1612

Year 1612 (MDCXII) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Wednesday of the 10-day slower Julian calendar.

Events

January–June

• January 6 – Axel Oxenstierna becomes Lord High Chancellor of Sweden. He persuades the Riksdag of the Estates to grant the Swedish nobility the right and privilege to hold all higher offices of government.
• January 20 – Matthias becomes Holy Roman Emperor upon the death of Rudolf II.^[1]
• January 20–November 4 – An uprising in Moscow expels Polish troops.
• March 2 – False Dmitry III is recognised as tsar by the Cossacks.
• April 11 – Edward Wightman, a radical Anabaptist, is the last person to be executed for heresy in England, by burning at the stake in Lichfield.^[1]
• May 10 – Shah Jahan marries Mumtaz Mahal.
• May 23–May 25 – A Sicilian–Neapolitan galley fleet defeats the Tunisians at La Goulette.
• June 13 – Matthias, Holy Roman Emperor formally elected.^[1]

July–December

• July 22 – Four women and one man are hanged following the Northamptonshire witch trials in Northampton, England.
• August 20 – Ten 'Pendle witches' are hanged having been found guilty of practising witchcraft in Lancashire, England.
• August 26 – A Scottish mercenary force is destroyed in Norway at the Battle of Kringen.
• November 29 – Treaty of Nasuh Pasha: Signed between Ottoman Empire and Safavid Empire
• November 30 – Battle of Swally: Forces of the British East India Company and Portugal engage off the coast of India, resulting in a British victory.
• December 15 – Simon Marius, is first to observe Andromeda Galaxy through a telescope.
• December 28 – Galileo Galilei becomes the first astronomer to observe the planet Neptune when in conjunction with Jupiter, yet he mistakenly catalogues it as a fixed star because of its extremely slow motion along the ecliptic. Neptune is not truly discovered until 1846, about 234 years after Galileo first sights it with his telescope.

Date unknown

• Jamestown: John Rolfe exports first crop of improved tobacco (seeds from Trinidad).
• Nagoya Castle is completed.
• Thomas Shelton's English translation of the first half of Don Quixote is published. It is the first translation of the Spanish novel into any language.

Births

• January 17 – Thomas Fairfax, English Civil War general (d. 1671)
• February 6 – Antoine Arnauld, French theologian (d. 1694)
• February 15 – Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, French colonial missionary and first governor of Montréal (d. 1676)
• 1677)
• February 28 – John Pearson, English theologian (d. 1686)
• March 20 – Anne Bradstreet, née Dudley, English-born American Puritan poet (d. 1672)
• June 23 – André Tacquet, Belgian mathematician (d. 1660)
• June 25 – John Albert Vasa, Polish bishop (d. 1634)
• July 27 – Murad IV, Ottoman Sultan (d. 1640)
• August 17 – Jeremi Wiśniowiecki, Polish nobleman (d. 1651)
• August 28 – Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn, Dutch scholar (died 1653)
• October 25 – James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose, Scottish soldier (d. 1650)
• 1650)
• December 4 – Samuel Butler, English satirist (d. 1680)
• December 12 – Nicholas Francis, Duke of Lorraine (d. 1670)

Deaths

• January 20 – Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1552)
• February 12 – Christopher Clavius, German mathematician and astronomer (b. 1538)
• April 11 – Emanuel van Meteren, Flemish historian (b. 1535)
• April 11 – Edward Wightman, English Baptist preacher (burned at the stake) (b. 1566)
• May 24 – Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, English statesman and spymaster (b. 1563)
• June 8 – Hans Leo Hassler, German composer (b. 1562)
• July 29 – Jacques Bongars, French scholar and diplomat (b. 1554)
• August 4 – Hugh Broughton, English scholar (b. 1549)
• August 12 – Giovanni Gabrieli, Italian composer (b. c. 1554)
• September 9 – Nakagawa Hidenari, Japanese warlord (b. 1570)
• September 12 – Tsar Vasili IV of Russia (b. 1552)
• October 7 – Giovanni Battista Guarini, Italian poet (b. 1538)
• November 6 – Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales (b. 1594)
• November 12 – John Harington, English writer (b. 1561)
• date unknown
  • False Dmitry III

References