1688 - Definition and Overview

Events

• A high-powered conspiracy of notables, the "Immortal Seven", invite William and Mary to depose James II of England.
• November 5 - Glorious Revolution begins: William of Orange lands at Brixham but James II of England was prevented from meeting him in battle because many of his officers and men were deserting to the other side.
• November - Hearing that William has landed in England, Louis XIV declares war on Holland. Perhaps revealingly, he does not attack Holland but instead strikes at the heart of the Holy Roman Empire with about 100,000 soldiers.
• Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor
• December 11 - After a series of defeats King James II of England flees England for Ireland.
• Austria occupies Belgrade.
• Friedrich I of Prussia becomes Kurfürst (Elector) of Brandenburg.
• Francesco Morosini becomes Doge of Venice.
• James, Callinicus II, and Neophytus IV are Patriarchs of Constantinople.
• Gerasimus I succeeds Parthenius I as Patriarch of Alexandria.
• Jan Stanislaw Zbaski succeeds Mikolaj Stefan Radziejowski as bishop of Warmia.
• Peter Delanoy succeeds Stephanus Van Cortlandt as mayor of New York City.
• Asmus Bremer becomes mayor of Kiel.
• Toleration Act is passed in England.
• Bungay in England is nearly destroyed by fire.
• Neuruppin becomes a Prussian garrison town.
• Etienne Baluze publishes Marca hispanica.
• David Abercromby publishes Ars explorandi medicas facultates plantarum ex solo sapore.
• Antonio Verrio begins work on the Heaven Room at Burghley House.
• William Dampier makes first recorded visit to Christmas Island.
• Janez Vajkard Valvasor becomes a member of the Royal Society.
• The Austrians incite a rebellion against the Ottomans in Bulgaria.

Births

• January 18 - Lionel Cranfield Sackville, 1st Duke of Dorset, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (d. 1765)
• January 29 - Emanuel Swedenborg Swedish scientist, philosopher and theologian.
• February 2 - Queen Ulrike Eleonora of Sweden
• February 4 - Pierre de Marivaux, playwright (d. 1763)
• April 4 - Joseph-Nicolas Delisle, astronomer (died 1768)
• April 15 - Johann Friedrich Fasch, composer (d. 1758)
• May 21 - Alexander Pope, poet (d. 1744)
• June 10 - Prince James Francis Edward Stuart, later claimant to the thrones of Scotland and England, and figurehead for Jacobitism
• August 15 - King Frederick William I of Prussia
• October 22 - Nadir Shah (d. 1747)
• William Burnet, British colonial administrator (d. 1728)
• Charles Rivington, English publisher (d. 1742)

Deaths

• April 29 - Friedrich Wilhelm I of Brandenburg
• June 26 - Ralph Cudworth, English philosopher
• July 21 - James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde, Irish statesman, soldier
• August 25 - Henry Morgan, Welsh privateer and governor of Jamaica.
• August 31 - John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim's Progress
• November 26 - Philippe Quinault, French dramatist
• Narai of Thailand

Publications

• John Locke has the first abstract of his seminal Essay concerning Human Understanding appear in Leclerc's Bibliotheque universelle
• Fourth (and illustrated) edition of John Milton's Paradise Lost
• The Bucharest Bible - Biblia de la Bucureşti, first complete translation of the Bible into Romanian
• Aphra Behn seminal female writer on slavery, Oroonoko The Royal Slave

• First printing of John Bunyans Pilgrim's Progress