1609

January–June

• January - The Basque witch trials begin.
• January 15 - One of the world's first newspapers, Avisa Relation oder Zeitung, begins publication in Wolfenbüttel.
• January 31 - The Bank of Amsterdam is established.
• February 4 - The last day of Keichō 慶長 13.
• March - Hugo Grotius publishes Mare Liberum, his legal text on freedom of the seas, in Leiden.
• April 4
• * King Philip III of Spain signs an edict to expel of all Moriscos from his country.
• * English explorer Henry Hudson, in the service of the Dutch East India Company, sets out from Amsterdam in the Halve Maen.
• April 5 - Invasion of Ryukyu in Japan: Soldiers of the Shimazu clan capture the castle on Ryukyu Island, beginning to make the Ryukyu Kingdom a vassal of Satsuma Han. But Ryukyu was still allowed to keep itself a tribute state of Ming dynasty and Qing dynasty.
• April 9 - Treaty of Antwerp: The Netherlands and Spain agree to the Twelve Years' Truce in the Eighty Years' War, allowing the Dutch East India Company to trade within the Spanish Empire.
• May 20 - London publisher Thomas Thorpe issues Shake-speares Sonnets, with a dedication to "Mr. W.H.", and the poem A Lover's Complaint appended; it is uncertain whether this publication has Shakespeare's authority.
• May 23 - The Second Virginia Charter is officially ratified; it is intended to replace the council with a governor, who has absolute control in the colony.

  July–December

• July - Samuel de Champlain claims the Lake Champlain area of Vermont, for the Kingdom of France.
• July 6 - Bohemia is granted freedom of religion.
• July 10 - The German Catholic League is formed to counteract the Protestant Union.
• July 23 - A hurricane at sea separates the nine London Company's ships en route to relieve the Jamestown settlement; one ship sinks, and the Sea Venture is driven ashore at Bermuda on July 25, thus effectively first settling the colony.
• July 30 - At what is now Crown Point, New York, Samuel de Champlain participates in a battle between the Huron and Iroquois, shooting and killing two Iroquois chiefs; this helps set the tone for French–Iroquois relations for the next 100 years.
• August 25 - Galileo Galilei demonstrates his first telescope to Venetian officials.
• August 28 - Henry Hudson is the first European to see Delaware Bay.
• August - Seven ships arrive at the colony of Jamestown, Virginia, with 200–300 men, women, and children, reporting the Sea Venture wrecked near Bermuda.
• September 2 - Henry Hudson enters New York Bay, aboard the Halve Maen.
• September 10 - Jamestown: Capt. George Percy replaces Captain John Smith as president of the Council, and Smith returns to England.
• September 11 - Valencia expels all the Moriscos.
• September 11-12 - Henry Hudson in the Halve Maen sails into Upper New York Bay, and begins a journey up the Hudson River.
• October 12 - A version of the rhyme Three Blind Mice is published in London. The editor, and possible author of the verse, is the teenage Thomas Ravenscroft.

  Date unknown

• The Dutch East India Company imports tea to Europe.
• The Dutch East India Company establishes a trading post in Hirado, Japan.
• The Scrooby Congregation of Protestant English Separatists moves from Amsterdam to Leiden.
• Warsaw becomes the capital of Poland.
• The municipality of Buenavista in Marinduque, Philippines is founded.
• The Statutes of Iona are passed, marking the end of the bloody feuds between the clans in the Scottish Highlands.
• The Douay–Rheims Bible Old Testament translation from the Vulgate into English vol. 1 is published in Reims.
• English-born Sister Mary Ward founds the Sisters of Loreto at Saint-Omer, at this time in the Spanish Netherlands.
• Johannes Kepler publishes his first two laws of planetary motion in Astronomia nova.
• Cornelis Drebbel invents the thermostat.
• "Egyptians" are expelled from the Kingdom of Scotland.

  Births

January–March

• January 18
• * Ferdinando Hastings, 6th Earl of Huntingdon, English politician
• * Henry Oxenden, English poet
• January 20 - Carlo Ceresa, Italian painter
• January 30 - Václav Eusebius František, Prince of Lobkowicz, Austrian field marshal and prince
• February 10
• * Lancelot Lake, Member of the English Parliament of
• * John Suckling, English poet
• February 14 - Bartram de Fouchier, Dutch painter
• February 18 - Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, English statesman and historian
• February 21 - Raimondo Montecuccoli, Italian general
• March 16
• * Michael Franck, German composer and poet
• * Agostino Mitelli, Italian painter
• March 18 - King Frederick III of Denmark
• March 22 - John II Casimir of Poland
• March 23 - Johann Heinrich Schönfeld, German artist
• March 25 - Paul Fréart de Chantelou, French collector and patron of the arts

