1661  White Virginians who wanted to keep their servants legalized the enslavement of African immigrants

1660-1669  English soldiers seize the town of New Amsterdam from the Dutch settlers and rename it New York after the king's brother, the Duke of York.

1663  Mar 24, Charles II of England awarded lands known as Carolina in North America to eight members of the nobility who assisted in his restoration.

1663  Jul 8, King Charles II of England granted a charter to Rhode Island guaranteeing freedom of worship..

1663  Jul 27, British Parliament passed a second Navigation Act, requiring all goods bound for the colonies be sent in British ships from British ports.

1663   Reverend John Eliot (1604-1690) published the first Bible in North America in the Algonquian language. An English missionary in Massachusetts called the "Apostle to the Indians,"

1664  Mar 12, New Jersey became a British colony as King Charles II granted land in the New World to his brother James, the Duke of York.

1664  Sep 5, After days of negotiation, the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam surrendered to the British, who would rename it New York

1664-1667 The Second Anglo-Dutch War

1665  At least 68,000 Londoners died of the plague in this year.

1666  Sep 2, A fire demolished about four-fifths of London over 4 days, destroying over 13,000 houses. The fire started at the house of King Charles II's baker, Thomas Farrinor, after he forgot to extinguish his oven. The devastation helps to contain the plague.

1667  Jun 18, The Dutch fleet sailed up the Thames and threatened London

1660-1669  Physiological discoveries escalate, and English chemist Robert Hooke demonstrates that respiration depends on blood alteration; the first blood transfusion is attempted in France when blood from a lamb is delivered to a boy.

1667  Jun 21, The Peace of Breda ended the Second Anglo-Dutch War (1664-67) and saw the Dutch cede New Amsterdam [on Manhattan Island] to the English in exchange for the nutmeg island of Run.

1667  Aug 20, John Milton published "Paradise Lost," an epic poem about the fall of Adam and Eve.

1667  Connecticut adopted America's first divorce law.

1670  May 2, The Hudson Bay Co. was chartered by England's King Charles II.

1670  May 26, A treaty was signed in secret in Dover, England, between Charles II and Louis XIV ending hostilities between them.

1671  Rice arrived in South Carolina from Madagascar but nobody knew how to husk it for food.

1671  In Germany Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz devised a mechanical calculator to add, subtract, multiply and divide

1672  Apr 29, King Louis XIV of France invaded the Netherlands.

1672  The Royal African Co. was granted a charter to expand the slave trade and its stockholders included philosopher John Locke. The operation supplied English sugar colonies with 3,000 slaves annually.

1675  Jun 24, King Philip's War began when Indians--retaliating for the execution of three of their people who had been charged with murder by the English--massacred colonists at Swansee, Plymouth colony

1675  Dec 19. Wakefield, Rhode Island, USA, The Great Swamp Memorial marks the site where 4,000 Indians died in defense of a secret fort

1676  Apr 18, Sudbury, Massachusetts was attacked by Indians.

1676  May 10, Bacon's Rebellion began. It pitted frontiersmen against the government. Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia involved an attack on a local Indian community and the sacking of the colonial capital in Jamestown. It is described by Catherine McNicol Stock in her 1997 book "Rural Radicals; Righteous Rage in the American Grain."

1676  Aug 28, Indian chief King Philip, also known as Metacom, was killed by English soldiers, ending the war between Indians and colonists.

1677  May 29, King Charles II and 12 Virginia Indian chiefs signed a treaty that established a 3-mile non-encroachment zone around Indian land. The Mattaponi Indians in 1997 invoked this treaty to protect against encroachment

1678  May 31, Tax protester Lady Godiva rode naked through Coventry.

1679  Jul 10, The British crown claimed New Hampshire as a royal colony.

1680  Aug 21, Pueblo Indians took possession of Santa Fe, N.M., after driving out the Spanish. They destroyed almost all of the Spanish churches in Taos and Santa Fe.

1680  John Locke completed two works requested by the Earl of Shaftsbury. "The First Treatise on Civil Government" was written to counter Robert Filmer's old book "Patriarcha." "The Second Treatise on Civil Government" was a more general approach. It concerns the interconnection of three great ideas: property, government, and revolution. Government comes into existence, said Locke, because of property. If there is no property, then government is not needed to protect it. For Locke the question revolved around whether property
was legitimate.

1680  Maryland colonists ran out of supplies and survived starvation by eating oysters.

1681  Mar 4, England's King Charles II granted a charter to William Penn for an area of land that later became Pennsylvania. Penn laid out the city of Philadelphia as a gridiron about 2 miles long, east to west, and a mile wide.

