1602 - Definition and Overview

For the Marvel comic, see 1602 (comic).

Events

• February 14 - William Shakespeare First performance of Twelfth Night on Candlemas
• March 20 - The Dutch East India Company is established as The United East India Company by the Dutch States-General
• May 15 - Bartolomew Gosnold becomes the first European to discover Cape Cod.
• June - James Lancaster's East India Company fleet arrives at Achin (now Aceh), Sumatra to deal with the local ruler. Having defeated Portugal's ally, the ruler is happy to do business, and Lancaster seizes a large Portuguese Galleon and loots it.
• Ben Jonson writes Poetaster
• William Shakespeare writes The Merry Wives of Windsor
• Persia declares war on Ottoman Empire
• Bodleian Library founded
• In Praque, Florian Mathias performs the first successful bowel surgery – removes a dagger from stomach
• Jesuit missionary Jeronimo de Angeluin arrives in Japan
• A private trading company is established in Copenhagen, with the monopoly on the trade with Iceland.

Births

• February 18 - Per Brahe - Swedish soldier and statesman
• April 30 - William Lilly - English astrologer
• October 12 - William Chillingworth - English churchman
• November 20 - Otto von Guericke - inventor of the vacuum pump; and mayor of Magdeburg
• December 7 - Philippe Delano, Pilgrim founder of the American House of Delano (d. 1681)

Deaths

• October 30 - Jean-Jacques Boissard
• December 1 - Kobayakawa Hideaki, Japanese samurai and warlord
• Jean Pithou - French lawyer and author