| 1607–1700 | North America, UK [food and drink] | Fruits introduced to the North American colonies from England include apples, which adapt well in New England, and peaches, which grow easily in Virginia and other warmer regions. Native vegetables like pumpkins, squash, and beans are favoured over European vegetables. |
| 1640–1700 | North America [literature and language] | Literacy rates in the colonies, particularly in New England, are high relative to those in the Old World. Shipton, New England has a 95% literacy rate; males in Virginia have a literacy rate between 54% and 60%. |
| May 1682 - August 1689 | Russia [administration] | After several days of unrest, the newly proclaimed Tsar Peter I the Great of Russia is overthrown by a faction led by the family of Tsar Alexis's first wife, Maria Miloslavsky, and backed by the Moscow Streltsy (musketeers). Peter and his mentally disabled half-brother Ivan V are proclaimed as joint tsars, with his half-sister Sofia as regent. |
| 1689 | Netherlands [art] | The Dutch artist Meindert Hobbema paints Avenue at Middleharnis. |
| 1689–1724 | UK [horse-racing] | The Byerley Turk, the Darley Arabian, and the Godolphin Arab, the horses from which all modern thoroughbreds are descended in the male line, are imported to England from the Middle East and north Africa. |
| 1689 | UK [companies and organizations] | English coffee house proprietor Edward Lloyd opens a coffee house in Tower Street, London, England; frequented by merchants, it develops into a forum for insuring commodities bound for the East and West Indies, and eventually into the most famous insurance house in the world, Lloyd's of London. |
| 1689 | England [literature and language] | Miscellaneous Poems by Andrew Marvell Esq, the first collection of poems by the English poet Andrew Marvell, is published posthumously. It contains his famous poem ‘To His Coy Mistress’. |
| 1689 | UK [music] | The opera Dido and Aeneas by the English composer Henry Purcell with a libretto by English dramatist Nathan Tate is first performed, by Josias Priest's School for Young Women in Chelsea, London, England. |
| 1689 | England [thought and scholarship] | English philosopher John Locke publishes his first Letter Concerning Toleration, arguing for religious toleration. The second appears in 1690, the third in 1692. |
| 13 February 1689 | UK [political events] | The Convention Parliament offers the crown of England to the Dutch stadtholder William of Orange and his wife Mary, the daughter of King James II who has been declared as having abdicated, an act known as the ‘Glorious Revolution’. They also present a Declaration of Rights which states that parliamentary consent is needed to make or suspend laws, to levy taxes, or to maintain a standing army, that the dispensing power is illegal, that petitioning is lawful, and that free elections should be held for frequent parliaments. A Committee of Parliament is created to convert this Declaration into a Bill of Rights. |
| 12 March 1689 - 3 July 1690 | UK [wars] | The dispossessed James II arrives at Kinsale in Ireland with French arms and assistance. In the space of a month he gains control of the entire country, with the exception of Londonderry and Enniskillen. |
| 15 April 1689 | Spain, France [War of the League of Augsburg (1688–97)] | King Louis XIV of France declares war on Spain, opening up another theatre of warfare in Europe. |
| 16 April 1689 | England [births and deaths] | Aphra Behn (maiden name unknown), English dramatist, novelist and poet, the first Englishwoman to earn her living by writing, whose works include The Rover (1678) and Oroonoko (1688), dies in London, England (48). |
| 27 July 1689 | England, Scotland [wars] | Scottish Jacobites led by John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, defeat troops loyal to King William III of Britain under Gen Hugh Mackay at Killiecrankie, Scotland. However, when Dundee is killed, resistance to the ‘Glorious Revolution’ in Scotland is effectively ended. |
| August 1689 | Russia [administration] | Peter I the Great and his supporters engineer a coup against the regent, his half-sister Sofia, which deposes his half-brother Ivan V and makes him sole tsar of Russia. His mother Natalia Naryshkin becomes regent until he comes of age on 30 May 1693. |
| 6 October 1689 | Papal States, Italy [Catholicism] | Pope Alexander VIII is elected following the death of Pope Innocent XI. |
| 19 December 1689 | UK, United Netherlands, Holy Roman Empire [diplomacy] | Britain accedes to the Grand Alliance, joining the Dutch and the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I in a coalition against France. |
