1639
Events January 14 - Connecticut's first constitution, the "Fundamental Orders," is adopted. March 13 - Harvard University is named for a clergyman named John Harvard. November 24 - Jeremiah Horrocks observes the transit of Venus. Charles I starts the first of the Bishops Wars against Scotland. The Casiquiare canal, a river forming a natural canal between the Amazon River and Orinoco River basins, is first encountered by Europeans. The Barbados House of Assembly meets for the first time. The first printing press in North America is started in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Russian Cossacks advance over Urals to Pacific, to Okhotsk. Montreal first settled
Births June 21 - Increase Mather, New England Puritan minister (d. 1723) December 22 - Jean Racine, French dramatist Yair Bacharach - German rabbi
DeathsAugust 20 - Martin Opitz von Boberfeld, German poet (b. 1597)
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