| 1642–1646 | English civil war between Charles I and Parliament |
| 1648 | Peace of Westphalia ends Thirty Years' War; Fronde revolt challenges royal authority in France; Ukrainian Cossack warriors rebel against king of Poland-Lithuania; Spain formally recognizes independence of Dutch Republic |
| 1649 | Charles I of England executed; new Russian legal code assigns all to hereditary class |
| 1651 | Thomas Hobbes publishes Leviathan |
| 1660 | Monarchy restored in England |
| 1661 | Slave code set up in Barbados |
| 1667 | Louis XIV begins first of many wars that continue throughout his reign |
| 1678 | Madame de Lafayette anonymously publishes The Princess of Clèves |
| 1683 | Austrian Habsburgs break Turkish siege of Vienna |
| 1685 | Louis XIV revokes Edict of Nantes |
| 1688 | Parliament deposes James II; William, prince of Orange, and Mary take the throne |
| 1690 | John Locke publishes Two Treatises of Government and Essay Concerning Human Understanding |