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Year '1612' ('MDCXII') was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Wednesday of the 10-day slower Julian calendar).

Contents

Events of 1612

January - June

July - December

Undated

Births

Deaths

Events of 1612

January - June

★ January 20 - November 4 - Popular uprising in Moscow expels Polish troops.

★ March 2 - False Dmitry III is recognised as tsar by the Cossacks.

★ May 10 - Shah Jahan marries Mumtaz Mahal.

★ May 23/25 - Sicilian-Neapolitan galley fleet defeats Tunisians at La Goulette.

July - December

★ November 30 - Battle of Swally: Forces of the British East India Company and Portugal engage off the coast of India, which the British win.

★ December 28 - Galileo Galilei becomes the first astronomer to observe the planet Neptune when it was in conjunction with Jupiter, yet he mistakenly catalogued it as a fixed star because of its extremely slow motion along the ecliptic. Neptune was not truly discovered until 1846, about 234 years after Galileo first sighted it with his telescope.

Undated

★ Jamestown: John Rolfe exports first crop of improved tobacco (seeds from Trinidad).

★ The Pendle witch trials are held in Pendle, Lancashire.

★ Axel Oxenstierna becomes Lord High Chancellor of Sweden.

★ 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 (died 1671)

★ February 6 - Antoine Arnauld, French theologian (died 1694)

★ February 15 - Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve, French colonial missionary and first governor of Montréal (died 1676)

★ February 22 - George Digby, 2nd Earl of Bristol, English statesman (died 1677)

★ February 28 - John Pearson, English theologian (died 1686)

★ June 16 - Murad IV, Ottoman Sultan (died 1640)

★ June 23 - André Tacquet, Belgian mathematician (died 1660)

★ June 25 - John Albert Vasa, Polish bishop (died 1634)

★ August 28 - Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn, Dutch scholar (died 1653)

★ November 17 - Dorgon, Manchu prince (died 1650)

★ December 4 - Samuel Butler, English satirist (died 1680)

★ December 12 - Nicholas II, Duke of Lorraine (died 1670)

★ ''date unknown'' - James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose, Scottish soldier (died 1650)
: ''See also .''

Deaths

★ January 20 - Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor (born 1552)

★ February 12 - Christopher Clavius, German mathematician and astronomer (born 1538)

★ April 11 - Emanuel van Meteren, Flemish historian (born 1535)

★ April 11 - Edward Wightman, English Baptist preacher (burned at the stake) (born 1566)

★ May 24 - Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, English statesman and spymaster (born 1563)

★ June 8 - Hans Leo Hassler, German composer (born 1562)

★ July 29 - Jacques Bongars, French scholar and diplomat (born 1554)

★ August 4 - Hugh Broughton, English scholar (born 1549)

★ August 12 - Giovanni Gabrieli, Italian composer (born c. 1554)

★ September 9 - Nakagawa Hidenari, Japanese warlord (born 1570)

★ September 12 - Tsar Vasili IV of Russia (born 1552)

★ October 7 - Giovanni Battista Guarini, Italian poet (born 1538)

★ November 6 - Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales (born 1594)

★ November 12 - John Harington, English writer (born 1561)
: ''See also .''