1681  May 17, Louis XIV sent an expedition to aid James II in Ireland. As a result, England declared war on France

1682  Apr 9, The French explorer Rene Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, reached the Mississippi River. La Salle returned to France after having discovered the mouth of the Mississippi River. La Salle claimed lower Mississippi River and all lands that touched it for France.

1682  Jun 10, The first tornado of record in colonial America hit New Haven, Conn

1685  Jul 6, James II defeated James, the Duke of Monmouth, at the Battle of Sedgemoor, the last major battle to be fought on English soil.

1685  Oct 18, Edict of Nantes was lifted by Louis XIV. The edict, signed at Nantes, France, by King Henry IV in 1598, gave the Huguenots religious liberty, civil rights and security. By revoking the Edict of Nantes, Louis XIV abrogated their religious liberties. He declared France entirely Catholic again.

1685  In Canada there was a shortage of currency and playing cards were assigned monetary values for use as money

1685  Charles II of England died and was succeeded by his brother, James II, a Roman Catholic

1686  Two Mohican Indians signed a mortgage for their land in Schaghticoke, New York, with simple markings. It was notarized by Robert Livingston, whose family became one of the greatest agricultural landlords and int'l. merchants in the colony of New York

1688  Feb 18, Quakers in Germantown, Pa. adopted the fist formal antislavery resolution in America. At a Mennonite meeting in Germantown, Pennsylvania, a memorandum was penned stating a profound opposition to Negro slavery

1688  Nov 26, Louis XIV declared war on the Netherlands

1688-1689 James II was replaced by the Dutch King William. This process was masterminded by the group of seven, which included the Earl of Devonshire, who was then promoted to Duke in reward. William of Orange was a good Dutch Protestant and Mary was his queen. From this point on the king was but a figurehead and Parliament ruled England

1689  Feb 13, British Parliament adopted the Bill of Rights

1689  Apr 19, Residents of Boston ousted their governor, Edmond Andros

1689  May 24, English Parliament passed the Act of Toleration, protecting Protestants. Roman Catholics were specifically excluded from exemption.

1689  Jul 27, Government forces defeated the Scottish Jacobites at the Battle of Killiecrankie

1689  Aug 1, James II's 15-week siege of Londonderry, Ireland, ended in failure. The Catholic Army of King James II besieged Londonderry where 13 Protestant apprentices stood in defense. The Protestants were victorious and the event led to the annual Apprentice Boy's March.

1689-1697 The Abnaki War [Abenaki] of in North America is better known as King William's War. It was the first of the intercolonial wars between France and England in North America, pitting the English and their Iroquois allies against the French and their Abnaki allies. The Abnakis were a powerful Algonquian tribe from Maine. King William"s War was a component of the European War of the League of Augsburg and was based in part on the growing rivalry between France and England over the control of North America

1690  Feb 3, The first paper money in America was issued by the colony of Massachusetts. The currency was used to pay soldiers fighting a war against Quebec

1690  May 11, In the first major engagement of King William's War, British troops from Massachusetts seized Port Royal in Acadia (Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) from the French, their objective was to take Quebec

1690  May 20, England passed the Act of Grace, forgiving followers of James II

1690  Jul 12, Protestants were victorious over Irish Catholics in the Battle of the Boyne. The English King William III of Orange was victorious over his father-in-law, the Catholic King James II. Protestants took over the Irish Parliament. This marked the beginning of the annual Drumcree parade, held by the Loyal Orange Lodge on the first Sunday of July.

1691  Jul 12, William III defeated the allied Irish and French armies at the Battle of Aughrim, Ireland

1690-1699  Feuding erupts in the Scottish Highlands as clans fight over the MacDonald clan's allegiance to King William III of England. Legendary leader Rob Roy becomes chief of the MacGregor clan after Gregar MacGregor dies

1691  Oct 17, Maine and Plymouth were incorporated in Massachusetts

1692  Salem, Mass. Twenty people died in the witch trials

1694  Oct 23, American colonial forces led by Sir William Phips, failed in their attempt to seize Quebec

1694  Dec 28, George I of England got divorced

1690-1699  The pirate stronghold in Port Royal, Jamaica, is devastated when an earthquake dumps much of the city into the sea

1697  Sep 30, Under the Treaty of Ryswick, France recognized William III as King of England. The signees included France, England, Spain and Holland.

1698  Jan 1, The Abenaki  [Abnaki] Indians and the Massachusetts colonists signed a treaty ending the conflict in New England

1699  The British established a rule over the colonies that all wool trade must be with England, and violations were punishable by stiff fines