The treaties of Westphalia end the Thirty Years' War and lay foundations for the modern concept of state sovereignty.
Convicted of high treason, King Charles I is beheaded at Whitehall, London, and England becomes a republic.
Jesuit missionary Alexandre de Rhodes publishes in Rome a Vietnamese–Portuguese–Latin dictionary, a milestone in the development of the Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet.
A series of conflicts between the Royalists of Charles I and the Parliamentarians, ending in victory for Parliament under Oliver Cromwell.
Galileo dies at Arcetri near Florence, where he had been under house arrest since his trial by the Inquisition in 1633.
The Dutch navigator Abel Tasman became the first known European to reach Tasmania and New Zealand.
Isaac Newton, founder of classical mechanics and co-inventor of calculus, is born at Woolsthorpe, England.