1608

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File:Adventures of Captain John Smith in Virginia 1624.jpg

January 11: Jamestown's John Smith released from imprisonment by Chief Powhatan

File:Samuel-de-champlain-s.jpg

July 3: Samuel de Champlain founds Quebec City.

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Events

January–March

January 2 – The first of the Jamestown supply missions returns to the Colony of Virginia with Christopher Newport commanding the John and Francis and the Phoenix bringing about 100 new settlers to supplement the 38 survivors he finds at Jamestown.
January 7 – At Jamestown, Virginia, fire destroys "all the houses in the fort"; the fort is repaired in March.
January 11 – John Smith is released by Powhatan after 15 days of captivity, and arrives back at Jamestown the next day. <ref>Alexander Brown, The First Republic in America: An Account of the Origin of this Nation, Written from the Records Then (1624) Concealed by the Council, Rather Than from the Histories Then Licensed by the Crown (Houghton, 1898) p.55</ref> Upon his return, instead of being welcomed, he is charged with negligence for the deaths of the two men with him at the time of his capture, Jehu Robinson and Thomas Emery, but later exonerated.
January 17 – Emperor Susenyos I of Ethiopia defeats an Oromo army at Ebenat; 12,000 Oromo are reportedly killed at a cost of 400 Amhara.
January 23 – Treaty of The Hague, a defensive alliance between France and the United Provinces of the Netherlands, is signed.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
February 6 – Gabriel Báthory makes an agreement with Hungarian mercenary soldiers, the Hajduk, in order to overthrow the government of Transylvania.
February 7 – A peace conference opens at the Binnenhof at The Hague, in the Netherlands, to end a war between the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Netherlands (now Belgium).
February 14 – The brutal winter of 1607-1608 in England ends after 10 weeks of sub-freezing temperatures.
February 18 – Don Julius Caesar d'Austria, the illegitimate son of Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, brutally murders his girlfriend, Markéta Pichlerová, then dismembers her body. Emperor Rudolf imprisons Julius for the rest of his life. <ref>"Don Julius D'Austria and His Fate", Český Krumlov website</ref>
February 26 – After being held captive in Morocco for more than 13 years, popular professor Malian Ahmad Baba is able to return to Timbuktu on 10 Dhu 'l-Qa'da 1016 A.H.
March 5 – Sigismund Rákóczi, Prince of Transylvania, abdicates in favor of Gabriel Báthory in order to avoid a civil war.
March 16 – Gwanghaegun becomes the new King of Korea upon the death of his father, King Seonjo, who had reigned for more than 40 years.
March 18 – Susenyos is formally crowned Emperor of Ethiopia, at the ancient city of Axum.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

April–June

April 10 – Jamestown supply missions: Christopher Newport again sails for England, carrying Powhatan's tribesman Namontack for a visit to London.
April 19 – The Burning of Derry launches O'Doherty's Rebellion in the Kingdom of Ireland.
April 20 – Old Bushmills Distillery is first licensed to distil whiskey at Bushmills, County Antrim, Ireland by King James I.
May 8 – A newly nationalized silver mine in Scotland at Hilderston, West Lothian is re-opened by Bevis Bulmer.<ref>Samuel Lythe, The Economy of Scotland in Its European Setting, 1550-1625 (Edinburgh, 1960), pp. 55-6.</ref>
May 14 – The Protestant Union is founded in Auhausen.
June 15 – During a voyage in the Arctic Ocean, explorer Henry Hudson and the crew of the Hopewell sight what they claim to be a mermaid, swimming in the seas near Norway. <ref>Francis L. Hawks, The Adventures of Henry Hudson (D. Appleton & Company, 1842) p.37</ref>
June 26 – Matthias I, already King of Bohemia becomes the King of Hungary and the King of Croatia upon the abdication of both jobs by his older brother, Rudolf II, who continues as Holy Roman Emperor.

July–September

July 3 – The settlement of Quebec City is founded by Samuel de Champlain.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
August 24 – The first official English representative to India, Captain William Hawkins, lands at Surat.
September 10 – John Smith is elected council president of Jamestown, and begins expanding the fort.
September 21 – The University of Oviedo in Spain is founded.
September 23 – The siege of the Troitsky monastery by the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth begins in Russia north of Moscow, but fails after 16 months.

October–December

October 1 – The second of the Jamestown supply missions, which set out in July from England, arrives at Jamestown, Virginia, with Christopher Newport commanding the Mary and Margaret carrying 70 settlers, bringing the population back up to 120; the passengers include two women and some skilled artisans, mostly from continental Europe, to develop industries.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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October 2 – Dutch lens maker Hans Lippershey demonstrates the first telescope in the Dutch Parliament.
November 19 – In Budapest, the coronation ceremonies take place for Matthias to be crowned as King Mátyás II of Hungary.
November 20 – Sir Thomas Gates, Governor of the London Company's colony at Jamestown, Virginia, is ordered by the Board of Directors to forcibly convert the native Indians in the area to Christianity as Anglicans.
November 30 – At the colony of Portuguese Macau, a port on the Chinese mainland leased from the Chinese Empire, a group of 100 Japanese samurai, wielding katana and muskets engage in a fight with musket-armed Portuguese soldiers commanded by Governor André Pessoa. <ref>C. R. Boxer, Fidalgos in the Far East, 1550–1770 (Martinus Nijhoff, 1948) p. 53</ref> Around 50 Japanese are killed and the others are imprisoned until they sign an affidavit blaming themselves for the incident. Tokugawa Ieyasu, the principal shogun of Japan, subsequently ends the "red seal ships" program of authorizing Japanese nationals to visit Macau. The incident eventually leads to much larger naval battle in 1610, the Nossa Senhora da Graça incident.
December 13 – At the Morača monastery in Kolašin, in what is now the nation of Montenegro, Patriarch Jovan Kantul assembles the rebel leaders of Montenegro and Herzegovina. The group agrees with a representative of the Duchy of Savoy to deliver Duke Charles Emmanuel a monarchy within the Balkans, in return for special privileges to the Serbian Orthodox Church.
December 20 – Karl of the House of Liechtenstein founds the Principality of Liechtenstein within the Holy Roman Empire, an independent nation that will continue more than 400 years later between Austria and Switzerland.
December – Jamestown supply missions: Christopher Newport returns to England from Jamestown carrying cargo with "tryals of Pitch, Tarre, Glasse, Frankincense, Sope Ashes ..."

Date unknown

Spring – The Scrooby Congregation of Protestant English Separatists successfully flees to the Dutch Republic from the Humber, origin of the Pilgrim Fathers who in 1620 move on to North America.
The first cheques are used in the Dutch Republic.
The Uniform Land-Tax Law is imposed in Korea.
Five royal schools in Ulster are given a Royal Charter by King James I.