1684

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1684 (MDCLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday (dominical letter BA) of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Tuesday (dominical letter FE) of the Julian calendar, the 1684th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 684th year of the 2nd millennium, the 84th year of the 17th century, and the 5th year of the 1680s decade. As of the start of 1684, the Gregorian calendar was 10 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1918.

Events

January–June

• January – Edmond Halley, Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke have a conversation in which Hooke later claimed not only to have derived the inverse-square law, but also all the laws of planetary motion.
• January 5 – King Charles II of England gives the title Duke of St Albans to Charles Beauclerk, his illegitimate son by Nell Gwyn.
• January 26 – Marcantonio Giustinian is elected Doge of Venice.
• March – End of the severe frost in Britain, starting the previous December, during which the River Thames was frozen in London, and the sea as far as 2 miles (3.2 km) out from land freezes over. There was great loss of beast and of wildlife, especially birds. Similar reports from across Northern Europe.^[1]
• April 5 - Karl Eusebius, Prince of Liechtenstein dies.

July–December

• July 24 – René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle sails from France, again, with a large expedition designed to establish a French colony on the Gulf of Mexico, at the mouth of the Mississippi River.
• August 15
  • France under Louis XIV makes the Truce of Ratisbon separately with the Holy Roman Empire (Habsburg) and Spain.
  • Louis XIV decrees the foundation of the Maison royale de Saint-Louis, a boarding school for girls at Saint-Cyr, at the urging of Madame de Maintenon.
• October 7 – Japanese Chief Minister Hotta Masatoshi is assassinated, leaving Shogun Tsunayoshi without any adequate advisors, leading him to issue impractical edicts and create hardships for the Japanese people.
• December 10 – Isaac Newton's derivation of Kepler's laws from his theory of gravity, contained in the paper De motu corporum in gyrum, is read to the Royal Society by Edmond Halley.
• December 20 – Miles Holmwood, known as Norway's Undead Soldier was born. Disappeared in 1721 after the victory of the Great Northern War
• December – End of the Tibet–Ladakh–Mughal war of 1679–84.

Date unknown

• Pope Innocent XI forms a Holy League with the Habsburg Empire, Venice and Poland to end the Ottoman Turkish rule in Europe.
• Japanese poet Saikaku composes 23,500 verses in 24 hours at the Sumiyoshi Shrine at Osaka; the scribes cannot keep pace with his dictation and just count the verses.
• Tokyo University, formally registered as a university in 1877, had its predecessor established.
• The British East India Company receives Chinese permission to build a trading station at Canton. Tea sells in Europe for less than a shilling a pound, but the import duty of 5 shillings makes it too expensive for most English people to afford; hence smuggled tea is drunk much more than legally imported tea.
• John Bunyan writes The Pilgrim's Progress, Part 2, in England.
• The Chipperfield's Circus dynasty begins when James Chipperfield introduces performing animals to England at the River Thames frost fairs in London.

