1608

Year 1608 was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Friday of the 10-day slower Julian calendar).

Events of 1608

January
- At Jamestown, Virginia, Christopher Newport returns in a ship with the first supply and about 100 new settlers; he finds only 38 survivors.
- Powhatan releases Captain John Smith of Jamestown.
January 7 - Fire destroys "all the houses in the fort" at Jamestown, Virginia; the fort is repaired in March.
March 18 - Susenyos is formally crowned Emperor of Ethiopia.
April 10 - Jamestown: Christopher Newport again sails for England.
May 14 - The Protestant Union is founded in Auhausen.

July 3 - Quebec City is founded by Samuel de Champlain.
July 30 - At Ticonderoga (now Crown Point, New York), Samuel de Champlain shoots and kills two Iroquois chiefs; this sets the tone for French-Iroquois relations for the next 100 years.
July - The English ship Mary and Margaret, captained by Christopher Newport, leaves England bound for Jamestown, Virginia.[1]

August 24 - The first official English representative to India lands at Surat.
September 10 - John Smith is elected council president of Jamestown, and begins expanding the fort.
September 21 - The University of Oviedo, Spain is founded.
October 1 - At Jamestown, a second supply ship, the Mary and Margaret, arrives with Christopher Newport, including 70 settlers, bringing the population back up to 120; the passengers include 8 glassmen.
October 2 - Dutch lens maker Hans Lippershey demonstrates the first telescope in the Dutch parliament.
December - Jamestown: Christopher Newport returns to England carrying cargo with "tryals of Pitch, Tarre, Glasse, Frankincense, Sope Ashes ..."

1608 in other calendars Gregorian calendar 1608
MDCVIII
Ab urbe condita 2361
Armenian calendar 1057
ԹՎ ՌԾԷ
Bahá'í calendar -236 – -235
Berber calendar 2558
Buddhist calendar 2152
Burmese calendar 970
Byzantine calendar 7116 – 7117
Chinese calendar 丁未年十一月十四日
(4244/4304-11-14)

— to —

戊申年十一月廿五日
(4245/4305-11-25)
Coptic calendar 1324 – 1325
Ethiopian calendar 1600 – 1601
Hebrew calendar 5368 – 5369
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat 1663 – 1664
- Shaka Samvat 1530 – 1531
- Kali Yuga 4709 – 4710
Holocene calendar 11608
Iranian calendar 986 – 987
Islamic calendar 1016 – 1017
Japanese calendar Keichō 13
(慶長13年)
Korean calendar 3941
Thai solar calendar 2151

January 28 - Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, Italian physiologist and physicist (d. 1679)
February 6 - Antonio Vieira, Portuguese writer (d. 1697)
April 25 - Gaston, Duke of Orléans, third son of King Henry IV of France (d. 1660)
June - Richard Fanshawe, English diplomat (d. 1666)
July 13 - Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1657)
July 14 - George Goring, Lord Goring, English Royalist soldier (d. 1657)
October 15 - Evangelista Torricelli, Italian physicist and mathematician (d. 1647)
December 6 - George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle, English soldier (d. 1670)
December 9 - John Milton, English poet (d. 1674)
date unknown
- Daniello Bartoli, Italian Jesuit priest (d. 1685)
- John Desborough, English soldier and politician (d. 1680)
- Thomas Fuller, English churchman and historian (d. 1661)
- Edward Rainbowe, English clergyman and a preacher (d. 1684)
- Eudoxia Streshneva, Tsarina of Mikhail I of Russia (d. 1645)
- Torii Tadaharu, Japanese nobleman (d. 1651)

January 29 - Frederick I, Duke of Württemberg (b. 1557)
February 13
- Konstanty Wasyl Ostrogski, Lithuanian prince (b. 1526)
- Bess of Hardwick, Countess of Shrewsbury (b. 1527)
February 26 - John Still, English bishop (b. c. 1543)
March 12 - Koriki Kiyonaga, Japanese warlord (b. 1530)
April 19 - Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset, English statesman and poet (b. 1536)
May 14 - Charles III, Duke of Lorraine (b. 1543)
June 19 - Alberico Gentili, Italian jurist (b. 1551)
July 18 - Joachim Friedrich, Elector of Brandenburg (b. 1546)
August 1 - Rory O'Donnell, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell (b. 1575)
August 13 - Giambologna, Italian sculptor (b. 1529)
October 11 - Giovanni Ambrogio Figino, Italian painter (b. c. 1549)
October 19
- Martin Delrio, Flemish theologian and occultist (b. 1551)
- Geoffrey Fenton, English writer and politician (b. c. 1539)
December
- John Dee, British mathematician, astronomer, and geographer (b. 1527)
- William Davison, secretary to Queen Elizabeth I of England (b. c. 1541)
date unknown
- George Bannatyne, collector of Scottish poems (b. 1545)
- William Barclay, Scottish jurist (b. 1546)
- Luca Bati, Italian composer (b. 1546)
- Laurence Tomson, English Calvinist theologian (b. 1539)
- Fiodor Trubetsky, Polish prince
- Edmund Whitelocke, English soldier and courtier (b. 1565)

^ "first Germans at Jamestown 1" (history), Davitt Publications, 2000, webpage: GHfirst.