The Dutch navigator Abel Tasman became the first known European to reach Tasmania and New Zealand.
The treaties of Westphalia end the Thirty Years' War and lay foundations for the modern concept of state sovereignty.
After besieging Fort Zeelandia, Koxinga forces the Dutch East India Company to surrender and establishes the Kingdom of Tungning.
Jan Pieterszoon Coen of the Dutch East India Company seizes Jayakarta and founds Batavia (now Jakarta), the hub of Dutch power in Asia.
Beginning with a revolt in Bohemia, the conflict spreads across Central Europe, drawing in the major European powers and causing enormous loss of life.
Using microscopes of his own making, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek describes single-celled organisms in water and reports them to the Royal Society.
Dutch captain Willem Janszoon aboard the Duyfken charted the west coast of Cape York Peninsula, the first recorded European landing in Australia.