1654

Events

File:Magedurger Halbkugeln Luftpumpe Deutsches Museum.jpg

The original Magdeburg hemispheres and Guericke's vacuum pump in the Deutsches Museum, Munich, Germany

January–March

January 6 – In India, Jaswant Singh of Marwar (in the modern-day state of Rajasthan) is elevated to the title of Maharaja by Emperor Shah Jahan.
January 11 – Arauco War – Battle of Río Bueno in southern Chile: Indigenous Huilliche warriors rout Spanish troops from Fort Nacimiento, who are attempting to cross the Bueno River.
January 26 – Portugal recaptures the South American city of Recife from the Netherlands after a siege of more than two years during the Dutch-Portuguese War, bringing an end to Dutch rule of what is now Brazil. The Dutch West India Company has held the city (which they call Mauritsstad) for more than 23 years.
February 9 – Spanish troops led by Don Gabriel de Rojas y Figueroa succeed in the capture of Fort Rocher, a pirate-controlled base on the Caribbean island of Tortuga.
February 10 – The Battle of Tullich takes place in Aberdeenshire in Scotland during Glencairn's rising, a revolt by Scottish royalists against the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland led by Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell. The battle is indecisive.
March 13 – The Treaty of Pereyaslav is concluded in the city of Pereyaslav during a meeting between the Cossacks of the Zaporozhian Host and Tsar Alexey I of Russia following the end to the Khmelnytsky Uprising in Ukraine, which started in 1648 and has resulted in the massacre of many thousands of Jews.

April–June

April 5 – The Treaty of Westminster, ending the First Anglo-Dutch War, is signed.<ref name="Cassell's Chronology266">Template:Cite book</ref>
April 11 – A commercial treaty between England and Sweden is signed.<ref name="Cassell's Chronology266"/>
April 12 – Oliver Cromwell creates a union between England and Scotland, with Scottish representation in the Parliament of England.<ref name="Cassell's Chronology266"/>
May 5 – Cromwell's Act of Grace, officially the Act of Pardon and Grace to the People of Scotland, is proclaimed at the Mercat Cross in Edinburgh.
May 8 – Otto von Guericke demonstrates the power of atmospheric pressure and the effectiveness of his vacuum pump, using the Magdeburg hemispheres, before Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor, and the Imperial Diet in Regensburg.<ref>Template:Cite EB1911</ref>
June 3 – Louis XIV of France is crowned at Reims.
June 16 (June 6 Old Style) – Charles X Gustav succeeds his cousin Christina on the Swedish throne. After her abdication on the same day, Christina, now the former reigning queen of a Protestant nation, secretly converts to Catholicism.

July–September

July 5 – The Russian Army camps outside Smolensk and the Thirteen Years' War starts between Russia and Poland over Ukraine.<ref>Joseph T. Fuhrmann, Tsar Alexis, His Reign and His Russia (Academic International Press, 1981) p. 61</ref>
July 10
- Peter Vowell and John Gerard are executed in London for plotting to assassinate Oliver Cromwell.
- Don Pantaleon, brother of the Portuguese ambassador to England, is executed after the death of an innocent man following a fracas at the exchange in Exeter.<ref>Carlyle, Thomas (ed.), Oliver Cromwell, Letters and Speeches.</ref>
August 12 – The Battle of Shklow, one of the first clashes of the Russo-Polish War, takes place at the modern-day Belarusan town of Škłoŭ during a total eclipse of the Sun visible over Eastern Europe. The Russian troops retreat.
August 18 – Oliver Cromwell launches the Western Design with the appointment of Admiral William Penn to prepare for a fleet to leave on Christmas Day<ref name=Lay>Paul Lay, Providence Lost: The Rise and Fall of Cromwell's Protectorate (Head of Zeus Press, 2020)</ref> for an English expedition to the Caribbean to counter Spanish commercial interests, effectively beginning the Anglo-Spanish War (which will last until after the English Restoration in 1660).<ref name="CBH1654">Template:Cite book</ref> The fleet leaves Portsmouth in late December.
August 22 – Jewish arrival in New Amsterdam: 23 Sephardic Jews arrive as refugees from Brazil and settle in New Amsterdam, forming the nucleus of what will be the second largest urban Jewish community in history, that of New York City,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and of Congregation Shearith Israel, the first synagogue in North America.
August 25 – Russia routs the Polish Army in the Battle of Shepeleviche.
September 3 – In England, the First Protectorate Parliament assembles.<ref name="Cassell's Chronology266"/>
September 12 – Oliver Cromwell orders the exclusion of 120 members of Parliament who are hostile to him.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
September 23 – Smolensk falls to the Russian Army after almost three months.

October –December

October 12 – The Delft Explosion, in the arsenal, devastates the city in the Netherlands, killing more than 100, among whom is Carel Fabritius (32), the most promising student of Rembrandt.
October 31 – Ferdinand Maria, Elector of Bavaria, is crowned. His absolutist style of leadership becomes a benchmark for the rest of Germany.
November 23 – French mathematician, scientist and religious philosopher Blaise Pascal experiences an intense mystical vision that marks him for life.
December 11 – Sir William Petty wins the contract from the Commonwealth of England to make a survey of Ireland.
December 14 – Jerónimo de Ataíde, Count of Atouguia, becomes Portugal's new Governor-General of Brazil, succeeding João Rodrigues de Vasconcelos e Sousa.
December 25 – An English Navy fleet of 17 warships and 20 transports, carrying 325 cannons, 1,145 seamen, and 1,830 troops, under the command of Admiral William Penn departs from Portsmouth to begin Oliver Cromwell's planned surprise attack on Spain's colonies in the New World.