Cervantes and Shakespeare died in April 1616 on nearly the same calendar date — but Spain used the Gregorian calendar and England did not, so over a week really separates them.

1605 · 1616 · apart: 11 years

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The event

• Cervantes's Don Quixote1605 · Madrid. The first part of Miguel de Cervantes's novel about the knight of La Mancha appeared in Madrid; the second followed in 1615. A parody of chivalric romances, it is often called the first modern novel.

17th century

More amazing facts

• 1582 · 1918 In autumn 1582 Catholic Europe jumped from 4 to 15 October, while Yermak’s Cossacks were marching on the capital of the Khanate of Sibir.
• 1598 · 1605 While False Dmitry I ruled in Moscow (1605–1606), the first part of Don Quixote came out in Madrid.
• 1600 · 1601 Some scientists think the 1600 eruption of Peru's Huaynaputina caused the cooling behind Russia's Great Famine of 1601–1603, which helped spark the Time of Troubles.
• 1610 In 1610 Galileo discovered Jupiter's moons — while in Moscow the Seven Boyars ruled and a Polish garrison entered the city.
• 1613 · 1627 The last aurochs, the wild ancestor of cattle, died in a Polish forest in 1627 — 14 years after Michael Romanov was elected tsar.
• 1613 · 1618 Five years after the Romanovs came to power (1613), the Thirty Years' War broke out in Europe.

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