1605

January–June

• January 16 – The first part of Miguel de Cervantes' satire on the theme of chivalry, Don Quixote, is published in Madrid. One of the first significant novels in the western literary tradition, it becomes a global bestseller almost at once.
• March 11 – A proclamation declares all people of Ireland to be the direct subjects of the British Crown and not of any local lord or chief.
• April 1 – Pope Leo XI succeeds Pope Clement VIII as the 232nd pope as a result of the heated Papal conclave of March 1605.
• 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, Mary Forth, daughter of John Forth, of Great Stambridge, Essex.
• May 16 – Pope Paul V succeeds Pope Leo XI as the 233rd pope, making this the last Year of Three Popes until 1978. He is elected as a compromise candidate after the Papal conclave of May 1605 leads to physical assault.
• June 1 – Russian troops in Moscow imprison Feodor II and his mother, later executing them.
• June 20 – Pretender Dmitriy and his supporters, including troops of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, march to Moscow.

  July–December

• July 4 – A proclamation commands all Roman Catholic seminary priests and Jesuits to leave Ireland by December 10 and directs the laity to attend Church of Ireland services.
• July 21 – Pretender Dmitriy is officially crowned Tsar Dimitriy Ioannovich of Russia in Moscow by Patriarch Ignatius.
• September 27 – Swedish armies are decisively defeated by Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth cavalry in the Battle of Kircholm.
• October
• * First publication of Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien by Johann Carolus in Strasbourg, generally regarded as the world's first newspaper. De Nieuwe Tijdinghen, a Dutch proto-newspaper, is also published this year.
• * Francis Bacon's Of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Human is published in London.
• October 27 – The greatest considered Emperor of India and the 3rd Mughal Emperor Akbar the Great died of illness.

• November 3 – The 4th Mughal Emperor Jahangir begins his 22-year reign of the Mughal Empire.
• November 5 – Gunpowder Plot: A plot to blow up the English Houses of Parliament is foiled when, following a tip-off, Sir Thomas Knyvet, a justice of the peace, finds Catholic plotter Guy Fawkes in a cellar below the Parliament building and orders a search of the area. 36 barrels of gunpowder are found and Fawkes is arrested for trying to kill King James I of England and the members who are scheduled to sit together in Parliament the next day.

  Date unknown

• Tokugawa Ieyasu abdicates as shōgun of Japan, becoming Ogosho. His son Tokugawa Hidetada succeeds him to the office.
• Habitation at Port-Royal established by France under Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Mons, the first European colonization of Nova Scotia in North America ; the Gregorian calendar is adopted.
• Crew of the Olive become the first English visitors to Barbados.
• Refugee French Huguenot merchants begin to settle in Dublin and Waterford.
• The Priory of St. Gregory's is founded at Douai, Flanders, at this time in the Spanish Netherlands, by its first prior, John Roberts, and other exiles, thus becoming the first English Benedictine house to renew conventual life after the English Reformation. More than two centuries later the community will establish Downside Abbey back in England.
• The Irish College in Paris is co-founded by John Lee, an Irish priest, and John de l'Escalopier, President of the Parlement.
• Central Mexico's Amerindian population reaches one million.

  Births

January–March

• January 16 – Shahryar, fifth and youngest son of the Mughal Emperor Jahangir
• January 17 – Anthony Irby, English politician
• February 1 – Isaac Aboab da Fonseca, Portuguese Sephardic rabbi
• February 17 – Luca Ferrari, Italian painter
• February 18
• * Juan de Almoguera, Roman Catholic prelate who served as Archbishop of Lima and Bishop of Arequipa
• * Abraham Ecchellensis, Lebanese Maronite philosopher
• February 20 – Sir John Lowther, 1st Baronet, of Lowther, English politician
• March 1 – James Wriothesley, Lord Wriothesley, English politician
• March 2 – René Menard, Canadian explorer
• March 3 – George Horner, English politician
• March 14 – Francis Davies, British bishop
• March 17 – George II, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt

  April–June

• April 8
• * King Philip IV of Spain
• * Mary Stuart, English-Scottish princess
• April 18 – Giacomo Carissimi, Italian composer
• April 19 – Orazio Benevoli, Italian composer
• April 30 – Peder Winstrup, Bishop of Lund
• May 7 – Patriarch Nikon of Moscow, Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church
• May 16 – Federico Ubaldo della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, Italian noble
• May 29 – Hendrick van Anthonissen, Dutch painter
• June 15 – Thomas Randolph, English poet and dramatist
• June 22 – Andrea Bolgi, Italian sculptor

  July–September

• July 6 – Ulrich II, Count of East Frisia, ruler of East Frisia in the later years of the Thirty Years' War
• July 25 – Theodore Haak, German scholar
• July 29 – Simon Dach, Prussian German lyrical poet and writer of hymns
• August 6
• * Johann Philipp von Schönborn, Archbishop-Elector of Mainz
• * Bulstrode Whitelocke, English lawyer
• August 8 – Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore, first Proprietor and Proprietary Governor of the Province of Maryland
• August 18 – Henry Hammond, English churchman
• August 25 – Philipp Moritz, Count of Hanau-Münzenberg, German noble
• August 30 – Felice Ficherelli, Italian painter
• August 31 – Nicolas Talon, French Jesuit
• September 1 – Michele Mazzarino, Italian Catholic cardinal
• September 8 – Cornelis Jan Witsen, Mayor of Amsterdam
• September 12 – William Dugdale, English antiquary and herald
• September 14 – Brynjólfur Sveinsson, Icelandic bishop and scholar
• September 17 – Francesco Sacrati, Italian composer
• September 24 – Antoine Godeau, French bishop and poet
• September 28 – Ismaël Bullialdus, French astronomer

