1670
Pascal's Pensees Published
Eight years after his death, the fragmentary notes that Blaise Pascal had been assembling for a defense of Christianity were published in Paris. The Pensees, with their famous wager and their anguished meditations on the silent infinity of the cosmos, would become one of the enduring classics of French literature.
Charleston Founded
English colonists from Barbados, sailing under the Carolina charter, landed at a point above a broad harbor on the coast and founded Charles Town, later Charleston. Within a generation it would be the wealthiest mainland city south of Philadelphia, built on rice, indigo, and a tidal slave society that replicated the Barbadian plantation model on the American continent.
Secret Treaty of Dover
Charles II secretly agreed with Louis XIV to support a French war against the Dutch, declare himself Catholic when politically feasible, and accept a French subsidy in return. If the treaty had been revealed, Charles might have lost his throne. It was not revealed, and he kept it for eighteen more years.
Moliere's Bourgeois Gentilhomme
At Chambord, Moliere's company performed a new comedy-ballet before Louis XIV mocking social climbing and fashionable intellectual pretensions. The scene in which Monsieur Jourdain discovers he has been speaking prose all his life without knowing it became the most quoted moment in French theater, and the play remains an enduring satire on the anxieties of the aspiring middle class.
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Frequently asked
What happened in the year 1670?
Saeculum lists 4 curated events from 1670. The most significant is Pascal's Pensees Published: Eight years after his death, the fragmentary notes that Blaise Pascal had been assembling for a defense of Christianity were published in Paris.
What era was 1670 part of?
1670 falls within the Enlightenment (1651-1800). Reason, revolution, and the first global wars.
Which regions saw notable events in 1670?
The curated events from 1670 span Europe and North America.