1659 - Definition and Overview

Events

• May 25 - Richard Cromwell resigns as Lord Protector of England following the restoration of the Long Parliament, beginning a second brief period of the republican government called the Commonwealth.
• 24-year war between France and Spain ends with French acquisition of Roussillon and most of Artois under the Treaty of the Pyrenees (November 7).
• The Spanish Infanta Maria Theresa brings cocoa to Paris
• Diego Velazquez's portrait of Infanta Maria Theresa is first exhibited
• Thomas Hobbes publishes De Homine
• Parisian police raid a monastery, sending monks to prison for eating meat and drinking wine during Lent
• Drought in India

Science

• Christiaan Huygens - Systema Saturnium

Births

• July 28- Charles Ancillon, French Huguenot
• Henry Purcell

Deaths

• Abel Tasman, Dutch explorer
• Willem Drost, Baroque painter and printmaker