1610

Some have suggested that 1610 may mark the beginning of the Anthropocene, or the 'Age of Man', marking a fundamental change in the relationship between humans and the Earth system, but earlier starting dates (ca. 1000 C.E.) have received broader consensus, based on high resolution pollution records that show the massive impact of human activity on the atmosphere. January 6 – Nossa Senhora da Graça incident: A Portuguese carrack sinks near Nagasaki, after fighting Japanese samurai for four nights. January 7 – Galileo Galilei first observes the four Galilean moons of Jupiter: Ganymede, Callisto, Europa and Io, but is unable to distinguish the latter two until the following day. February 24 – English courtier Thomas Roe sets out on an expedition to The Guianas and Amazon River. March 13 – Galileo Galilei's treatise on astronomy, Sidereus Nuncius, the first printed scientific record of observations through a telescope, is first published. March 22 (March 12 O.S.) – Mikhail Skopin-Shuisky, nephew of the Tsar Vasili, liberates Moscow from rebels. April 10 – The Treaty of Brussol is signed between Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy, and a representative of King Henry IV of France, at a meeting at Bruzolo near Turin. The agreement for France and Savoy to remove Spanish occupiers from Italy, is never carried out because King Henry is assassinated one month later. April 20 – William Shakespeare's play, The Tragedie of Macbeth, is given its first performance, staged at the Globe Theatre in London. May 13 – A formal coronation is held for Marie de' Medici, wife of King Henry IV, as Queen Consort of France. King Henry is preparing to depart to Germany to participate in the War of the Jülich Succession. May 14 – King Henry IV of France is assassinated in Paris by François Ravaillac, a French Catholic activist who resents the Protestant monarch's decision to launch a war against the Catholic Spanish Netherlands. Ravaillac rushes up to a horse-drawn carriage and stabs King Henry in the chest.