Gipuzkoa

1603	Catalina de Erauso, from San Sebastián, known as "the Lieutenant Nun" embarks on a ship to America.	1605	Cervantes publishes "Don Quixote"; Shakespeare is at his creative peak.
1609-11	Witch hunts in Lapurdi, followed by Zugarramurdi and Hondarribia.	1609	Expulsion of the Moriscos from all the kingdoms of Philip III (Castile, Navarre, the Crown of Aragon and Portugal).
1615	Dozens of rural hamlets in Gipuzkoa declare their independence from the towns. The economic decline of iron and trade is compensated by the rising importance of maize.	1620	Around one hundred men, women and children embark on the "Mayflower" in England to found a colony in the north of America where they can freely practice their religion.
1638	Siege of Hondarribia by French troops during the Thirty Years' War.	1639	Russian colonists reach the Pacific Ocean: the Russianisation of Siberia is consolidated.
1659	Artist Diego Velázquez travels to the Bidasoa river to paint the scene for the royal wedding in the context of the Pyrenees Treaty.	1652	The first Boers arrive in South Africa from Holland.
1687	Francisca de Akulodi prints the fortnightly gazette "Noticias principales y verdaderas" (Important and true news) in San Sebastian.	1687	Newton formulates the law of universal gravitation.
1728	Foundation of the Royal Gipuzkoan Company of Caracas.	1721	Bach composes his Brandenburg Concertos.
1738	Loyola Basilica opens to the public.	1744	The census shows 84,000 natives living in forty or so Jesuit Guarani missions in South America.
1746	First debates of the illustrated oligarchy in Azkoitia: the seeds of the Royal Basque Society of Friends of the Country.	1751	Publication of the first volume of the Encyclopaedia, a compendium of illustrated knowledge. The Inquisition seizes any copies that try to make it across the border.
1766	Second great Machinada against economic liberalisation; coincides with other popular uprisings across Western Europe.	1776	Independence of the USA and "Virginia Declaration", first declaration of human rights, although it excluded women, Indians and blacks.
1783	Fausto Elhuyar isolates wolfram at the Royal Seminary of Bergara.	1784	James Watt patents the steam engine, the cornerstone of the industrial revolution and transport by rail and by sea.
1793-95	French revolutionary troops conquer Gipuzkoa, which is returned to the kingdom of Spain in exchange for the Caribbean island of Santo Domingo.	1794	Over 4,000 residents of southern Lapurdi are exiled for months to the Landes because the French authorities believed they were against the Revolution. One quarter of them died.