1612

This article is about the year 1612. For the Russian film, see 1612 (film).

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	16th century – 17th century – 18th century
Decades:	1580s  1590s  1600s  – 1610s –  1620s  1630s  1640s
Years:	1609 1610 1611 – 1612 – 1613 1614 1615

1612 by topic:

Arts and Science

Architecture - Art - Literature - Music - Science

Lists of leaders

Colonial governors - State leaders

Birth and death categories

Births - Deaths

Establishments and disestablishments categories

Establishments - Disestablishments

Works category

Works

1612 in other calendars

Gregorian calendar	1612 MDCXII
Ab urbe condita	2365
Armenian calendar	1061 ԹՎ ՌԿԱ
Assyrian calendar	6362
Bengali calendar	1019
Berber calendar	2562
English Regnal year	9 Ja. 1 – 10 Ja. 1
Buddhist calendar	2156
Burmese calendar	974
Byzantine calendar	7120–7121
Chinese calendar	辛亥年 (Metal Pig) 4308 or 4248     — to — 壬子年 (Water Rat) 4309 or 4249
Coptic calendar	1328–1329
Discordian calendar	2778
Ethiopian calendar	1604–1605
Hebrew calendar	5372–5373
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	1668–1669
- Shaka Samvat	1534–1535
- Kali Yuga	4713–4714
Holocene calendar	11612
Igbo calendar	612–613
Iranian calendar	990–991
Islamic calendar	1020–1021
Japanese calendar	Keichō 17 (慶長１７年)
Julian calendar	Gregorian minus 10 days
Korean calendar	3945
Minguo calendar	300 before ROC 民前300年
Thai solar calendar	2154–2155

1612 (MDCXII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (dominical letter AG) of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Wednesday (dominical letter ED) of the Julian calendar, the 1612th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 612th year of the 2nd millennium, the 12th year of the 17th century, and the 3rd year of the 1610s decade. Note that the Julian day for 1612 is 10 calendar days difference, which continued to be used from 1582 until the complete conversion of the Gregorian calendar was entirely done in 1929.

Events

January–June

• January 6 – Axel Oxenstierna becomes Lord High Chancellor of Sweden. He persuades the Riksdag of the Estates to grant the Swedish nobility the right and privilege to hold all higher offices of government.
• January 20 – Matthias becomes Holy Roman Emperor upon the death of Rudolf II.
• January 20–November 4 – An uprising in Moscow expels Polish troops.
• March 2 – False Dmitry III is recognised as tsar by the Cossacks.
• April 11 – Edward Wightman, a radical Anabaptist, is the last person to be executed for heresy in England, by burning at the stake in Lichfield.
• May 10 – Shah Jahan marries Mumtaz Mahal.
• May 23–May 25 – A Sicilian–Neapolitan galley fleet defeats the Tunisians at La Goulette.
• June 13 – Matthias, Holy Roman Emperor formally elected.

July–December

• July 22 – Four women and one man are hanged following the Northamptonshire witch trials in Northampton, England.
• August 20 – Ten 'Pendle witches' are hanged having been found guilty of practising witchcraft in Lancashire, England.
• August 26 – A Scottish mercenary force is destroyed in Norway at the Battle of Kringen.
• November 29 – Treaty of Nasuh Pasha: Signed between Ottoman Empire and Safavid Empire
• November 30 – Battle of Swally: Forces of the British East India Company and Portugal engage off the coast of India, resulting in a British victory.
• December 15 – Simon Marius, is first to observe Andromeda Galaxy through a telescope.
• December 28 – Galileo Galilei becomes the first astronomer to observe the planet Neptune when in conjunction with Jupiter, yet he mistakenly catalogues it as a fixed star because of its extremely slow motion along the ecliptic. Neptune is not truly discovered until 1846, about 234 years after Galileo first sights it with his telescope.

Date unknown

• Jamestown: John Rolfe exports first crop of improved tobacco (seeds from Trinidad).
• Nagoya Castle is completed.
• Thomas Shelton's English translation of the first half of Don Quixote is published. It is the first translation of the Spanish novel into any language.

Births

• January 17 – Thomas Fairfax, English Civil War general (d. 1671)
• February 6 – Antoine Arnauld, French theologian (d. 1694)
• February 15 – Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, French colonial missionary and first governor of Montréal (d. 1676)
• February 22 – George Digby, 2nd Earl of Bristol, English statesman (d. 1677)
• February 28 – John Pearson, English theologian (d. 1686)
• March 20 – Anne Bradstreet, née Dudley, English-born American Puritan poet (d. 1672)
• June 23 – André Tacquet, Belgian mathematician (d. 1660)
• June 25 – John Albert Vasa, Polish bishop (d. 1634)
• July 27 – Murad IV, Ottoman Sultan (d. 1640)
• August 17 – Jeremi Wiśniowiecki, Polish nobleman (d. 1651)
• August 28 – Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn, Dutch scholar (died 1653)
• October 25 – James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose, Scottish soldier (d. 1650)
• November 17 – Dorgon, Manchu prince (d. 1650)
• December 4 – Samuel Butler, English satirist (d. 1680)
• December 12 – Nicholas Francis, Duke of Lorraine (d. 1670)

Deaths

• January 20 – Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, Austrian Habsburg ruler (b. 1552)
• February 12 – Christopher Clavius, German mathematician and astronomer (b. 1538)
• April 11 – Emanuel van Meteren, Flemish historian (b. 1535)
• April 11 – Edward Wightman, English Baptist preacher (burned at the stake) (b. 1566)
• May 24 – Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, English statesman and spymaster (b. 1563)
• June 8 – Hans Leo Hassler, German composer (b. 1562)
• July – False Dmitry III, pretender to the Russian throne (secretly executed)
• July 29 – Jacques Bongars, French scholar and diplomat (b. 1554)
• August 4 – Hugh Broughton, English scholar (b. 1549)
• August 12 – Giovanni Gabrieli, Italian composer (b. c. 1554)
• September 9 – Nakagawa Hidenari, Japanese warlord (b. 1570)
• September 12 – Tsar Vasili IV of Russia (b. 1552)
• October 7 – Giovanni Battista Guarini, Italian poet (b. 1538)
• November 6 – Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, heir to the English and Scottish thrones (b. 1594)
• November 12 – John Harington, English courtier, writer and inventor of a flush toilet (b. 1561)