1650 to 1659

1650

x - Leipzig has a daily newspaper.
x - Rene' Descartes dies.
c - The kingdom of Angola was finally conquered by the Portuguese.
c - Puritans chop down original Glastonbury Thorn on Wearyall Hill, said to have grown from the staff of Joseph of Arimathea, which, legend says, he planted upon his arrival there in 063.

1653

x - Parisians can put their postage-paid letters in mail boxes.
x - || Oliver Cromwell + dissolves parliament and takes the title of "Lord Protector" to rule as a dictator
x - || Acts providing for the transplanting of Catholic Irish to Connacht and Ulster Presbyterians to Munster. Their lands are subsequently taken by Cromwellian soldiers and English settlers.

1654

x - Blaise Pascal and Pierre de Fermat develop the theory of probability.
x - English chemist Robert Boyle helps found the Philosophical College (which later became the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge).

1655

x - Christian Huggens discovered the rings of Saturn.
x - Alexander VII + becomes pope ?+ [u.1667] [re.List of Popes]

1658

x - || Oliver Cromwell + dies.

1659

x - Londoners get the penny post.