Decades: 1580s 1590s 1600s 1610s 1620s - 1630s - 1640s - 1650s 1660s 1670s 1680s
Years: 1634 1635 1636 1637 1638 - 1639 - 1640 1641 1642 1643 1644
Events January 14 - Connecticut's first constitution, the "Fundamental Orders," is adopted. March 13 - Harvard University is named for a clergyman named John Harvard. November 24 - Jeremiah Horrocks observes the transit of Venus. Charles I starts the first of the Bishops Wars against Scotland. The Casiquiare canal, a river forming a natural canal between the Amazon River and Orinoco River basins, is first encountered by Europeans. The Barbados House of Assembly meets for the first time. The first printing press in North America is started in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Russian Cossacks advance over Urals to Pacific, to Okhotsk. Births Yair Bacharach - German rabbi December 22 - Jean Racine Deaths