  October–December

• October 15 – Marie de Bourbon, Duchess of Montpensier, French princess
• October 16 – Charles Coypeau d'Assoucy, French writer and composer
• October 19 – Sir Thomas Browne, English physician and philosopher
• October 22 – Frédéric Maurice de La Tour d'Auvergne, prince of the independent principality of Sedan
• November 3 – John Henderson, 5th of Fordell, Scottish noble
• November 4 – William Habington, English poet
• November 5 – Thomas Shepard, American Puritan minister and a significant figure in early colonial New England
• December 1 – Roger Hill, English politician
• December 8 – François Vavasseur, French writer
• December 16 – Jerome Weston, 2nd Earl of Portland, English diplomat and landowner
• December 23 – Tianqi Emperor, Ming emperor of China
• December 25 – Francis Godolphin, English politician

  Date unknown

• William Berkeley, English governor of Virginia
• Adriaen Brouwer, Flemish painter
• Aleksander Dominik Kazanowski, Polish nobleman
• Alexandra Mavrokordatou, Greek intellectual and salonist
• Afanasy Ordin-Nashchokin, Russian statesman
• Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, French traveller and pioneer of trade with India
• Constantia Zierenberg, German-Polish singer
• Thomas Hastings, American politician
• Johann Rudolf Stadler, Swiss clock-maker
• Ayşe Sultan and/or Gevherhan Sultan, Ottoman princesses, daughters of Ahmed I

  Approximate date

• Semyon Dezhnev, Pomor navigator
• John Gauden, English bishop and writer
• William Goffe, English parliamentarian and regicide
• Thomas Nabbes, English dramatist
• Francis Willoughby, 5th Baron Willoughby of Parham, English noble

  Deaths

January–March

• January 16 – Eitel Friedrich IV, Count of Hohenzollern
• February 5 – Edward Stafford, English diplomat
• February 15 – Maria of Hanau-Münzenberg, German noblewoman
• February 19 – Orazio Vecchi, Italian composer
• February 24 – Girolamo Simoncelli, Italian Catholic cardinal
• February 26 – George III, Count of Erbach-Breuberg
• March 3 – Pope Clement VIII
• March 12 – King Alexander II of Kakheti
• March 17 – Pieter Bast, Dutch cartographer, engraver and draftsman

  April–June

• April 5 – Adam Loftus, English Catholic archbishop
• April 6 – John Stow, English historian and antiquarian
• April 10 – Albrecht VII, Count of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt
• April 13 – Boris Godunov, Tsar of Russia
• April 14 – Francis Cherry, English diplomat
• April 25 – Naresuan, Siamese King of Ayutthaya kingdom
• April 27 – Pope Leo XI
• May 4 – Ulisse Aldrovandi, Italian naturalist
• May 10 – Casimir VI, Duke of Pomerania, Lutheran Administrator of Cammin Prince-Bishopric
• June 3 – Jan Zamoyski, Polish nobleman
• June 9 – John Louis II, Count of Nassau-Wiesbaden-Idstein
• June 20 – Tsar Feodor II of Russia

  July–September

• July 2 – Louis I, Count of Sayn-Wittgenstein
• July 18 – Johann II, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, German duke
• July 26 – Rev. Fr. Miguel de Benavides, O.P., Spanish clergyman and sinologist
• August 2 – Richard Leveson, English admiral
• August 4 – Charles I, Duke of Elbeuf, French duke and nobleman
• September 9 – Heinrich Khunrath, German physician
• September 11 – Sir Thomas Tresham, English politician
• September 14 – Jan Tarnowski, Archbishop of Kraków
• September 19 – Edward Lewknor, English politician
• September 23 – Pontus de Tyard, French poet
• September 24 – Manuel Mendes, Portuguese composer

  October–December

• October 13 – Theodore Beza, French theologian
• October 18 – Beate Clausdatter Bille, Danish noblewoman
• October 22 – King Constantine I of Kakheti
• October 27 – Akbar The Great, Mughal emperor
• October 30 – George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland, English noble
• October 31 – Dorothy Bray, Baroness Chandos, English noble
• November 5 – Nyaungyan Min, Burmese king
• November 8 – Robert Catesby, English conspirator
• November 12 – Jan Tomasz Drohojowski, Polish noble
• November 14 – Anna Maria of Anhalt, German noblewoman
• December – Francis Tresham, English conspirator
• December 3 – Guy XX de Laval, French noble
• December 6 – Murai Nagayori, Japanese samurai
• December 25 – Marino Grimani, Doge of Venice
• December 29 – John Davis, English explorer

  Date unknown

• Marek Sobieski, Polish nobleman