The Mayflower Pilgrims sign the Mayflower Compact and establish Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts.
Date given in the Julian calendar.
Shakespeare dies in Stratford-upon-Avon, leaving some 39 plays and 154 sonnets.
William Harvey publishes De Motu Cordis, demonstrating that the heart pumps blood in a continuous circuit around the body.
Samuel de Champlain founds Quebec on the St. Lawrence River, which becomes the centre of the colony of New France.
English colonists establish Jamestown in Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in North America.
Queen Elizabeth I grants a royal charter to the East India Company, which later comes to rule much of the Indian subcontinent.
A series of conflicts between the Royalists of Charles I and the Parliamentarians, ending in victory for Parliament under Oliver Cromwell.