1608

Year 1608 was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Friday of the 10-day slower Julian calendar).

Events of 1608

January - June

* January - At Jamestown, Virginia, Christopher Newport returns in a ship with the first supply and about 100 new settlers; he finds only 38 survivors.
* January - Jamestown: Powhatan releases John Smith.
* January 7 - Fire destroys "all the houses in the fort" at Jamestown, Virginia; the fort is repaired in March.
* March 18 - Susenyos is formally crowned Emperor of Ethiopia.
* April 10 - Jamestown: Christopher Newport again sails for England.
* May 14 - The Protestant Union is founded in Auhausen.

July - December

* July 3 - Quebec City is founded by Samuel de Champlain.
* July 30 - At Ticonderoga (now Crown Point, New York), Samuel de Champlain shoots and kills two Iroquois chiefs; this sets the tone for French-Iroquois relations for the next 100 years.
* July - The English ship "Mary and Margaret", captained by Christopher Newport, leaves England bound for Jamestown, Virginia. [ "first Germans at Jamestown 1" (history), Davitt Publications, 2000, webpage: [http://www.germanheritage.com/Publications/Jamestown/first.html GHfirst] .]

* August 24 - The first official English representative to India lands at Surat.
* September 10 - John Smith is elected council president of Jamestown, and begins expanding the fort.
* September 21 - The University of Oviedo, Spain is founded.
* October 1 - At Jamestown, a second supply ship, the "Mary and Margaret", arrives with Christopher Newport, including 70 settlers, bringing the population back up to 120; the passengers include 8 glassmen.
* October 2 - Dutch lens maker Hans Lippershey demonstrates the first telescope in the Dutch parliament.
* December - Jamestown: Christopher Newport returns to England carrying cargo with "tryals of Pitch, Tarre, Glasse, Frankincense, Sope Ashes ..."

Undated

* Swedish troops enter Moscow.
* The first cheques are used in the Netherlands.

* Old Bushmills Distillery is founded in Bushmills, County Antrim, Ireland.
*Uniform Land-Tax Law is imposed in Korea.
* Five Royal Schools in Ulster are given Royal Charter by King James I

Births

* January 28 - Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, Italian physiologist and physicist (d. 1679)
* February 6 - Antonio Vieira, Portuguese writer (d. 1697)
* April 25 - Gaston, Duke of Orléans, third son of King Henry IV of France (d. 1660)
* June - Richard Fanshawe, English diplomat (d. 1666)
* July 13 - Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1657)
* July 14 - George Goring, Lord Goring, English Royalist soldier (d. 1657)
* October 15 - Evangelista Torricelli, Italian physicist and mathematician (d. 1647)
* December 6 - George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle, English soldier (d. 1670)
* December 9 - John Milton, English poet (d. 1674)
*"date unknown"
**Daniello Bartoli, Italian Jesuit priest (d. 1685)
**John Desborough, English soldier and politician (d. 1680)
**Thomas Fuller, English churchman and historian (d. 1661)
**Edward Rainbowe, English clergyman and a preacher (d. 1684)
**Eudoxia Streshneva, Tsarina of Mikhail I of Russia (d. 1645)
**Torii Tadaharu, Japanese nobleman (d. 1651)

: "See also ."

Deaths

* January - Polish Prince Nikita Kosoj Trubetsky
* January 29 - Frederick I, Duke of Württemberg (b. 1557)
* February 13 - Konstanty Wasyl Ostrogski, Lithuanian prince (b. 1526)
* February 13 - Bess of Hardwick, Countess of Shrewsbury (b. 1527)
* February 26 - John Still, English bishop (b. c. 1543)
* March 12 - Koriki Kiyonaga, Japanese warlord (b. 1530)
* April 19 - Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset, English statesman and poet (b. 1536)
* May 14 - Charles III, Duke of Lorraine (b. 1543)
* June 19 - Alberico Gentili, Italian jurist (b. 1551)
* July 18 - Joachim Friedrich, Elector of Brandenburg (b. 1546)
* August 13 - Giambologna, Italian sculptor (b. 1529)
* October 11 - Giovanni Ambrogio Figino, Italian painter (b. c. 1549)
* October 19
**Martin Delrio, Flemish theologian and occultist (b. 1551)
**Geoffrey Fenton, English writer and politician (b. c. 1539)
* December
**John Dee, British mathematician, astronomer, and geographer (b. 1527)
**William Davison, secretary to Queen Elizabeth I of England (b. c. 1541)
*"date unknown"
**George Bannatyne, collector of Scottish poems (b. 1545)
**William Barclay, Scottish jurist (b. 1546)
**Luca Bati, Italian composer (b. 1546)
**Laurence Tomson, English Calvinist theologian (b. 1539)
**Rory O'Donnell, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell (b. 1575)
**Fiodor Trubetsky, Polish prince
**Edmund Whitelocke, English soldier and courtier (b. 1565)

: "See also ."

Notes