1624

1624 (MDCXXIV) was a leap year starting on Monday in the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Thursday in the Julian calendar.  The Gregorian calendar was 10 days ahead of the Julian calendar.  The Julian calendar remained in localized use until 1923.

 Events 
 January 24 – Alfonso Mendez, appointed by Pope Gregory XV as Prelate of Ethiopia, arrives at Massawa from Goa.
 The Netherlands establish a trading colony at Kaohsiung on Taiwan.
 Thirty Walloon families settle in the New Netherland colony.
 Oslo is destroyed by fire. When rebuilt by Christian IV, it would be renamed Christiania.
 Claudio Monteverdi publishes Tancredi e Clorinda.
 Jean Louis Guez de Balzac publishes his Lettres.
 Bernardo de Balbuena publishes El Bernardo.
 Santa Rosalia makes a miraculous appearance during a plague in Palermo.
 Kalmia latifolia (mountain laurel) first recorded in America.
 Jakob Bartsch records the constellation Camelopardalis.
 Dr Challoner's Grammar School is founded.
 The Palace of Versailles is first built, as a hunting lodge.
 Chateau Cheverny begins construction.
 Pembroke College, Oxford founded.
 The Japanese Shogun expels Spanish from the land and severs trade with the Philippines
 Mail service begins in Denmark
 University founded in Bolivia
 War between England and Spain
 Cornelius Drebbel discover gases
 Cardinal Richelieu appointed by Louis XIII to be his advisor
 Henry Briggs publishes Arithmetica Logarithmica