1615
year
1615 (MDCXV) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar, the 1615th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 615th year of the 2nd millennium, the 15th year of the 17th century, and the 6th year of the 1610s decade. As of the start of 1615, the Gregorian calendar was 10 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.
Events
January–March
January 1 – The New Netherland Company is granted a three-year monopoly in North American trade, between the 40th and 45th parallels.
January 30 – Japan's diplomatic mission to Europe, led by Hasekura Tsunenaga, meets with King Philip III of Spain at Madrid and presents an offer of a treaty.
February 2 – Sir Thomas Roe sets out to become the first ambassador from the court of the King of England to the Mughal Emperor Jahangir, departing from Tilbury Hope on the ship Lyon under the command of captain Christopher Newport.
February 17 – Japan's envoy to Europe, Hasekura Tsunenaga, receives a Christian baptism by the royal chaplain, Diego de Guzmán, and receives the European name Felipe Francisco Hasekura.
March 10 – John Ogilvie, a Jesuit priest, is hanged and drawn at Glasgow Cross in Scotland for refusing to pledge allegiance to King James VI of Scotland; he will be canonised in 1976, becoming the only post-Reformation Scottish saint.
April–June
April 21 – The Wignacourt Aqueduct is inaugurated in Malta.
May 6 – The Peace of Tyrnau is signed between Matthias, Holy Roman Emperor, and Gábor Bethlen.
June 2 – The first Récollet missionaries arrive at Quebec City, from Rouen, France.
“1615” enters the record as year. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what year can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“1615” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, year provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6784. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1615, 1923 and 1976.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “1615”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow 1615 primary sources, 1615 archive and year research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “1615”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “1615” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.