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.

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.

Diego Osorio de Escobar y Llamas, who has held the offices of canon, inquisitor and vicar-general in the diocese of Toledo, is a member of the secular clergy, but a friend of the Jesuits; he had been chosen bishop of Puebla on the recommendation of Cardinal Moscoso, taking up the position in 1656, in which he will remain until his death in 1673.

There he builds the convent of La Santísima Trinidad, hastens the construction of the cathedral, and pays for the chapel and altar of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe.

He was in 1663 named archbishop of Mexico City, but he declined the office in order to remain in Puebla (although he does administer the diocese for a few months until the arrival of the new archbishop, Alonso de Cuevas Dávalos).

Spain is still at war with England when Osorio, apparently accepting the position with reluctance, is named to replace Viceroy Juan de Leyva de la Cerda, who has been ordered back to Spain because of corruption.

During his brief administration, Osorio sends thirty thousand pesos to Cuba for the repair of the Castle of Santiago and the rebuilding of the city,  destroyed in 1662 by the English under Christopher Myngs.

He also founds a gunpowder factory and sends some of the production to Cuba.

He takes steps to see that the Armada de Barlovento (coast guard) is prepared for an attack on the Gulf coast of New Spain.

He advances money for the fortification of Campeche.

He reforms the postal service, which was very bad before his administration and much more efficient after his reforms.

He also reforms the marketing of mercury and intervenes in a dispute between the Franciscans and the governor of Yucatán.

Osorio serves as viceroy for less than four months, from June to October 1664.

A stranger to profane affairs, he resigns as viceroy at the first opportunity in order to return to his diocese in Puebla.

Afterward experiencing difficulties with his successor, Antonio Sebastián de Toledo, the bishop goes into seclusion in the town of Tlatlauquitepec.

Toledo, born in Spain, had grown up in Peru, where his father, Pedro de Toledo, 1st Marquis of Mancera, was viceroy from 1639 to 1648.

As a young adult, he joined the colonial navy and commanded squads against Dutch pirates.

Retuning to Spain with his father in 1648, he was subsequently majordomo of the royal palace, then ambassador in Venice and Germany.

On December 30, 1663, King Philip IV of Spain had named him viceroy of New Spain, although the Council of the Indies had initially rejected him on grounds of his poor health.

Arriving in Chapultepec, the Marquis had remained there some days before making his formal entry into Mexico City.

While in Chapultepec, he gave orders that no celebration was to accompany his arrival, because the treasury of the colony has been exhausted by remittances to Spain and the war against the English.

However he also ordered that the 16,000 pesos intended for the celebration be used for a filigreed golden box to be sent as a present to the king.

He enters Mexico City October 15, 1664, and takes up his office.

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.