1615

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Events

January–March

January 1 – The New Netherland Company is granted a three-year monopoly in North American trade, between the 40th and 45th parallels.
January 30 – Japan's diplomatic mission to Europe, led by Hasekura Tsunenaga, meets with King Philip III of Spain at Madrid and presents an offer of a treaty.
February 2 – Sir Thomas Roe sets out to become the first ambassador from the court of the King of England to the Mughal Emperor Jahangir,<ref name="Cassell's Chronology 243248">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite ODNB </ref> departing from Tilbury Hope on the ship Lyon under the command of captain Christopher Newport. <ref>Thomas Roe, as edited by Sir William Foster, The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to the Court of the Great Mogul, 1615-1619, as Narrated in His Journal and Correspondence (Hakluyt Society, 1899) p. 28 ("All being ready, on February 2, 1615, Roe embarked with fifteen followers in the Lion at Tilbury Hope.")</ref>
February 17 – Japan's envoy to Europe, Hasekura Tsunenaga, receives a Christian baptism by the royal chaplain, Diego de Guzmán, and receives the European name Felipe Francisco Hasekura. <ref>"The Perception of the Japanese in Early Modern Spain: Not Quite 'The Best People Yet Discovered'", by Christina H. Lee, in EHumanista (2008) pp. 358–359 </ref>
March 10 – John Ogilvie, a Jesuit priest, is hanged and drawn at Glasgow Cross in Scotland for refusing to pledge allegiance to King James VI of Scotland; he will be canonised in 1976, becoming the only post-Reformation Scottish saint.

April–June

April 21 – The Wignacourt Aqueduct is inaugurated in Malta.
May 6 – The Peace of Tyrnau is signed between Matthias, Holy Roman Emperor, and Gábor Bethlen.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
June 2 – The first Récollet missionaries arrive at Quebec City, from Rouen, France.
June 3 – The Eastern Army of Tokugawa Ieyasu and the Osaka Army of Toyotomi Hideyori clash during the Battle of Dōmyōji and the Battle of Tennōji.
June 4 – Forces under shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu take Osaka Castle in Japan, beginning a period of peace which lasts nearly 250 years. Bands of Christian samurai support Ieyasu's enemies at the Battle of Osaka.
June 21 – The Peace of Asti is concluded between the Spanish Empire and Savoy.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

July–September

July 7 – In Japan, the Buke shohatto, a 19-section law setting a standard of conduct for individual warlords (daimyo) and their responsibilities to the Tokugawa shogunate, is proclaimed by the shogun Tokugawa Hidetada before the assembled daimyo at Fushimi Castle in Kyoto. <ref>"Buke shohatto", by Kiri Paramore, in Japan at War: An Encyclopedia, ed. by Louis G. Perez (ABC-CLIO, 2013) pp. 40-41</ref>
August 9 – Swedish troops led by King Gustavus Adolphus begin the siege of the Russian city of Pskov, but fail to take the fortress after 12 weeks. The siege ends on October 27.
August 20 – Alvaro III Nimi a Mpanzu becomes the new ruler of the Kingdom of Kongo (located in southwestern Africa in what is now Angola) upon the death of his brother, Bernardo II Nimi a Nkanga.
August 30 – A Spanish treasure fleet of 41 ships is struck in the Gulf of Mexico by a powerful storm that sinks the ship San Miguel
September 12 – The San Leoncio Day hurricane strikes the islands of Puerto Rico and Hispaniola.
September 16 – An estimated 7.5 magnitude earthquake strikes Arica (now part of Chile in the Spanish colonial Viceroyalty of Peru and collapses the city's fort, but causes no deaths.
September 17 – Los Baños, Laguna, is founded by Spanish colonists on Luzon island in the Philippines.
September 20 – Japanese diplomat Hasekura Tsunenaga and his entourage become the first officials from Japan to visit Italy, and are received in Rome by Cardinal Burgecio

October–December

October 5 – The Spánverjavígin, the last massacre to be carried out in Iceland, begins as 14 Basque Whalers from Spain are murdered at Thingeyri while sleeping. Another 18 are killed on October 13, including Captain Martín de Villafranca. The 31 had been survivors of a shipwreck on Iceland in September.
October 27 – In Russia, the siege of Pskov ends with the withdrawal of Swedish Army troops. The siege is the last battle of the Ingrian War.
November 3 – Japanese diplomat Hasekura Tsunenaga and his delegation are received by Pope Paul V in Rome, and present a request for trade between the Roman Catholic Church and the Japanese shogunate<ref> "A Quarter Century of Trans-Pacific Diplomacy: New Spain and Japan, 1592–1617", by W. Michael Mathes, Journal of Asian History (1990) pp. 1–29</ref>
November 7 – The Portuguese freighter Nossa Senhora da Luz, carrying 150 crew and a cargo of Chinese and Burmese goods, sinks in a storm near the Azores.
November 22 – Alexandru Movilă is installed as Prince of Moldavia by Poland as Prince Ștefan IX Tomșa is driven from the throne.
November 24 – King Louis XIII of France marries Princess Ana María Mauricia, the 14-year-old daughter of King Philip III of Spain. The two had been legally united in a marriage by proxy on October 18.
November – The Mughals under Jahangir launch the first offensive against Kajali, a border post of the Ahom kingdom.
December 2 – In the Venetian Republic, Giovanni Bembo is elected chief executive as the new Doge of Venice after the October 31 death of Marcantonio Memmo.
December 6 – In England, John Winthrop, later governor of the future Massachusetts Bay Colony, marries his second wife (of four), Thomasine Clopton, daughter of William Clopton of Castleins, near Groton, Suffolk.
December 18 – Francisco de Borja y Aragón becomes the new Viceroy of Peru, a colony of Spain encompassing all of Spanish language-speaking South America and what are now the nations of Peru, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
December 20 – The Uskok War begins after the ports of the Holy Roman Empire on the Adriatic Sea are blockaded by the Republic of Venice, which has hired English and Dutch mercenaries.

Date unknown

Easter – Persian Safavid hordes, led by Shah Abbas the Great, kill all the monks at the David Gareja monastery complex in Georgia, and set fire to its collection of manuscripts and works of art.
Mary Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury, is released from the Tower of London, in recognition of her role in helping to discover the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury.
The Somers Isles Company is founded to administer Bermuda.
John Browne is created the first King's Gunfounder in England.
Austrian merchants receive economic privileges in the Ottoman Empire.
The Perse School in Cambridge, England, is founded by Dr Stephen Perse.
Wilson's School in Wallington, near London, is founded by Royal Charter.
The Grolsch Brewery is founded in Groenlo, Netherlands.
Konoike Shinroku opens an office in Osaka, and begins shipping tax-rice from western Japan to Osaka.
Johannes Kepler publishes Dissertatio cum Nuncio Sidereo, in response to Galileo's discovery of Jupiter's moons.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Manuel Dias, a Portuguese Jesuit missionary, introduces the telescope for the first time in China, in his book Tian Wen Lüe (Explicatio Sphaerae Coelestis).
The second volume of Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote ("El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha") is published, and is as successful as the first. Don Quixote eventually becomes the only truly famous work its author ever writes.