Events of 1665

January–June

• January 5 – The Journal des sçavans begins publication in France.

• March 4 – The Second Anglo-Dutch War begins.

• March 6 – The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society begins publication.

• March 16 – Bucharest allows Jews to settle in the city in exchange for an annual tax of 16 guilders.

• April 12 – Margaret Porteous is the first person who was recorded to die of plague in the Great Plague of London. This last outbreak of Bubonic plague in London was possibly introduced by Dutch prisoners of war. Two-thirds of Londoners leave the city, but over 68,000 die.

• June 3 – James Stuart, Duke of York (later to become King James II of England) defeats the Dutch Fleet off the coast of Lowestoft.

• June 12 – England installs a municipal government in New York City (the former Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam).

• June 30 – King Charles II of England issues a second charter for the Province of Carolina, which clarifies and expands the borders of the Lords Proprietors' tracts.

July–December

• July 3 – The first documented case of cyclopia is found in a horse.

• July 7 – King Charles II of England leaves London with his entourage, fleeing the Great Plague. He moves his court to Salisbury, then Exeter.

• September 17 – Charles II of Spain becomes King.

• October 5 – The University of Kiel is founded.

• October 29 – Battle of Mbwila: Portuguese forces defeat and kill King António I of Kongo.

• November 7 – The London Gazette, the oldest surviving journal, is first published.

Undated

• Molière publishes L'Amour médecin.

• John Bunyan publishes The Resurrection'

• The Great fire of Newport, Shropshire England.

• Approximate date of the discovery of the Great Red Spot.

• Ye Bare & Ye Cubbe, the first play in English in the American colonies, is performed in Pungoteague, Virginia.

• Robert Hooke discovers cells in tree bark.

• The English poet John Milton popularizes the Chinese sailing carriage in a famous poem; this peculiar Chinese invention was first written of in the West by Abraham Ortelius in his atlas of 1584.

• The Derby plague of 1665 leaves its mark.

• Colonisation of Réunion begins with the French East India Company sending 20 settlers.

Births

• February 6 – Queen Anne of Great Britain (d. 1714)

• February 12 – Rudolf Jakob Camerarius, German botanist and physician (d. 1721)

• March 4 – Philip Christoph von Königsmarck, Swedish soldier (d. 1694)

• April 19 – Jacques Lelong, French bibliographer (d. 1721)

• April 29 – James Butler, 2nd Duke of Ormonde, Irish statesman and soldier (d. 1745)

• June 4 – Zacharie Robutel de La Noue, Canadian soldier (d. 1733)

• July 2 – Samuel Penhallow, English-born American colonist and historian (d. 1726)

• August 21 – Giacomo F. Maraldi, French-Italian astronomer (d. 1729)

• August 27 – John Hervey, 1st Earl of Bristol, English politician (d. 1751)

• December 25 – Lady Grizel Baillie, Scottish songwriter (d. 1746)

• December 28 – George FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Northumberland, English general (d. 1716)

Deaths

• January 12 – Pierre de Fermat, French mathematician (b. 1601)

• January 31 – Johannes Clauberg, German theologian and philosopher (b. 1622)

• June 13 – Egbert Bartholomeusz Kortenaer, Dutch admiral (b. 1604)

• June 25 – Archduke Sigismund Francis of Austria, regent of Tyrol and Further Austria (b. 1630)

• July 11 – Kenelm Digby, English privateer (b. 1603)

• July 18 – Stefan Czarniecki, Polish general (b. 1599)

• September 12 – Jean Bolland, Flemish Jesuit writer (b. 1596)

• September 17 – King Philip IV of Spain (b. 1605)

• September 25 – Maria Anna of Austria, Electress of Bavaria (b. 1610)

• November 17 – John Earle (bishop), English bishop (b. 1601)

• November 19 – Nicolas Poussin, French painter (b. 1594)

• December 2 – Catherine de Vivonne, marquise de Rambouillet, French socialite (b. 1588)

• December 10 – Tarquinio Merula, Italian composer (b. c. 1594)