1678

This article is about the year 1678.

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	16th century – 17th century – 18th century
Decades:	1640s  1650s  1660s  – 1670s –  1680s  1690s  1700s
Years:	1675 1676 1677 – 1678 – 1679 1680 1681

1678 by topic:

Arts and Science

Architecture - Art - Literature - Music - Science

Lists of leaders

Colonial governors - State leaders

Birth and death categories

Births - Deaths

Establishments and disestablishments categories

Establishments - Disestablishments

Works category

Works

1678 in other calendars

Gregorian calendar	1678 MDCLXXVIII
Ab urbe condita	2431
Armenian calendar	1127 ԹՎ ՌՃԻԷ
Assyrian calendar	6428
Bengali calendar	1085
Berber calendar	2628
English Regnal year	29 Cha. 2 – 30 Cha. 2
Buddhist calendar	2222
Burmese calendar	1040
Byzantine calendar	7186–7187
Chinese calendar	丁巳年 (Fire Snake) 4374 or 4314     — to — 戊午年 (Earth Horse) 4375 or 4315
Coptic calendar	1394–1395
Discordian calendar	2844
Ethiopian calendar	1670–1671
Hebrew calendar	5438–5439
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	1734–1735
- Shaka Samvat	1600–1601
- Kali Yuga	4779–4780
Holocene calendar	11678
Igbo calendar	678–679
Iranian calendar	1056–1057
Islamic calendar	1088–1089
Japanese calendar	Enpō 6 (延宝６年)
Julian calendar	Gregorian minus 10 days
Korean calendar	4011
Minguo calendar	234 before ROC 民前234年
Thai solar calendar	2220–2221

1678 (MDCLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (dominical letter B) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Tuesday (dominical letter F) of the Julian calendar, the 1678th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 678th year of the 2nd millennium, the 78th year of the 17th century, and the 9th year of the 1670s decade. Note that the Julian day for 1678 is 10 calendar days difference, which continued to be used from 1582 until the complete conversion of the Gregorian calendar was entirely done in 1929.

Events

January–June

• January 27 – The first fire engine company in what will become the United States goes into service.
• February 18 – The first part of English nonconformist preacher John Bunyan's Christian allegory The Pilgrim's Progress is published in London.
• May 11 – French admiral Jean d'Estrees runs his whole fleet aground in Curaçao.
• June – French buccaneer Michel de Grammont leads 6 pirate ships and 700 men in a daring raid on Spanish-held Venezuela, reaching inland as far as Trujillo, Venezuela.
• June 25 – Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia becomes the first woman to be awarded a university degree, a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Padua.

July–December

• August 10 – The Treaties of Nijmegen end the Franco-Dutch War. The County of Burgundy is ceded to the Kingdom of France.
• September 6 – Titus Oates begins to present allegations of the Popish Plot, a supposed Roman Catholic conspiracy to assassinate king Charles II of England. Oates applies the term Tory to those who disbelieve his allegations.
• October 17 – English magistrate Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey is found murdered in Primrose Hill, London. Titus Oates claims it as a proof of his allegations.
• December 3 – Test Act provides that members of both the House of Lords and House of Commons of England must swear an anti-Catholic oath before taking office.

Date unknown

• Rebellion breaks out in southern China.
• About 1,200 Irish families sail from Barbados to Virginia and the Carolinas.
• In Ireland, the vacant Bishopric of Leighlin is given to the Bishop of Kildare to form the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin.
• The first chrysanthemums are planted in Europe.

Births

Antonio Vivaldi

• March 4 – Antonio Vivaldi, Italian composer (d. 1741)
• March 7 – Filippo Juvara, Italian architect (d. 1736)
• April 14 – Abraham Darby I, one of the fathers of the Industrial Revolution (d. 1717)
• May 16 – Andreas Silbermann, organ builder (d. 1734)
• July 26 – Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1711)
• September 16 – Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, English statesman and philosopher (d. 1751)
• September 29 – Adrien-Maurice, 3rd duc de Noailles, French soldier (d. 1766)
• October 10 – John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll, Scottish soldier (d. 1743)
• November 26 – Jean Jacques d'Ortous de Mairan, French geophysicist (d. 1771)
• December 8 – Horatio Walpole, 1st Baron Walpole of Wolterton, English diplomat (d. 1757)
• December 13 – Yongzheng Emperor of China (d. 1735)
• December 14 – Daniel Neal, English historian (d. 1743)
• December 30 – William Croft, English composer (d. 1727)
• date unknown
  • George Farquhar, Irish dramatist (d. 1707)
  • Joachim Ludwig Schultheiss von Unfriedt, German architect (d. 1753)
  • John Senex, British geographer (d. 1740)

Deaths

• January 23 Sir William Curtius FRS, German magistrate, English baronet; official resident of the English Crown in the Holy Roman Empire, b. (1599).
• January 29 – Jeronimo Lobo, Portuguese Jesuit missionary (b. 1593)
• May 4 or May 14 – Anna Maria van Schurman, Dutch poet and scholar (b. 1607)
• May 18 – Miyamoto Iori, Japanese samurai (b. 1612)
• August 5 – Juan García de Zéspedes, Mexican musician and composer (b. 1619)
• August 16 – Andrew Marvell, English writer (b. 1621)
• August 17 – Guillaume Herincx, Flemish theologian and Bishop of Ypres (b. 1621)
• August 28 – John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton, English soldier (b. 1602)
• September 8 – Pietro della Vecchia, Italian painter (b. 1603)
• October 12 – Edmund Berry Godfrey, English magistrate (b. 1621)
• October 18 – Jacob Jordaens, Flemish painter (b. 1593)
• October 19 – Samuel Dirksz van Hoogstraten, Dutch painter (b. c. 1627)
• November 1 – William Coddington, first Governor of Rhode Island (b. 1601)