January 7 – Ben Jonson's play News from the New World Discovered in the Moon is given its first performance, a presentation to King James I of England. In addition to dialogue about actual observations made by telescope of the Moon, the play includes a fanciful discussion of a lunar civilization a dance by the "Volatees", the lunar race. [1]
March 22 – King Karma Phuntsok Namgyal of Tibet dies of smallpox after a reign of less than two years, after Ngawang Namgyal of Bhutan casts a tantric spell over him. [3]
March 24 – English sailor Owen Fitzpen is captured by Turkish pirates while on a trading voyage in the Mediterranean Sea and sold into slavery. He remains a slave in North Africa for seven years until he and 10 other slaves are able to take over a Turkish ship and sail back to Europe.
April–June
April 1 – Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor and former King of Bohemia, sends a two-month ultimatum directing King Frederick of Bohemia (who has usurped the throne in the modern-day Czech Republic) to leave Bohemia by June 1. Frederick refuses to depart his capital at Prague.
July 25 (July 15 OS) – The armed merchant ship Mayflower embarks about 65 emigrants for New England at or near her home port of Rotherhithe on the Thames east of London; about July 29 (July 19 OS) she anchors in Southampton Water.[5]
August 15 (probable date; August 5 OS) – Mayflower and Speedwell depart together from Southampton,[5] but are forced to put back into Dartmouth, Devon, for repairs to a leak in the latter ship on August 22 or 23 (August 12 or 13 OS).
September 2 (August 23 OS) – Mayflower and Speedwell depart together from Dartmouth; they are well out into the Atlantic when the Speedwell is again found to be leaking.[5]
Mayflower and Speedwell return again to England, anchoring at Plymouth; the latter ship is given up as a participant in the voyage and on September 12 (September 2 OS) departs for London, most of her passengers and stores having been transferred to the Mayflower.[5]
September 16 (September 6 OS) – Mayflower departs from Plymouth in England on her third attempt to cross the Atlantic.[9] The Pilgrims on board comprise 41 "saints" (English separatists largely from Holland), 40 "strangers" (largely secular planters from London), 23 servants and hired workers, together with c. 30 crew.
October 6 – Battle of Amedamit in Gojjam, Ethiopia: The Roman CatholicRas Sela Kristos, half-brother of Emperor Susenyos, crushes a group of rebels, who are opposed to Susenyos' pro-Catholic beliefs.
"A Dutch Ship, putting in this Year [of 1620, before June], sold 20 Negroes to the Colony [as slaves], which were the first of that Generation, that were ever brought to Virginia."[12]
A severe frost in England freezes the River Thames; 13 continuous days of snow blanket Scotland. On Eskdale Moor, only 35 of a flock of 20,000 sheep survive.[13]
^Julie Sanders, Ben Jonson's Theatrical Republics (Palgrave Macmillan, 1998)
^Sharon Kettering, Power and Reputation at the Court of Louis XIII: The Career of Charles d'Albert, duc de Luynes (1578–1621) (Manchester University Press, 2008) pp. 91–92
^Tsepon W.D. Shakabpa, One Hundred Thousand Moons (Leiden 2010) p. 333
