The 1664 Dutch naval blockade of the Chao Phraya river mouth forces Siam to sign a treaty more favorable to the Dutch, who obtain an export monopoly on deer and cow hides and the right to be tried and punished only under Dutch law.

Narai opens negotiations with the French, in the person of missionary bishop Monsignor de la Motte Lambert, as a counter to the Dutch presence.

The two countries exchange embassies.

Archpriest Avvakum, in exile in Siberia, is removed to Mezen' in northern Russia in 1664.

Paul of Kolumna, the only bishop who supports the Old Believers in their ongoing opposition to the liturgical reforms of the Russian Orthodox church, is imprisoned and later dies there, thus depriving their communities of a legitimate priesthood and sacraments (except for baptism, which the laity may perform).

Sabbatai, accompanied in 1664 by a retinue of believers and assured of financial backing, triumphantly returns to Jerusalem.

Here, a twenty-year-old student known as Nathan of Gaza assumes the role of a modern Elijah, in his traditional role of forerunner of the messiah.

Nathan ecstatically prophesies the imminent restoration of Israel and world salvation through the bloodless victory of Sabbatai, riding on a lion with a seven-headed dragon in his jaws.

In accordance with millenarian belief, he cites 1666 as the apocalyptic year.

Miklos Zrínyi, born into an extremely wealthy aristocratic family and educated by the Jesuits, had become viceroy of Croatia in 1647.

His chief concern is driving the Turks out of Hungary, and he has spent his entire life fighting the conquerors, becoming the outstanding Hungarian military leader of his century.

Zrínyi also opposes Habsburg rule and seeks the unification of his dismembered country and the organization of a modern absolutist state.

He starts an anti-Habsburg organization in 1664 but is killed this same year by a wild boar.

Zrínyi's finest literary work, and one of the major works of Hungarian literature, is his epic Szigeti Veszedelem (1645–46; English translation, “The Peril of Sziget,” in Hungarian Poetry, 1955), which deals with the heroic defense of the fortress of Szigetvár (1566) against the armies of the sultan Süleyman II.

The commander of the fortress, the central figure of the epic, was the poet's great-grandfather, who fell during the siege.

No drawings have been positively attributed to Vermeer, and his paintings offer few clues to preparatory methods.

David Hockney, among other historians and advocates of the Hockney-Falco thesis, has speculated that Vermeer used a camera obscura to achieve precise positioning in his compositions, and this view seems to be supported by certain light and perspective effects.

The often-discussed sparkling pearly highlights in Vermeer's paintings have been linked to this possible use of a camera obscura, the primitive lens of which would produce halation.

Exaggerated perspective can be seen in The Music Lesson or Lady at the Virginals with a Gentleman (1662-1665).

Vermeer's interest in optics is also attested in this work by the accurately observed mirror reflection above the lady at the virginals.

However, historians dispute the extent of Vermeer's dependence upon the camera obscura: other than assumptions made by an analysis of his style, there is no evidence, either scientific or historical, that Vermeer ever owned or used such a device.

The French East India Company (French: La Compagnie française des Indes orientales or Compagnie française pour le commerce des Indes orientales), a commercial enterprise, is founded in 1664 to compete with the British and Dutch East India companies.

Planned by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, it is chartered by King Louis XIV for the purpose of trading in the Eastern Hemisphere.

It results from the fusion of three earlier companies, the 1660 Compagnie de Chine, the Compagnie d'Orient and Compagnie de Madagascar.

The first Director General for the Company is François Caron, who had spent thirty years working for the Dutch East India Company, including more than twenty years in Japan.

The first state-sponsored French voyage to the Indies had occurred in 1603, a voyage captained by Paulmier de Gonneville of Honfleur.

French king Henry IV had authorized the first Compagnie des Indes Orientales, granting the firm a fifteen-year monopoly of the Indies trade.

This precursor to Colbert's later Compagnie des Indes Orientales, however, was not a joint-stock corporation, and was funded by the Crown.

The initial capital of the revamped Compagnie des Indes Orientales is fifteen million livres, divided into shares of one thousand livres apiece.

Louis XIV funds the first three million livres of investment, against which losses in the first ten years are to be charged.

The initial stock offering quickly sells out, as courtiers of Louis XIV recognize that it is in their interests to support the King’s overseas initiative.

The Compagnie des Indes Orientales is granted a fifty-year monopoly on French trade in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, a region stretching from the Cape of Good Hope to the Straits of Magellan.

The French monarch also grants the Company a concession in perpetuity for the island of Madagascar, as well as any other territories it can conquer.

Molière's friendship with Jean-Baptiste Lully influences him towards writing his Le Mariage forcé and La Princesse d'Élide (subtitled as Comédie galante mêlée de musique et d'entrées de ballet), written for royal "divertissements" at Versailles.

Tartuffe, ou L'Imposteur is also performed at Versailles, in 1664, and creates the greatest scandal of Molière's artistic career.

Its depiction of the hypocrisy of the dominant classes is taken as an outrage and violently contested.

It also arouses the wrath of the Jansenists and the play is banned.

Wiltwijck is one of three large Hudson River settlements in New Netherland, the other two being Beverwyck, now Albany; and New Amsterdam, now New York City.

With the English seizure of New Netherland in 1664, relations between the Dutch settlers and the English soldiers garrisoned here are often strained.

The prosperity of Surat, at this time the primary port of India and a key Mughal power center, had received a fatal blow with the cession of Bombay to England as part of the dowry of Catherine of Braganza.

The city had been made the seat of a presidency under the British East India Company after the success of the embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to the court of emperor Jehangir.

The Dutch had also founded a factory.

Now at its zenith, Surat, generating a million rupees in annual tax revenues, is popularly viewed as the city of Kubera, the God of Wealth.

The Maratha King Shivaji in 1664, draws up before the the wealthy port town, demanding tribute from the Mughal commander of the army stationed for port security.

The tribute is refused by the commander, who then fails in an attempt to have Shivaji assassinated.

Shivaji conquers the city and his forces sack Surat for nearly three weeks, looting both the Mughal and Portuguese trading centers.

The poor are spared, however, and no men or women molested or taken as slaves.

Colonel Sir Thomas Modyford, the son of a mayor of Exeter with family connections to the Duke of Albemarle, had emigrated to Barbados as a young man with other family members in 1647, in the opening stages of the English Civil War.

He had one thousand o for a down payment on a plantation and six thousand pounds to commit in the next three years.

Modyford soon was dominant in Barbados island politics, rising to be speaker of the house of assembly in Barbados.

Having negotiated with the Commissioners of the Commonwealth to be acting governor of Barbados, he had assumed this office in July 1660, which had put him in an awkward position with the Restoration of the English monarchy, and served only a month before being replaced as acting governor by Humphrey Walrond.

Modyford had then become a factor for the newly organized Company of Royal Adventurers, who have a monopoly in the slave trade to the islands under their new name, the Royal African Company.

He is appointed Governor of Jamaica, by commission dated February 15, 1664.