1658
Cromwell dies; son Richard resigns and Puritan government collapses.
1660
English Parliament calls for the restoration of the monarchy; invites Charles II to return from France.
1661
Charles II is crowned King of England.
Louis XIV begins personal rule as absolute monarch; starts to build Versailles.
1664
British take New Amsterdam from the Dutch.
English limit “Nonconformity” with reestablished Anglican Church.
Isaac Newton’s experiments with gravity.
1665
Great Plague in London kills 75,000.
1666
Great Fire of London.
Molière’s Misanthrope.
1667
Milton’s Paradise Lost, widely considered the greatest epic poem in English.
1682
Pennsylvania founded by William Penn.
1683
War of European powers against the Turks (to 1699).
Vienna withstands three-month Turkish siege; high point of Turkish advance in Europe.
1684
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s calculus published.
1685
James II succeeds Charles II in England, calls for freedom of conscience (1687).
Protestants fear restoration of Catholicism and demand “Glorious Revolution.”
In France, Edict of Nantes of 1598, granting freedom of worship to Huguenots, is revoked by Louis XIV; thousands of Protestants flee.
1689
Peter the Great becomes Czar of Russia—attempts to westernize nation and build Russia as a military power.
Defeats Charles XII of Sweden at Poltava (1709).
Beginning of the French and Indian Wars (to 1763), campaigns in America linked to a series of wars between France and England for domination of Europe.
1690
William III of England defeats former king James II and Irish rebels at Battle of the Boyne in Ireland
John Locke’s Human Understanding.
Word count 242
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