1640

August 28: The Scottish Covenanters defeat the English Army in the Battle of Newburn.

Events

January 6 – The Siege of Salses ends almost six months after it had started on June 9, 1639, with the French defenders surrendering to the Spanish attackers.
January 17 – A naval battle over control of what is now Brazil, between ships of the Dutch Republic and those of the Kingdom of Portugal, ends after five days of fighting with the Dutch driving the Portuguese away from the port of Recife.
February 9 – Ibrahim I (1640–1648) succeeds Murad IV (1623–1640) as Sultan of the Ottoman Empire.
March 8–13 – Siege of Galle: Dutch troops take the strategic fortress at Galle, Sri Lanka from the Portuguese.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

April 13 – The Short Parliament assembles, as King Charles I of England attempts to fund the second of the Bishops' Wars.
May 5 – The Short Parliament is dissolved.
May 11/12 Following the Short Parliament's dissolution, an angry and armed mob attacked Lambeth Palace in the hope of killing the unpopular Archbishop, William Laud.
May 22 – The Catalan Revolt (Guerra dels Segadors) breaks out in Catalonia.
June 7 – Catalan rebels assassinate Dalmau de Queralt, Count of Santa Coloma, beginning the three-day Corpus de Sang riots.
June 13 – The eruption of the Mount Komagatake volcano takes place in Japan. Although the eruption causes few direct injuries, the heavy ashfall poisons local crops and causes the Kan'ei Great Famine that causes more than 50,000 deaths from starvation.

July 9 – John Punch, a servant of Virginia planter Hugh Gwyn, is sentenced to a life of servitude after attempting to escape, making him the "first official slave in the English colonies" <ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
July 15 – The first university of Finland, the Royal Academy of Turku, is inaugurated in Turku.<ref>Simo Tuomola, Simo: Abo – Suomen metropoli: 1600-luku Turussa, p. 46. (in Finnish)</ref><ref>Kuninkaallinen Turun akatemia Template:Webarchive – Arppeanum (in Finnish)</ref>
August 9 – Forty-one Spanish delegates to Japan at Nagasaki are beheaded.
August 20 – Second Bishops' War: A Scottish Covenanter army invades Northumberland in England.<ref name="British Civil War1640">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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August 28 – Second Bishops' War – Battle of Newburn: The Scottish Covenanter army led by Alexander Leslie defeats the English army near Newburn in England.<ref name="British Civil War1640" />
September 7 – Portuguese missionary Sebastien Manrique reaches Dhaka and stays for 27 days, leaving on October 4.<ref>Travels of Fray Sebastien Manrique 1629-1643: A Translation of the Itinerario de Las Missiones Orientales, Volume I: Arakan (Taylor & Francis, 2017)</ref>
September 20 – The Siege of Turin ends in Italy after almost four months with a victory by French and Piedmontese after having started on May 22, and the city is recaptured from Spain.

October 26 – The Treaty of Ripon is signed, restoring peace between the Scottish Covenanters and Charles I of England.<ref name="British Civil War1640" />
November 3 – The English Long Parliament is summoned;<ref name="British Civil War1640" /> it will not be dissolved for 20 years.
December 1
- The end of the Iberian Union of Spain and Portugal begins, as a revolution organized by the nobility and bourgeoisie causes John IV of Portugal to be acclaimed as king, thus ending 60 years of personal union of the crowns of Portugal and Spain, and the rule of the House of Habsburg (also called the Philippine Dynasty). The Spanish Habsburgs do not recognize Portugal's new dynasty, the House of Braganza, until the end of the Portuguese Restoration War in 1668.
- Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg begins to rule.

The first book to be printed in North America (the Bay Psalm Book) is published.
The first known European coffeehouse opens in Venice.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>