So Far This Year

The world is in some kind of crazy tailspin, I tell you!

Who am I kidding? No one would have used the word "tailspin" 400 years ago.

But in 1607, there was plenty happening around the world. Let's see...

January 13 - The Bank of Genoa fails after announcement of national bankruptcy in Japan.(1)
January 20 - A tidal wave, possibly a tsunami, swept along the Bristol Channel in England, killing 2000 people.
April 25 - Battle of Gibraltar: Dutch fleet destroys Spanish fleet anchored in the Bay of Gibraltar (Battle of Gibraltar).
* April 26 - English colonists make landfall at Cape Henry, Virginia, later moving up the James River to found Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in what is now the United States.
* May 14 - Jamestown, Virginia, is settled as what would become the first permanent English colony in North America.
* May 15 - Jamestown: Christopher Newport, Smith Percy, Archer, and others travel 6 days exploring along the James River up to the falls and Powhatan's village.
* May 26
o Jamestown: The president directs the fort to be strengthened and armed against the many attacks of the natives: "Hereupon the President was contented the Fort should be pallisadoed, the ordinance mounted, his men armed and exercised, for many were the assaults and Ambuscadoes of the Savages ..." [John Smith, Proceedings (Barbour 1964)]
o 200 armed Indians attack the Jamestown settlement, killing 1 and wounding 11.
* May 28 - Jamestown: The Fort is pallisadoed: "we laboured, pallozadoing our fort" Gabriel Archer (Arber).
* June 5 - John Hall marries Susanna, daughter of William Shakespeare.
* June 8 - Newton rebellion: 40-50 peasants killed by landowners Tresham family during protests against enclosure of common land in Newton, Northamptonshire, UK - culmination of Midland Revolt.
* June 10 - Jamestown: John Smith is released from arrest and sworn in as member of the colony Council.
* June 15: Jamestown: The triangular fort is completed and armed: "The fifteenth of June we had built and finished our Fort, which was triangle wise, having three Bulwarkes, at every corner, like a halfe Moone, and foure or five pieces of Artillerie mounted in them. We had made our selves sufficiently strong for these Savages. We had also sowne most of our Corne on two Mountaines." George Percy (Tyler 1952:19)
* June 22: Christopher Newport sails back to England.
* June 27: Jamestown: The colony bears extreme toil in strengthening the fort [from John Smith, Proceedings (Barbour 1964:210)].

[edit] July - December

* August 13 - Ship Gift of God of the Plymouth Company arrives at the mouth of the modern-day Kennebec River in Maine. English colonists establish a Fort St. George, also known as the Popham Colony. The settlement lasts little more than a year before residents return to England in the first ocean going ship built in the New World, a 30-ton pinnace, called The Virginia.
* September 14 - Flight of the Earls: Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone, and Rory O'Donnell, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell, leave Ireland with ninety followers, never to return.
* September 10: Jamestown: President Wingfield is deposed, and then Ratcliffe is elected.
* December - Jamestown: In early December, John Smith is captured by Opechancanough.

[edit] Undated

* Spain is effectively bankrupt.
* The British national anthem, God Save the King, is first sung.
* Rule of Andorra is passed jointly to the king of France and the Bishop of Urgell.
* Yaqob is defeated in battle and deposed by his cousin Susenyos, who then becomes Emperor of Ethiopia.
* The Midland Revolt against Enclosure - first use of the terms Levellers.
* Missionary Juan Fonte establishes the first Jesuit mission among the Tarahumara in the Sierra Madre Mountains of Northwest Mexico.
(1) Wikipedia.