In 1610 Galileo discovered Jupiter's moons — while in Moscow the Seven Boyars ruled and a Polish garrison entered the city.
The events
- Galileo's telescopic discoveries1610 · Venice. In The Starry Messenger, Galileo Galilei described mountains on the Moon, countless new stars and four moons of Jupiter seen through his telescope. The observations became powerful evidence for the Copernican system.
- Time of Troubles1598–1613 · Moscow. After the Rurikid dynasty died out, Russia was engulfed by famine, pretenders, civil war and Polish and Swedish intervention. Minin and Pozharsky's militia freed Moscow in 1612, and in 1613 an assembly elected Michael Romanov tsar.
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.
- 1605 · 1616 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.
- 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.