Births

• January 1 – Arnold Drakenborch, Dutch classical scholar (d. 1748)
• January 4
  • Henry Coote, 5th Earl of Mountrath, British politician (d. 1720)
  • Henry Grove, English nonconformist minister (d. 1738)
• January 14
  • Johann Matthias Hase, German astronomer, mathematician and cartographer (d. 1742)
  • Jean-Baptiste van Loo, French subject and portrait painter (d. 1745)
• January 18 – Johann David Köhler, German historian (d. 1755)
• January 23 – Christian Rantzau, Danish noble (d. 1771)
• February 16 – Bohuslav Matěj Černohorský, Czech composer (d. 1742)
• February 19 – George Duckett (Calne MP), English politician (d. 1732)
• February 20 – Edward Bayly, Irish politician (d. 1741)
• February 21 – Justus van Effen, Dutch author (d. 1735)
• February 22 – Charles, Count of Armagnac, French noble (d. 1751)
• February 24 – Matthias Braun, Czech sculptor (d. 1738)
• March 2 – Christopher Wandesford, 2nd Viscount Castlecomer, 2nd Viscount Castlecomer and Member of Parliament (d. 1719)
• March 15 – Francesco Durante, Italian composer (d. 1755)
• March 19 – Jean Astruc, French physician and scholar (d. 1766)
• March 21 – Oley Douglas, British Member of Parliament (d. 1719)
• March 22
  • Matthias Bel, Hungarian pastor and polymath (d. 1749)
  • William Pulteney, 1st Earl of Bath (d. 1764)
• March 24 – Samuel von Schmettau, Prussian field marshal (d. 1751)
• March 28 – Tekle Haymanot I (d. 1708)
• March 31 – Francesco Durante, Neapolitan composer (d. 1755)
• April 2 – Henry Somerset, 2nd Duke of Beaufort (d. 1714)
• April 10 – Joseph Paris Duverney, French banker (d. 1770)
• April 15 – Catherine I of Russia (d. 1727)
• April 25 – Marco Benefial, Italian painter (d. 1764)
• May 2 – William Henry, Prince of Nassau-Usingen, Prince of Nassau-Usingen (1702-1718) (d. 1718)
• May 5 – Françoise Charlotte d'Aubigné, French noble (d. 1739)
• May 23 – Hachisuka Muneteru, Japanese daimyo of the Edo period (d. 1743)
• May 24 – Charles Alexander, Duke of Württemberg, governed the Kingdom of Serbia as regent from 1720 to 1733 (d. 1737)
• May 27 – Wilhelm Reinhard von Neipperg, Austrian field marshal (d. 1774)
• May 31
  • Timothy Cutler, American Episcopal clergyman and rector of Yale College (d. 1765)
  • Georg Engelhard Schröder, Swedish artist (d. 1750)
• June 4 – Louis Charles, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Franzhagen, German nobleman (d. 1707)
• June 6 – Nathaniel Lardner, English theologian (d. 1768)
• June 15 – Ernest Leopold, Landgrave of Hesse-Rotenburg, German noble (d. 1749)
• June 22 – Francesco Manfredini, Italian Baroque composer (d. 1762)
• July 3 – Jean-Baptiste Baudry, Canadian gunsmith (d. 1755)
• August 22 – Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria (1684–1696), Austrian archduchess (d. 1696)
• August 24 – Sir Robert Munro, 6th Baronet, British politician (d. 1746)
• August 30 – Marguerite de Launay, baronne de Staal, French author (d. 1750)
• September 1 – Jaime Álvares Pereira de Melo, 3rd Duke of Cadaval (d. 1749)
• September 17
  • Henry Cantrell, Clergy and writer (d. 1773)
  • Elizabeth Hanson (captive of Native Americans), American writer (d. 1737)
• September 18 – Johann Gottfried Walther, German music theorist, organist, and composer (d. 1748)
• September 22 – Charles Louis Auguste Fouquet, duc de Belle-Isle, French general and statesman (d. 1761)
• October 2 – Thomas Seaton, British poet (d. 1741)
• October 8 – Karl Aigen, Austrian painter (d. 1762)
• October 9 – Christopher of Baden-Durlach, German prince (d. 1723)
• October 10 – Jean-Antoine Watteau, French painter (d. 1721)
• October 16 – Peter Walkden, English writer (d. 1769)
• October 26 – Kurt Christoph Graf von Schwerin, Prussian Generalfeldmarschall (d. 1757)
• October 28 – Paul Alphéran de Bussan, French bishop (d. 1757)
• November 1 – Mikhail Mikhailovich Golitsyn (admiral) (d. 1764)
• November 11 – Algernon Seymour, 7th Duke of Somerset (d. 1750)
• November 12 – Edward Vernon, English naval officer (d. 1757)
• November 15 – Paul-Hippolyte de Beauvilliers, duke of Saint-Aignan, French diplomat and soldier (d. 1776)
• November 16 – Allen Bathurst, 1st Earl Bathurst (d. 1775)
• December 3 – Ludvig Holberg, Norwegian historian and writer (d. 1754)
• December 9 – Abraham Vater, German antomist (d. 1751)
• December 14 – Siwart Haverkamp, Dutch classical scholar (d. 1742)
• December 15
  • James Jurin, British mathematician and doctor (d. 1750)
  • August Friedrich Müller, German legal scholar and logician (d. 1761)
• December 16 – Samuel Clark of St Albans, British theologian (d. 1750)
• December 20 – Miles Holmwood, Norwegian soldier (d. unknown)
• December 21 – Ippolito Desideri, Italian tibetologist (d. 1733)
• December 31 – William Grimston, 1st Viscount Grimston, Irish noble (d. 1756)
• date unknown – James Figg, first English bare-knuckle boxing champion (d. 1734)
• date unknown – Celia Grillo Borromeo, Italian scientist and mathematician (d. 1777)

Deaths

• January 13 – Henry Howard, 6th Duke of Norfolk (b. 1628)
• April 1 – Roger Williams, English theologian and colonist (b. 1603)
• April 5 – Lord William Brouncker, English mathematician (b. 1602)
• May 4 – John Nevison, English highwayman (b. 1639)
• May 12 – Edme Mariotte, French physicist and priest (b. c. 1620)
• July 2 – John Rogers, American President of Harvard University (b. 1630)
• July 6 – Peter Gunning, English royalist churchman (b. 1614)
• August 8 – George Booth, 1st Baron Delamer (b. 1622)
• October 1 – Pierre Corneille, French playwright (b. 1606)
• October 11 – James Tuchet, 3rd Earl of Castlehaven (b. 1617)
• October – Dud Dudley, English ironmaster (b. 1600?)
• Alexandra Mavrokordatou, Greek intellectual and salonist (b. 1605)

References