January 27–Gove's Rebellion breaks out in the Province of New Hampshire in North America as a revolt against the Royal Governor, Edward Cranfield. Most of the participants, and their leader Edward Gove, are arrested. Gowe is convicted of treason but pardoned three years later.
March 17– In a battle at Kalyan (near Bombay) between the Maratha Empire and the Mughal Empire in India, Maratha General Hambirrao Mohite defeats the local Mughal official, Ranamast Khan.
July 21– The gruesome execution of Lord Russell, for his role in the 1683 Rye House Plot to assassinate King Charles II of England, is carried out by the royal executioner Jack Ketch, who wields his axe in a manner requiring multiple blows to make Russell suffer as much as possible during the beheading. [2]
August 4–Turhan, in the powerful role of the Valide sultan of the Ottoman Empire since 1648 as the mother of Sultan Mehmed IV, dies at the age of 56, bringing an end to the era in Ottoman history known as the "Sultanate of Women". Upon the overthrow of Mehmed IV four years later, the role of the mother of the Ottoman Sultan is less powerful.
August 25– The Earl of Limerick, Irishman Thomas Dongan, takes office as the new British Colonial Governor of the Province of New York and makes major reforms to restore public order and rescue the province from bankruptcy.
Battle of Vienna: The Ottoman siege of the city is broken with the arrival of a force of 70,000 Poles, Austrians and Germans under Polish–Lithuanian king Jan III Sobieski, whose cavalry turns their flank. The victory marks a turning point in the Ottoman Empire's fortunes and the end of the Turkish attempt to expand its control into Western Europe. [3]
October 6–Germantown, Philadelphia is founded as the first permanent German settlement in North America (in 1983 U.S. President Ronald Reagan declares a 300th Year Celebration, and in 1987, it becomes an annual holiday, German-American Day).
George Ducas, the Prince of Moldavia installed by the Ottomans in 1678, is arrested by Polish authorities while on his way back to Bucharest from the defeat by Poland in the Battle of Vienna. Ducas is replaced by Ștefan Petriceicu.
December 27–Richard Keigwin leads a rebellion against the East India Company to take over as Governor of Bombay and most of the British territory in India, driving out Governor Sir John Child and arresting the Deputy Governor, Charles Ward. Keigwin surrenders the office less than a year later.
Juré Fiorillo, Great Bastards of History: True and Riveting Accounts of the Most Famous Illegitimate Children Who Went on to Achieve Greatness (Fair Winds Press, 2010) p. 82