After a six-month siege, the Dutch capture Colombo from the Portuguese in Sri Lanka

The Dutch in South Africa purchase slaves to do domestic and agricultural work

Parliamentary reprisals against the rebellious Irish result in two thirds of Ireland's land being owned by the English or the Scots

The Dutch expel the Portuguese from the last of their trading posts in Sri Lanka

Louis XIV grants New France the status of a royal province and greatly increases the flow of colonists to north America

The British establish Fort James on an island in the Gambia river

Peter Stuyvesant accepts the reality of the military situation and yields New Amsterdam to the British without a shot being fired

New Amsterdam is renamed New York by the recently established English regime

In the treaty of Breda, England keeps New Amsterdam and New Netherland, and Holland keeps the English-held territory of Surinam

The Jesuits establish a mission at Sault Sainte Marie which becomes the starting point for French exploration south of the Great Lakes

England's East India Company is granted a lease on Bombay by Charles II, who has received it from his Portuguese bride

Robert de La Salle makes his first exploration of the Ohio valley, providing the basis for France's later claim to the area

Samuel Sewall begins a diary of daily life in Boston, Massachusetts, that will span a period of more than fifty years

A sudden uprising by the Wampanoag Indians against the new England settlements begins the conflict known as King Philip's War

Charles II grants William Penn the charter for the region that becomes Pennsylvania, in settlement of a debt to Penn's father

Robert de la Salle travels down the Mississippi to its mouth and claims the entire region for France, naming it Louisiana

William Penn approves the Great Law, allowing complete freedom of religious belief in Pennsylvania

William Penn achieves peace for Pennsylvania by negotiating a treaty with the local Lenape (or Delaware) tribes

Mennonites and other from Germany (later known as the Pennsylvania Dutch) begin to settle in Penn's liberal colony

France by now has six fortified trading settlements around the coast of India, of which Pondicherry is the most important

John Strong, landing on some remote Atlantic islands, names them after Viscount Falkland, treasurer of the British navy

Peter the Great makes an unexpected raid down the river Don and captures Azov from the Crimean Tatars

Fort St William is built by the East India Company in the Ganges delta, and subsequently develops into Calcutta

In the Treaty of Rijswijk, Spain cedes the western half of Hispaniola to France, which names its new colony Saint-Domingue

A fleet from Oman evicts the Portuguese from Mombasa and Zanzibar