1678

• Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi.
• English composer William Croft.
• Swiss mathematician Jakob Hermann.
• French mathematician Pierre Rémond de Montmort.
• Irish playwright George Farquhar.
• German lawyer and poet Barthold Feind.
• Spanish sculptor Cornejo Pedro Duque.
• John Campbell, second duke of Argyll.
• (Approx). English metallurgist and industrialist Abraham Darby.

• French mathematician Claude Hardy.
• Flemish painter Jan Brueghel the Younger.
• Flemish painter Jakob Jordaens.
• English poet Andrew Marvell.
• French mathematician Claude François Milliet Dechales.
• English playwright Thomas Duffett.
• German composer Thomas Strutz.
• Italian painter Sebastiano Mazzoni.
• English composer John Jenkins.
• Dutch painter Pieter Codde.
• Dutch painter Karel Dujardin.
• French engraver Robert Nanteuil.
• Dutch painter Samuel van Hoogstraten.
• Italian composer Giovanni Maria Bononcini.
• Carolina planter and politician, Thomas Eastchurch, governor of Carolina who was deposed by Culpeper's Rebellion the previous year.
• French courtier wit, Jansenist supporter, and salon mistress Madeleine de Souvré, Marquise de Sablé.
• Nur ul Alam, sultana of Aceh. Inayat Zakia succeeds her.

• Coventry begins a yearly re-enactment of Lady Godiva's legendary ride.
• Alexander Exquemelin's history of piracy The Buccaneers of America is published¹.
• John Bunyan publishes the first part of The Pilgrim's Progress.
• Isaac Newton has a severe nervous breakdown.
• Christian Huygens writes his Traité de la lumiere about the wave theory of light, but does not publish it until twelve years later.
• Louis XIV grants Rene Robert Cavalier, sieur de la Salle, permission to explore Western North America. He returns to New France with Louis Hennepin.
• Authorities in Pusan restrict Japanese merchants to a 35-hectare disctrict of the city, Choryang Wei Kwan.
• France signs two treaties in Nijmegen, one with the Netherlands and the other with Spain. Louis XIV annexes the County of Burgundy (Franche Comte) and straightens out the border with the Spanish Netherlands. Before the ink is dry, however, French troops are occupying Ghent and Ypres.
• Titus Oates and Israel Tonge fabricate the Popish Plot, alleging before Parliament that Jesuits are plotting to assasinate King Charles II. In the national panic that ensues, over 80 innocent people are arrested; many are later executed. In addiiton, Parliament passes the Test Act, baning Catholics from public office.
• Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg-Prussia, captures Stettin from Sweden's king Karl XI.
• Martial Law is imposed in Jamaica in an attempt to curtail its House of Assembly, but this triggers a rebellion.
• The armies of Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb conquer Marwar.
• The tomb Aurangzeb builds for his wife, Bibi-ki-Maqbara, is not nearly so grand as the Taj Mahal his father built.
• A crop circle allegedly appears in Scotland.

1677 - 1678 - 1679

How They Were Made - 17th Century

¹Contributions from mauler