1690

Events
 January 6 – Joseph, son of Emperor Leopold I becomes King of the Romans
 January 14 – The clarinet is invented in Nuremberg, Germany
 May 20 – England passes Act of Grace, forgiving followers of James II
 July 1 – The Battle of the Boyne, in Ireland
 October 6-12 – Massachusetts Puritans led by Sir William Phips besiege the city of Quebec. The siege ends in failure.
 December 29 – earthquake in Anconer in Papal States, Italy

 Earliest recorded sighting of the planet Uranus, by John Flamsteed, who mistakenly catalogues it as the star 34 Tauri
 Giovanni Domenico Cassini observes differential rotation within Jupiter's atmosphere.
 The French invade the small town of Teignmouth in Southwest England, in their last attack on England.

 Births 
 January 22 – Nicolas Lancret, French painter (d. 1743)
 February 1 – Francesco Maria Veracini, Italian composer (d. 1768)
 February 3 – Richard Rawlinson, English minister and antiquarian (d. 1755)
 March 18 – Christian Goldbach Prussian mathematician (d. 1764)
 April 22 – John Carteret, 2nd Earl Granville, English statesman (d. 1763)
 September 12 – Peter Dens, Belgian Catholic theologian (d. 1775)
 October 29 – Martin Folkes, English antiquarian (d. 1754)
 November 24 – Charles Theodore Pachelbel, German composer (d. 1750)
 November 29 – Christian Augustus of Anhalt-Zerbst, father of Catherine II of Russia (d. 1747)
 December 1 – Philip Yorke, 1st Earl of Hardwicke, Lord Chancellor of England (d. 1764)