1637

Events 
 February 3 – Tulip mania collapses in the United Provinces (now the Netherlands) by government order
 February 15 – Ferdinand III becomes Holy Roman Emperor
 December 17 – Shimabara Rebellion erupts in Japan
Pierre de Fermat makes a marginal claim to have proof of what would become known as Fermat's last theorem.
France places a few missionaries in the Côte d'Ivoire, a country it would come to rule more than 200 years later.
England wages war against the Mashantucket Pequots
 First opera house, Teatro San Cassiona, opens in Venice
 René Descartes – Discours de la Methode
Elizabeth Poole becomes the first woman to have founded a town (Taunton, Massachusetts) in the Americas.