Year 1666 (MDCLXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the 10-day slower Julian calendar).

Events of 1666

January–June

• January 17 – Chair of St. Peter set above the Altar at Cathedra Petri, Vatican City.

• June 11–June 14 – Second Anglo-Dutch War – Four Days Battle: The Dutch fleet defeats England.

July–December

• The city of Piteå in Sweden is completely burned by a large fire

• July 25 – Second Anglo-Dutch War: English fleet defeats the Dutch under Michiel de Ruyter at St. James's Day Battle.

• August 5 – St. James's Day Battle: An English fleet defeats the Dutch under Michiel de Ruyter.

• August 9 – Rear Admiral Robert Holmes leads a raid on the Dutch island of Terschelling, destroying 150 merchant ships in the Vlie estuary, and pillaging the town of West-Terschelling, an act later referred to as Holmes's Bonfire.

• September 2 – Great Fire of London: A large fire breaks out in London in the house of Charles II's baker on Pudding Lane near London Bridge. The fire burns for 3 days, destroying 10,000 buildings including St. Paul's Cathedral, but only 16 people are known to have died. People claim that it is the Devil's deed, for 1666 contains 666.

• [September 6] – Cestui que Vie Act 1666 passed in Parliament

• September 5 – The Great Fire of London ends.

• September 16 – Apostasy of Sabbatai Zevi

• December 22 – The Académie des sciences (French Academy of Sciences) is founded by Louis XIV.

Undated

• Expulsion of the Portuguese from the Bengal port city of Chittagong by Mughal forces of Emperor Aurangzeb under General Bujurg Umed Khan and renaming the city as Islamabad.

• Sir Isaac Newton uses a prism to split sunlight into its component colors, which helps us understand the nature of light more comprehensively (see optical spectrum).

• Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer paints The Art of Painting, his largest and most complex work.

• Lund University is founded in Lund, Sweden.

• Moulay al-Rashid conquers Fes, marking the beginning of Morocco's still-reigning Alaouite Dynasty.

• Jean Talon completes a census of New France, the first census in North America.

• The Russian Orthodox Church holds a sobor (church council) which deposes Patriarch Nikon, but accepts his liturgical reforms. Dissenters from his reforms, known as Old Believers, continue to this day.

• The year is also known for having all the Roman numerals, used only once, in order from biggest to smallest value (MDCLXVI = 1666).

Births

• February 9 – George Hamilton, 1st Earl of Orkney, British soldier (d. 1737)

• March 15 – George Bähr, German architect (d. 1738)

• May 14 – Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia (d. 1732)

• July 10 – John Ernest Grabe, German-born Anglican theologian (d. 1711)

• August 13 – William Wotton, English scholar (d. 1727)

• September 6 – Tsar Ivan V of Russia (d. 1696)

• December 26 – Guru Gobind Singh, Punjabi scholar, theologian, social reformist, poet, head of a faith, representative of an ethnicity and a military head (d. 1708)

• date unknown

• *Arthur Chichester, 3rd Earl of Donegall (d. 1706)

• *Thomas Parker, 1st Earl of Macclesfield (d. 1732)

Deaths

• January 20 – Anne of Austria, queen of Louis XIII of France and regent (b. 1601)

• January 22 – Shah Jahan, Mughal Emperor of India (b. 1592)

• January 24 – Johann Andreas Herbst, German composer (b. 1588)

• February 24 – Nicholas Lanier, English composer (b. 1588)

• June 14 – Tierck Hiddes de Vries, Frisian naval hero and commander (b. 1622)

• June 16 – Sir Richard Fanshawe, British diplomat and translator (b. 1608)

• June 30 – Alexander Brome, English poet (b. 1620)

• July 5 – Albert VI of Bavaria (b. 1584)

• August 15 – Johann Adam Schall von Bell, German Jesuit missionary (b. 1591)

• August 26 – Frans Hals, Dutch painter (b. 1580)

• October 29 – Edmund Calamy the Elder, English Presbyterian leader (b. 1600)

• October 29 – James Shirley, English dramatist (b. 1596)

• December 9 – Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (Guercino), Italian painter (b. 1591)

• date unknown

• *Philip Fruytiers, Flemish painter (b. 1627)

• *James Howell, British writer (b. c. 1594)

• *Song Yingxing, Chinese encyclopedist (b. 1587)

Culture

Often called Annus Mirabilis, the year 1666 is mentioned in the poem Annus Mirabilis.
Charles the second was king at the time

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