1638

Events

January–March

* January 4 –
**A naval battle takes place in the Indian Ocean off of the coast of Goa at South India as a Netherlands fleet commanded by Admiral Adam Westerwolt decimates the Portuguese fleet.
**A fleet of 80 Spanish ships led by Governor-General Sebastián Hurtado de Corcuera attacks the Sultanate of Sulu in the Philippines by beginning an invasion of Jolo island, but Sultan Muwallil Wasit I puts up a stiff resistance.
* January 8 – The siege of Shimabara Castle ends after 27 days in Japan's Tokugawa shogunate (now part of Nagasaki prefecture) as the rebel peasants flee reinforcements sent by the shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu.
* January 22 – The Shimabara and Amakusa rebels, having joined up after fleeing the shogun's troops, begin the defense of the Hara Castle in what is now Minamishimabara in the Nagasaki prefecture. The siege lasts more than 11 weeks before the peasants are killed.
* February 28 – The Scottish National Covenant is signed in Edinburgh, Scotland.
* March 3 – Battle of Rheinfelden: A mercenary army under Bernard of Saxe-Weimar, fighting for France, defeats Imperial forces.
* March 5 – Thirty Years' War – The Treaty of Hamburg is signed by France and Sweden.
* March 22 –
**Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan and his sons capture the city of Kandahar, from the Safavids.
**Anne Hutchinson is banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for heresy, and goes to Rhode Island.
* March 28 – Dutch merchant Willem Kieft is appointed Director of New Netherland, by the Dutch East India Company, to succeed Wouter van Twiller.
* March 29 – Settlers from Sweden arrive on the ships ''Kalmar Nyckel'' and ''Fogel Grip'', to establish the settlement of New Sweden in Delaware, beginning the Swedish colonization of the Americas.

April–June

* April 3 – John Wheelwright is banished from Boston, and founds Exeter, New Hampshire.
* April 14 – The Netherlands colonizes Mauritius, an event chronicled by British traveler Peter Mundy, with colonists from the ship ''Dragon'' going ashore after sighting it the day before.
* April 15 – Shogunate forces defeat the last remnants of the Shimabara Rebellion, in the fortress of Hara.
* April 25 – Settlement of what will become New Haven, Connecticut begins.
* May 13 – Construction begins on the Red Fort in Delhi (India) for Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan who is transferring his capital there from Agra.
* May 23 – The Kandyan Treaty is signed between Singhala King Rajasimha II and the Dutch, to rid Ceylon of the Portuguese.
* June 20 – Eighty Years' War – Battle of Kallo: Spanish troops under Ferdinand of Austria defeat a much larger Dutch force, near Antwerp.
* June 27 – Patriarch Cyril of Constantinople is deposed for high treason, and strangled and thrown into the sea by Janissaries, on Ottoman Sultan Murad IV's command.

July–September

* July 16 – Thirty Years War: The siege of Saint-Omer ends after almost two months as the French-held Flemish city falls after being besieged by Spanish and German troops.
* July 20 – Scottish Covenanters meet at Muchalls Castle, to compose a response to the 14 demands of the Bishops of Aberdeen.
* July 28 – Thirty Years War: Swedish Army Field Marshal Johan Banér begins a destructive against the Duchy of Pomerania, held by the Holy Roman Empire.
* August 15 – The Portuguese expedition led by Pedro Teixeira completes its journey to the end of the Amazon River, crossing the Quijos River and arrives at Quito soon after.
* August 22 – Franco-Spanish War (1635–59): The Battle of Getaria is fought between the navies of France and Spain, with the French sinking all 17 Spanish Navy ships and killing 2,000 Spanish sailors and officers.
* August 27 – Tayyar Mehmed Pasha becomes the new Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire after Bayram Pasha dies while fighting in Baghdad.
* September 6 – The Finnish postal service, now called '' Suomen Posti'', is founded.
* September 21 – The Treaty of Hartford is signed, ending the Pequot War between British American colonists and the Pequot.
* September – John Spofford arrives in Boston Harbor, on the ship ''John of London'', and is one of the first people to establish Rowely, Essex County, Massachusetts.

October–December

* October 21 – The Great Thunderstorm breaks out in Widecombe-in-the-Moor, England, killing 4 and injuring about 60. This was attributed to all lightening striking a church.
* November 21 – The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland is summoned to Glasgow, by King Charles I of England.
* November 24 – New Haven, the first planned city in America, is founded when local Indians make a deed of Quinnipiac to Theophilus Eaton and other English settlers.
* December 18 – Cardinal Mazarin becomes the first adviser to French potentate Richelieu, on the death of Leclerc du Tremblay.
* December 21 – The full moon is in total eclipse from 1:12 to 2:47 UT, and the solstice occurs later in the day, at 16:05 UT.
* December 25 – Capture of Baghdad by the Ottomans under Sultan Murad IV.

Date unknown

* Pedro Teixeira makes the first ascent of the Amazon River, from its mouth to Quito, Ecuador (the same trip had been made in the opposite direction, in 1541).
* The Dutch settle in Ceylon.
* Shipwrecked English buccaneer Peter Wallace, called ''Balis'' by the Spanish, settles near and perhaps gives his name to the Belize River, the first known European settlement in Belize.
* The ''Peking Gazette'' makes an official switch in its production process of newspapers, from woodblock printing to movable type printing (private newspapers in Ming Dynasty China were first mentioned in 1582).

Births

January–March

* January 1
** Antoinette du Ligier de la Garde Deshoulières, French writer (d. 1694)
** Emperor Go-Sai of Japan (d. 1685)
** Nicolas Steno

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