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1648

Year 1648 (MDCXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Saturday of the 10-day slower Julian calendar).

January 17 - England's Long Parliament passes the Vote of No Addresses, breaking off negotiations with King Charles I and thereby setting the scene for the second phase of the English Civil War.

January 30 - The Dutch and the Spanish sign the Treaty of Munster, ending the Eighty Years' War. The Spanish Empire recognizes the Dutch Republic of United Netherlands as a sovereign state, (governed by the House of Orange-Nassau and the Estates General) which was before a province of the Spanish Empire.

April 19 - The Portuguese army defeats the Dutch army in the north of Brazil.

October 20 - The American Indian Battle of Tippycart is fought in the New World.

December 11 - Pride's Purge occurs in England, with elements of the New Model Army, under the leadership of Henry Ireton invading London and expelling a majority of the Long Parliament, resulting in the creation of the Rump Parliament.

In India, building of the Red Fort is completed.

The west bank of Prague (including the Prague Castle) is occupied and looted by Swedish armies.

Sabbatai Zevi declares himself the Messiah at Smyrna.

A major earthquake strikes Van, a town in Ottoman Armenia.

French intervention ends.

The Fronde begins.

April 4 - Grinling Gibbons, Dutch-born woodcarver (d. 1721)

December 15 - Gregory King, English statistician (d. 1712)

date unknown - Bhai Ghanaiya, Indian social worker, founder of modern-day Red Cross (d. 1718)

February 2 - George Abbot, English writer (b. c.1605)

February 28 - Christian IV, King of Denmark and Norway (b. 1577)

April 12 - Catharina Belgica of Nassau, regent of Hanau-Münzenberg (b. 1578)

September 1 - Marin Mersenne, French mathematician (b. 1588)

November 17 - Thomas Ford, English composer (b. c. 1580)