1659

This article is about the year 1659.

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	16th century – 17th century – 18th century
Decades:	1620s  1630s  1640s  – 1650s –  1660s  1670s  1680s
Years:	1656 1657 1658 – 1659 – 1660 1661 1662

1659 by topic:

Arts and Science

Architecture - Art - Literature - Music - Science

Lists of leaders

Colonial governors - State leaders

Birth and death categories

Births - Deaths

Establishments and disestablishments categories

Establishments - Disestablishments

Works category

Works

1659 in other calendars

Gregorian calendar	1659 MDCLIX
Ab urbe condita	2412
Armenian calendar	1108 ԹՎ ՌՃԸ
Assyrian calendar	6409
Bengali calendar	1066
Berber calendar	2609
English Regnal year	10 Cha. 2 – 11 Cha. 2 (Interregnum)
Buddhist calendar	2203
Burmese calendar	1021
Byzantine calendar	7167–7168
Chinese calendar	戊戌年 (Earth Dog) 4355 or 4295     — to — 己亥年 (Earth Pig) 4356 or 4296
Coptic calendar	1375–1376
Discordian calendar	2825
Ethiopian calendar	1651–1652
Hebrew calendar	5419–5420
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	1715–1716
- Shaka Samvat	1581–1582
- Kali Yuga	4760–4761
Holocene calendar	11659
Igbo calendar	659–660
Iranian calendar	1037–1038
Islamic calendar	1069–1070
Japanese calendar	Manji 2 (万治２年)
Julian calendar	Gregorian minus 10 days
Korean calendar	3992
Minguo calendar	253 before ROC 民前253年
Thai solar calendar	2201–2202

1659 (MDCLIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (dominical letter E) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Saturday (dominical letter B) of the Julian calendar, the 1659th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 659th year of the 2nd millennium, the 59th year of the 17th century, and the 10th and last year of the 1650s decade. Note that the Julian day for 1659 is 10 calendar days difference, which continued to be used from 1582 until the complete conversion of the Gregorian calendar was entirely done in 1929.

Events

January–June

• January 14 – Battle of the Lines of Elvas: The Portuguese beat the Spanish in the Portuguese Restoration War.
• January 24 – Pierre Corneille's Oedipe premieres in Paris.
• February 2 – Jan van Riebeeck produces the first South African wine at the Cape of Good Hope.
• February 11 – The assault on Copenhagen by Swedish forces is beaten back with heavy losses.
• February 16 – The first known cheque (400 pounds) is written (on display at Westminster Abbey).
• April 22 – Lord Protector Richard Cromwell dissolves the English Parliament.
• May 22 – France, England, and Netherlands sign the Hedges Concerto treaty.
• May 25 – Richard Cromwell resigns as English Lord Protector.
• May 31 – The Netherlands, England, and France sign the Treaty of The Hague.

July–December

• July 16 – Princess Henriette Catherine of Nassau marries John George II, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau, in Groningen.
• September 30 – Peter Stuyvesant of New Netherland forbids tennis playing during religious services (first mention of tennis in what will be the U.S.).
• October 12 – The English Rump Parliament dismisses John Lambert and other generals.
• October 13 – General-major John Lambert drives out the English Rump-government.
• November 7 – Treaty of Pyrenees: French King Louis XIV and King Philip IV of Spain agree to French acquisition of the counties of Roussillon and Upper Cerdanya (Principality of Catalonia) and most of Artois, and formally end their 24-year war.
• November 25 – Dutch forces under Michiel de Ruyter free the Danish city of Nyborg from Swedish conquest (earlier in the year).
• December 16 – General Monck demands free parliamentary election in Scotland.
• December 26 – The Long Parliament reforms occur in Westminster.

Date unknown

• The Spanish Infanta Maria Theresa brings cocoa to Paris.
• Diego Velázquez's portrait of Infanta Maria Theresa is first exhibited.
• Thomas Hobbes publishes De Homine.
• Parisian police raid a monastery, sending monks to prison for eating meat and drinking wine during Lent.
• Drought occurs in India.
• Christiaan Huygens writes Systema Saturnium.

