17th Century facts

While investigating facts about 17th Century, I found out little known, but curios details like:

In the late 17th century, the pirate Henry Avery became the richest pirate in the world after raiding a treasure laden ship belonging to the Grand Ruler of India. He stole £600,000 in precious metals and jewels, equivalent to £89.6M today. The world’s first worldwide manhunt was called on him.

Julie D'Aubigny, the famous 17th century French opera singer who once took the holy vows to enter a convent so she could have sex with a nun. She also had a habit of seducing women at parties, which led to their husbands challenging her to a duel. An expert duelist, she killed 10 men this way

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across. Here are 50 of the best facts about 17th Century I managed to collect.

1. Carrots are orange for political reasons. In the 17th century, Dutch growers cultivated orange carrots as a tribute to William of Orange. Before this, they were mostly yellow, white or purple.

2. Julie d'Aubigny was a 17th-century traveling swordswoman. Among her other exploits, when her female lover was sent to a convent, she also entered the convent, stole the body of a dead nun, placed it in her lover's bed, escaped with her lover and burnt the convent down.

3. Whipping Tom, the name given to two serial spankers in London in the 17th & 18th centuries. "On seeing an unaccompanied woman, he would grab her, lift her dress, and slap her buttocks repeatedly before fleeing. He would sometimes accompany his attacks by shouting "Spanko!""

4. Coffee is credited with helping to spark the Age of Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th century Europe. Before coffee was introduced to that part of the world, people often drank beer/alcohol throughout the day because it was safer than water. Coffee provided a safe alternative to alcohol.

5. That, since the 1300's, the pronoun "thou" was actually considered more informal and even derogatory than the pronoun "you." This is also why its usage began declining in the 17th century; it was considered "impolite."

6. At the end of the 17th century in an attempt to modernize society, Russian Emperor Peter the Great taxed any men who didn't shave their beard. Those that paid the tax carried around a copper or bronze token as proof they had paid.

7. In the 17th century, choir boys as young as eight years old would be castrated in order to preserve their pre-pubescent "angel voices"

8. The Czech language was saved from extinction by puppet shows. In the 17th century, the Catholic Ferdinand II forced the Protestant Czech people to speak in German and banned the Czech language. Puppets were the only remaining entities that had the right to speak Czech in public places.

9. That, starting during their golden age in the early 17th century, the Dutch had a monopoly on trade with Japan that lasted until 1854. During this time, the Dutch were Japan's only source of information on the Western world.

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Due to heavy inbreeding, Louis XIV of France (17th century) is descended from Louis IX of France (13th century) in 368 different ways

Virtually all Middle Ages scholars believed that the Earth is spherical. The myth that people in the Middle Ages thought the earth is flat appears to date from the 17th century as part of the campaign by Protestants against Catholic teaching. - source

The Black Death killed so many people in the 14th century that the world population did not recover to pre-plague levels until the 17th century. - source

In 17th century Italy conjoined twins were on trial for murder. Authorities arrested Lazarus after he stabbed a man for teasing his parasitic twin brother. Though he was sentenced to death the court let him go, finding that they could not execute him without killing his innocent conjoined twin. - source

The 17th century Ottoman Sultan Murad VI made the consumption of coffee a capital offense. In addition to closing Istanbul’s many coffeehouses, he would disguise himself as a commoner and stalk the streets of Istanbul with his executioner, beheading any coffee-drinkers that he caught.

When the Dutch discovered penguins for the first time in the 17th century, they literally called them "fat gooses"

The Jesuit Order is credited as the single most important contributor to experimental physics in the 17th and 18th Centuries, with significant contributions to the study of magnetism, optics, and electricity; observed the colored bands of Jupiters surface, the Andromeda nebula, and Saturns Rings

The saying "cut of one's jib" is because in the 17th century, the shape of the jib sail often identified a vessel's nationality, and hence whether it was hostile or friendly.

Nicholas Culpeper, a 17th century physician married to wealthy heiress, enabling him to provide services free of charge while translating Latin medical text into English then sold them very cheaply for the poor who can't afford expensive physicians

Despite being synonymous with Italian cuisine, tomatoes were not incorporated into the Italian diet until the late 17th or early 18th century. The earliest mention of a tomato in Italy was in 1548, but the view was that they "were to be sought only for their beauty"