January 3 – With the end of latest of the Savoyard–Waldensian wars in the Duchy of Savoy between the Savoyard government and Protestant Italians known as the Waldensians, Victor Amadeus III, Duke of Savoy, carries out the release of 3,847 surviving prisoners and their families, who had forcibly been converted to Catholicism, and permits the group to emigrate to Switzerland.
January 8 – Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell, is appointed as the last Lord Deputy of Ireland by the English crown, and begins efforts to include more Roman Catholic Irishmen in the administration. Upon the removal of King James II in England and Scotland, the Earl of Tyrconnell loses his job and is replaced by James, who reigns briefly as King of Ireland until William III establishes his rule over the isle.
January 27 – In one of the most sensational cases in England in the 17th century, midwife Mary Hobry murders her abusive husband, Denis Hobry, after he beats her up for the last time. Mary then dismembers his body and scatters the remains in a dunghill and in several outhouses (or privies) in the area. Despite a defense of justifiable homicide, Mary is convicted of murder and burned at the stake.
February 12 – The Declaration of Indulgence is issued in ScotlandbyKing James VII as one of the first steps in establishing freedom of religion in the British Isles, eliminating enforcement of criminal penalties against persons who failed to conform with Anglicanism. As King James II of England, he issues a similar declaration on April 4.
April 26 – The Spanish city of Guayaquil (now part of Ecuador) is attacked and looted by English and French pirates under the command of George Hout (English) and Pierre Le Picard and Francois Groniet (French). [6] Of more than 260 pirates, 35 are killed and 46 were wounded; 75 defenders of the city died and more than 100 are wounded.
June 14 – In one of the few actions on land in the Anglo-Siamese War, English sailors on the coast of Mergui in Burma (now Myeik, Myanmar) are massacred by Siamese troops.
October 20 – An estimated 8.7 magnitude earthquake strikes 50 kilometres (31 mi) off of the coast of Peru and kills at least 5,000 people, primarily from a tsunami that washes away the city of Pisco and causes severe damage to the Spanish colonial cities of Lima, Callao and Ica. [7]
October 31 – The legend of the Charter Oak begins as a successful attempt to hide the 1662 Royal Charter of the British colony (and now a U.S. state) of Connecticut after Edmund Andros, the Governor of the Dominion of New England, makes a mission of attempting to confiscate the founding documents for the seven colonies that make up the new administrative area. After Governor Andros arrives in Hartford and comes to the tavern of Zachariah Sanford to demand the Connecticut Colony charter, Captain Joseph Wadsworth spirits the parchment away from the and hides the Charter in a hollowed out portion of a white oak tree on Wyllys Hyll until Andros is recalled to London. [8]
December 31 – In response to the revocation of the Edict of Nantesin1685, a group of Huguenots set sail from France, and settle in the recently established Dutch colony at the Cape of Good Hope, where, using their native skills, they establish the first South African vineyards.
^Lieutenant Colonel D. G. Crawford, A Brief History of the Hughli District (Bengal Secretariat Press, 1902) p. 18
^Palmer, Alan; Palmer, Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 196–197. ISBN0-7126-5616-2.
^Barsoum, Ephrem (2009). History of the Syriac Dioceses. Vol. 1. Translated by Matti Moosa. Gorgias Press. p. 1.
^Kiraz, George A. (2011). "Giwargis II, Ignatius". In Sebastian P. Brock; Aaron M. Butts; George A. Kiraz; Lucas Van Rompay (eds.). Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition. Gorgias Press. p. 178. Retrieved September 17, 2020.
^"Intercolonial Friction (1660—1700)", in Wars of the Americas: A Chronology of Armed Conflict in the Western Hemisphere (ABC-CLIO, 2008) p. 308