Births

• January 1 – Margaret Wemyss, 3rd Countess of Wemyss, Scottish noble (d. 1705)
• January 4 – James Pierpont (Yale founder), Congregationalist minister, a founder of Yale University (d. 1714)
• January 11 – Ambrose Browne, English politician (d. 1688)
• January 13 – Johann Arnold Nering, German architect (d. 1695)
• January 17
  • Antonio Veracini, Italian composer (d. 1745)
  • Takatsukasa Kanehiro, Japanese court noble of the Edo period (d. 1725)
• January 18 – Damaris Cudworth Masham, English philosopher (d. 1708)
• January 21 – Adriaen van der Werff, Dutch painter (d. 1722)
• January 28 – Sir Samuel Barnardiston, 2nd Baronet, English politician (d. 1709)
• February 1 – Jacob Roggeveen, Dutch Pacific Ocean explorer (d. 1729)
• February 14 – Theodore Eustace, Count Palatine of Sulzbach (d. 1732)
• February 27 – William Sherard, English botanist (d. 1728)
• March 4 – Pierre Lepautre (1659–1744), French artist (d. 1744)
• March 6 – Salomon Franck, German lawyer, scientist, poet (d. 1725)
• March 8 – Isaac de Beausobre, French Protestant pastor (d. 1738)
• March 25 – John Asgill, Irish politician (d. 1738)
• March 26 – William Wollaston, English philosopher (d. 1724)
• April 8 – Christopher Tancred, British politician (d. 1705)
• April 14
  • Albrecht of Saxe-Weissenfels, German prince (d. 1692)
  • William Delaune, Academic administrator and clergyman (d. 1728)
• April 15 – Adam Ludwig Lewenhaupt, Swedish general (d. 1719)
• April 16 – Jacques le Moyne de Sainte-Hélène (d. 1690)
• April 29
  • Date Tsunamura, daimyo at the center of the Date Sōdō (d. 1719)
  • Sophia Elisabet Brenner, Swedish writer (d. 1730)
• May 4 – John Dunton, English bookseller and author (d. 1733)
• June 3 – David Gregory, Scottish astronomer (d. 1708)
• June 5 – Wolfgang George Frederick von Pfalz-Neuburg, Bishop (d. 1683)
• June 7 – Henry Thompson (1659–1700), British politician (d. 1700)
• June 11 – Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Samurai (d. 1719)
• June 12 – Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Japanese samurai (d. 1719
• June 15 – Claude de Ramezay, Canadian politician (d. 1724)
• June 22 – Simon-Pierre Denys de Bonaventure, French officer and governor of Acadia (d. 1711)
• June 26 – Sir John Brownlow, 3rd Baronet, English politician (d. 1697)
• July 3 – Franz Beer (d. 1726)
• July 6 – Albert Wolfgang, Count of Hohenlohe-Langenburg (d. 1715)
• July 8 – Justus van Huysum, Dutch painter (d. 1716)
• July 14 – John Hutton (1659–1731), English politician (d. 1731)
• July 16 – Anne Wharton, English poet (d. 1685)
• July 18 – Hyacinthe Rigaud, French painter (d. 1743)
• July 22 – Noadiah Russell, one of the clergymen who founded Yale (d. 1713)
• July 28
  • Asano Tsunanaga, Daimyo who ruled the Hiroshima Domain (d. 1708)
  • Charles Ancillon, French Protestant pastor (d. 1715)
• August 1 – Sebastiano Ricci, Italian painter (d. 1734)
• August 2 – Andrew Archer, English politician (d. 1741)
• August 17 – Robert Challe, French colonialist (d. 1721)
• August 23 – Henry Every, English pirate (d. 1696)
• September 1 – Domenico Egidio Rossi, Italian architect (d. 1715)
• September 5 – Michel Sarrazin, Canadian scientist (d. 1734)
• September 10 – Henry Purcell, English composer (d. 1695)
• September 12
  • Dirk Maas, Dutch painter (d. 1717)
  • Ferdinand Willem, Duke of Württemberg-Neuenstadt, Dutch general and noble (d. 1701)
• September 13 – Claud Hamilton, 4th Earl of Abercorn (d. 1691)
• September 18 – Caleb Banks, English politician (d. 1696)
• October 13 – George Verney, 12th Baron Willoughby de Broke, English Baron (d. 1728)
• October 22 – Georg Ernst Stahl, German chemist (d. 1734)
• October 28 – Nicholas Brady (poet), poet, Anglican divine (d. 1726)
• November 3 – Hui-bin Jang, Royal consort (d. 1701)
• November 10 – Albert Borgard, Danish artillery and engineer officer (d. 1751)
• November 19 – Jacques-Louis de Valon, French poet (d. 1719)
• December 2 – John Brereton, 4th Baron Brereton, Irish peer (d. 1718)
• December 12 – Francesco Galli Bibiena, Italian architect/designer (d. 1739)
• December 18 – Matthieu Petit-Didier (d. 1728)
• December 28 – François Catrou, French historian and Jesuit priest (d. 1737)

Deaths

• January 16 – Charles Annibal Fabrot, French lawyer (b. 1580)
• February – Willem Drost, Dutch painter and printmaker (b. 1633)
• February 17 – Abel Servien, French diplomat (b. 1593)
• February 27 – Henry Dunster, first President of Harvard College (b. 1609)
• April 15 – Simon Dach, German poet (b. 1605)
• June 3 – Morgan Llwyd, Welsh Puritan preacher and writer (b. 1619)
• October 8 – Jean de Quen, French Jesuit missionary and historian (b. c. 1603)
• October 10 – Abel Tasman, Dutch explorer (b. 1603)
• October 31 – John Bradshaw, English judge (b. 1602)
• November 10 – Afzal Khan, commander of the Bijapur Adilshahi forces