Beginning with a revolt in Bohemia, the conflict spreads across Central Europe, drawing in the major European powers and causing enormous loss of life.
Jan Pieterszoon Coen of the Dutch East India Company seizes Jayakarta and founds Batavia (now Jakarta), the hub of Dutch power in Asia.
Shakespeare dies in Stratford-upon-Avon, leaving some 39 plays and 154 sonnets.
An assembly of the land elects Michael Romanov as Tsar, ending the Time of Troubles; the Romanovs rule Russia until 1917.
Observing with his own telescope, Galileo Galilei discovers the moons of Jupiter, publishing them in Sidereus Nuncius in 1610 in support of heliocentrism.
Johannes Kepler publishes Astronomia nova, stating his first two laws of planetary motion, including elliptical orbits.
Samuel de Champlain founds Quebec on the St. Lawrence River, which becomes the centre of the colony of New France.