1642
| Years: 1639 1640 1641 - 1642 - 1643 1644 1645 | |
| Decades: 1610s 1620s 1630s - 1640s - 1650s 1660s 1670s | |
| Centuries: 16th century - 17th century - 18th century 1642 in topic: | |
Events
- January 4 - Charles I attempts to arrest five leading members of the Long Parliament, but they escape. Beginning of English Civil War.
- March 1 - Georgeana, Massachusetts (now known as York, Maine) becomes the first incorporated city in America
- March 19 - the citizens of Galway seize an English naval ship, close the town gates and declare for the Irish Confederates.
- May 17 - Sieur de Maisonneuve founds the Ville Marie de Montréal.
- July - Charles I besieges Hull in an attempt to gain control of its arsenal.
- August 7 - Lord Forbes relives Forthill and beseiges Galway.
- September 7 - Lord Forbes raises his unsuccessful seige of Galway.
- September 8 - Thomas Granger executed by hanging at Plimouth, Massachusetts for confessing to numerous acts of bestiality.
- October - Battle of Edgehill.
- November 24 - Abel Tasman becomes the first European to discover the island Van Diemen's Land (later renamed Tasmania).
- The Dutch drive Spain from Taiwan.
- Abel Tasman achieves the first recorded European sighting of New Zealand.
- Blaise Pascal produces a mechanical adding machine (the "Pascaline").
- Claudio Monteverdi's opera l'Incoronazione di Poppeia is first performed.
- First Battle of Lostwithiel
- Jean-Baptiste Tavernier brings Hope diamond to Europe
- Puritans close all theaters in England
- Peter Stuyvesant becomes the governor of Curacao
Births
- April 15 - Suleiman II, Ottoman Sultan (d. 1691)
- August 14 - Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (d. 1723)
- December 25 - Isaac Newton, English mathematician and physicist (d. 1727)
Deaths
- January 8 - Galileo Galilei, Italian astronomer and physicist (b. 1564)
- June 14 - Saskia van Uylenburg, Dutch wife of Rembrandt van Rijn (b. 1612)
- December 4 - Armand-Jean Duplessis Richelieu, French cardinal and statesman (b. 1585)