  April–June

• April 6 - Walter Aston, 2nd Lord Aston of Forfar, second and eldest surviving son of Walter Aston
• April 15 - Richard Winwood, English politician
• May 6 - Antonie Waterloo, Flemish painter
• May 10 - Mauritia Eleonora of Portugal, Princess of Portugal and through marriage countess of Nassau-Siegen
• June 2 - Zsófia Bosnyák, Hungarian noblewoman
• June 17 - John of Hesse-Braubach, German general
• June 29 - Pierre-Paul Riquet, French engineer and canal builder

  July–September

• July 17 - Wilhelm Gumppenberg, German Jesuit theologian
• July 28 - Judith Leyster, Dutch painter
• July 29 - Maria Gonzaga, Duchess of Montferrat, Italian noble
• August 6 - Richard Bennett, British Colonial Governor of Virginia
• August 21 - Jean Rotrou, French poet and tragedian
• August 25 - Giovanni Battista Salvi da Sassoferrato
• August 30
• * Sir Alexander Carew, 2nd Baronet, English politician
• * Artus Quellinus the Elder, Flemish sculptor
• September 3 - Raymond Breton, French missionary
• September 19 - Thomas Gouge, English minister

  October–December

• October 5 - Paul Fleming, German physician and poet
• October 8 - John Clarke, English physician
• October 9 - Thomas Weston, 4th Earl of Portland, younger son of the Richard Weston
• October 14 - Ernest Günther, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein of its Sonderborg line
• October 16 - Thomas Minors, English politician and merchant
• October 18 - Josias von Rantzau, Marshal of France
• October 19 - Gerrard Winstanley, English Protestant religious reformer
• October 26 - William Sprague, English co-founder of Charlestown, Massachusetts
• October 29 - Wadham Wyndham, English judge
• November 1 - Matthew Hale, Lord Chief Justice of England
• November 23 - Sophia Eleonore of Saxony, German duchess
• November 25 - Henrietta Maria of France, queen of Charles I of England
• November 26 - Henry Dunster, first President of Harvard College
• December 6 - Nicholas Francis, Duke of Lorraine
• December 11 - Alexander Cooper, English Baroque miniature painter
• December 13 - Isbrand van Diemerbroeck, Dutch physician
• December 24 - Philip Warwick, English writer and politician
• December 30 - Anna Maria von Eggenberg, née Brandenburg-Bayreuth, Austrian noble

  Date unknown

• Luc d'Achery, French Benedictine
• Samuel Cooper, English miniature painter
• Alberich Mazak, Austrian composer
• Elizabeth Isham, English diarist
• Hannibal Sehested, Danish statesman
• Thomas Greene, Colonial governor of Maryland

  Probable

Deaths

January–March

• January - Thomas East, English printer
• January 9 - Joannes Bochius, civic officeholder and neo-Latin poet in the city of Antwerp
• January 21 - Joseph Justus Scaliger, French Protestant scholar
• February 17 - Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany
• February 28 - Paul Sartorius, German composer
• March - James Hamilton, 3rd Earl of Arran
• March 9 - William Warner, English poet
• March 17 - Olaus Martini, Swedish Archbishop of Uppsala
• March 22 - Al-Jilani, Persian physician
• March 25
• * Isabelle de Limeuil, French noble
• * John William, Duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg

  April–June

• April 4 - Charles de L'Ecluse, Flemish botanist
• April 6 - Merkelis Giedraitis, Lithuanian bishop
• April 8 - Mark Kerr, 1st Earl of Lothian, Scottish statesman
• April 9 - William Overton, English bishop
• April 11 - John Lumley, 1st Baron Lumley, English Baron
• April 14 - Gasparo da Salò, Italian violin maker
• May 15 - Giovanni Croce, Italian composer
• May 19
• * Jacob Lorhard, German philosopher
• * García Hurtado de Mendoza, 5th Marquis of Cañete
• June 15 - Yamada Arinobu, Japanese nobleman

  July–September

• July 15 - Annibale Carracci, Italian Baroque painter
• July 20 - Federico Zuccari, Italian painter
• August 4 - Cecily Bulstrode, English courtier
• August 7 - Eustache Du Caurroy, French composer
• August 6 - André du Laurens, French physician
• August 28 - Francis Vere, English soldier
• September 2 - Thomas Scrope, 10th Baron Scrope of Bolton, English general
• September 3 - Jean Richardot, Belgian diplomat
• September 17 - Maharal of Prague, Jewish mystic and philosopher
• September 29 - Ebba Lilliehöök, Swedish countess

  October–December

• October 1 - Giammateo Asola, Italian composer
• October 9 - John Leonardi, Italian founder of the Clerks Regular of the Mother of God of Lucca
• October 16 - Dorothea Hedwig of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst
• October 19 - Jacobus Arminius, Dutch Reformed theologian
• November 19 - Miguel de Ayatumo, Filipino Jesuit seminarian
• December - Barnabe Barnes, English poet
• December 4 - Alexander Hume, Scottish poet
• December 16 - Arild Huitfeldt, Danish historian