1697

January 8 – Thomas Aikenhead is hanged outside Edinburgh, becoming the last person in Great Britain to be executed for blasphemy. January 11 – French writer Charles Perrault releases the book Histoires ou contes du temps passé (literally "Tales of Past Times", known in England as "Mother Goose tales") in Paris, a collection of popular fairy tales, including Cinderella, Puss in Boots, Red Riding Hood, The Sleeping Beauty and Bluebeard. February 22 – Gerrit de Heere becomes the new Governor of Dutch Ceylon, succeeding Thomas van Rhee and administering the colony for almost six years until his death. February 26 – Conquistador Martín de Ursúa y Arizmendi and 114 soldiers arrive at Lake Petén Itzá in what is now Guatemala and begin the Spanish conquest of Guatemala with an attack on the capital of the Itza people there before moving northward to the Yucatan peninsula. March 9 – Grand Embassy of Peter the Great: Tsar Peter the Great of Russia sets out to travel in Europe incognito, as Artilleryman Pjotr Mikhailov. March 13 – The Spanish conquest of Petén, and of Yucatán, is completed with the fall of Nojpetén, capital of the Itza Maya Kingdom, the last independent Maya state. March 22 – Charles II of Spain issues a Royal Cedula extending to the indigenous nobles of the Spanish Crown colonies, as well as to their descendants, the preeminence and honors customarily attributed to the Hidalgos of Castile. March 26 – Safavid occupation of Basra: Safavid government troops take control of Basra. April 5 – Charles XII, the Swedish Meteor, becomes king of Sweden at age 14 on the death of his father, Charles XI. April 23 – As Chinese troops from the Manchu Dynasty (ruled by the Kangxi Emperor) complete their conquest of Mongolia, Galdan Boshugtu Khan, ruler of the last part of Mongolia to be conquered, the Dzungar Khanate, poisons himself, ending the resistance to conquest. May 6 – General Bernard Desjean, Baron de Pointis of France carries out an attack and pillaging of the Spanish fort of Cartagena de Indias with 1,200 soldiers and 650 pirate mercenaries and overwhelms the city over the next 18 days.