)

References

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