What Happened in 1640

Major Events

  • Mar 9 Pierre Corneilles play "Horace" premieres in Paris
  • Apr 13 English Short Parliament forms (till May 5)
  • May 3 English Upper house accepts Act of Attainder
  • May 5 English Short Parliament rises
  • May 12 Revolt of Catalonia begins, an uprising against the Spanish King Philip IV in eastern Spain
  • Aug 3 2,000 men VOC-army surrounds the city of Malacca
  • Aug 3 Zorilla's "Bire el Ojo" premieres in Toledo
  • Aug 28 Second Bishop's War: King Charles I's English army loses to a Scottish Covenanter force at the Battle of Newburn
  • Oct 28 English King Charles I signs a peace treaty with the Scottish Covenanters, ending the Second Bishops' War
  • Nov 3 English Long Parliament forms
  • More 1640 Events

Born in 1640

  • Jan 25 William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Devonshire, English polymath & aristocrat, born in Handsworth, England (d. 1707)
  • Mar 18 Philippe de la Hire, French mathematician and astronomer (d. 1719)
  • Apr 1 Georg Mohr, Danish mathematician (d. 1697)
  • Apr 22 Mariana Alcoforado, Portuguese nun, born in Beja, Portugal (d. 1723)
  • May 31 Michał Wiśniowiecki, King of Poland (1669-73), born in Biały Kamień, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (d. 1673)

More People Born in 1640

Who Died in 1640

  • Jan 14 Thomas Coventry, 1st Baron Coventry, English lawyer and judge (b. 1578)
  • Jan 22 Erasmus Quellinus I, Flemish wood carver, dies at about 55
  • Jan 25 Robert Burton, British writer and Anglican clergyman (The Anatomy of Melancholy), dies at 62
  • Feb 4 Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom, Dutch seascape painter, dies (b. 1562)
  • Feb 8 Murad IV, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (1623-40) who conquered Baghdad, dies from cirrhosis in Istanbul at 27

More 1640 Deaths


Famous People in 1640

World Leaders in 1640