Events

• The English Test Act was passed. It disallowed Catholics from holding high public office.
• France begins its expedition against Ceylon.
• March 18 - John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton sells his part of New Jersey to the Quakers.
• May 17 - Trader Louis Joliet and Jesuit missionary-explorer Jacques Marquette begin exploring the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes.
• Christopher Wren knighted.
• French explorers Father Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet reach the headwaters of Mississippi River and descend to Arkansas
• The Kabuki actor Sannjuro Ichikawa , aged 13, invents the Aragato style, which features the Superman war-god.
• Jean-Baptiste Lully writes his first opera, Cadmus et Hermione
• The Dutch retake New York
• William of Orange saves Amsterdam and the province of Holland from the French by opening the Sluice gates and flooding the country.
• Mitsui family's trading and banking house is founded in Japan.
• University of Innsbruck founded
• Stalactic grotto of Antiparos (Aegean Sea) discovered.
• Archpriest Petrovich Avvakum writes his "Zhitie" (Life) as the first Russian autobiography.
• On November 11, 1673, near Chocim (also spelled Khotinin the Ukraine, Lithuanian and Polish military units defeated the Turkish army. In this battle rockets of Kazimieras Simonavičius were successfully used.

Births

• April 27 - Claude Gillot, artist
• July 20 - John Dalrymple, 2nd Earl of Stair

Deaths

• February 17 - Molière, French theatre writer, director and actor, master of satire
• March 15 - Salvator Rosa, painter