Events of 1605

January - June

• April 1 - Pope Leo XI succeeds Pope Clement VIII as the 232nd pope.
• April 13 - Tsar Boris Godunov dies; Feodor II accedes to the Russian throne.
• April 16 - In England, John Winthrop, later governor of the future Massachusetts Bay Colony, marries his first wife (of 4), Mary Forth, daughter of John Forth, of Great Stambridge, Essex.
• May 16 - Pope Paul V succeeds Pope Leo XI as the 233rd pope.
• June 1 - Russian troops in Moscow imprison Feodor II and his mother, later executing them.
• June 20 - Pretender Dmitri and his supporters march to Moscow; he is crowned the next day.

July - December

• July 30 - Pretender Dmitri is officially crowned Tsar Dmitri II.
• September 27 - Battle of Kircholm: Swedish armies are defeated by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
• October - In Strassburg, the world's first newspaper is published by Johann Carolus.
• October 27 - Spanish troops of General Spinola occupy Wachtendonk.
• November 5 - Gunpowder Plot: A plot by to blow up the English Houses of Parliament is foiled when Sir Thomas Knyvet, a justice of the peace, finds Guy Fawkes in a cellar below the Parliament building and orders a search of the area (records show 36 barrels of gunpowder were found, and Fawkes was arrested for trying to kill King James I of England and the members who were scheduled to sit together in Parliament the next day).

Undated

• Polish troops occupy Moscow.
• The first half of Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote is published.
• Pope Leo XI is elected, but dies before the year is out.
• Tokugawa Ieyasu abdicates as shogun of Japan, becoming Ogosho. His son Tokugawa Hidetada succeeds him to the office.
• An English colony is founded on Barbados.
• French Huguenot refugees settle in Dublin and Waterford.
• De Nieuwe Tijdinghen, a Dutch proto-newspaper, is published.
• Central Mexico's Amerindian population reaches 1 million.
• Jahangir starts to rule.

Births

• April 8 - King Philip IV of Spain (d. 1665)
• April 18 - Giacomo Carissimi, Italian composer (d. 1674)
• May 7 - Patriarch Nikon, Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church (d. 1681)
• June - Thomas Randolph, English poet and dramatist (d. 1635)
• July 29 - Simon Dach, Prussian lyrical poet and writer of hymns (d. 1659)
• August - Bulstrode Whitelocke, English lawyer and parliamentarian (d. 1675)
• August 8 - Cæcilius Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore, colonial Governor of Maryland (d. 1675)
• August 18 - Henry Hammond, English churchman (d. 1660)
• September 12 - William Dugdale, English antiquary (d. 1686)
• September 28 - Ismael Bullialdus, French astronomer (d. 1694)
• October 19 - Sir Thomas Browne English physician and philosopher (d. 1682)
• October 22 - Frédéric Maurice de La Tour d'Auvergne, duc de Bouillon, prince of the independent principality of Sedan (d. 1652)
• November 4 - William Habington, English poet (d. 1654)
• December 12 - Hans Christoff von Königsmarck, Swedish-German soldier (d. 1663)
• December 23 - Tianqi Emperor, Ming emperor of China (d. 1627)
• date unknown
• William Berkeley, governor of Virginia (d. 1677)
• John Gauden, English bishop and writer (d. 1662)
• Nectarius of Jerusalem, Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem (d. 1680)
• Dominik Aleksander Kazanowski, Polish nobleman (d. 1648)
• Thomas Nabbes, English dramatist (d. c. 1645)
• Afanasy Ordin-Nashchokin, Russian statesman (d. 1680)
• Brynjólfur Sveinsson, Icelandic bishop and scholar (d. 1675)
• Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, French traveller and pioneer of trade with India (d. 1689)
• Francis Willoughby, 5th Baron Willoughby of Parham (d. 1666)
• probable
• Adriaen Brouwer, Flemish painter (d. 1638)
• William Goffe, English parliamentarian (d. 1679)

See also 1605 births.

Deaths

• February 19 - Orazio Vecchi, Italian composer (b. 1550)
• March 5 - Pope Clement VIII (b. 1536)
• April 5 - Adam Loftus, English Catholic archbishop (b. c.1533)
• April 6 - John Stow, English historian and antiquarian (b. 1525)
• April 13 - Boris Godunov, Tsar of Russia (b. 1551)
• April 27 - Pope Leo XI (b. 1535)
• June 3 - Jan Zamoyski, Polish nobleman (b. 1542)
• July 20 - Tsar Feodor II of Russia (b. 1589)
• September 11 - Sir Thomas Tresham, English politician (b. 1550)
• September 14 - Jan Tarnowski, Archbishop of Krakow (b. 1550)
• September 23 - Pontus de Tyard, French poet (b. c. 1521)
• September 24 - Manuel Mendes, Portuguese composer (b. 1547)
• October 13 - Theodore Beza, French theologian (b. 1519)
• October 15 - Akbar, Mogul Emperor (b. 1542)
• November 8 - Robert Catesby, English conspirator (b. 1573)
• November 10 - Ulissi Aldrovandi, Italian naturalist (b. 1522)
• December - Francis Tresham, English conspirator (b. 1567)
• December 29 - John Davis, English explorer (b. 1550)
• date unknown - Marek Sobieski, Polish nobleman (b. 1549)

See also 1605 deaths.

Publications

• Francis Bacon, Of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Humane.
• Miguel de Cervantes, the first part of the landmark novel Don Quixote ("El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha" or "The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha") — one of the earliest novels in the western literary tradition.