1638

Year 1638 (MDCXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Monday of the 10-day slower Julian calendar.

• February 28 – The Scottish National Covenant is signed in Edinburgh.
• March 3 – A mercenary army under Bernard of Saxe-Weimar fighting for France defeats imperial forces at the Battle of Rheinfelden.
• March 5 – Thirty Years' War – The Treaty of Hamburg is signed by France and Sweden.
• March 29 – Settlers from Sweden arrive on the ships Kalmar Nyckel and Fogel Grip to establish the settlement of New Sweden in Delaware, beginning the Swedish colonization of the Americas.
• March – Anne Hutchinson is banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for heresy and goes to Rhode Island.
• April 3 – John Wheelwright is banished from Boston and founds Exeter, New Hampshire.
• April 15 – Shogunate forces defeat the last remnants of the Shimabara Rebellion in the fortress of Hara.
• May 13 – Construction begins on the Red Fort in Delhi (India) for Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan who is transferring his capital there from Agra.
• May 23 – Signing of the Kandyan Treaty between the Singhala King Rajasimha II and the Dutch to rid Ceylon of the Portuguese.
• June 20 – Spanish troops under Ferdinand of Austria defeat a much larger Dutch force near Antwerp at the Battle of Kallo during the Eighty Years' War.
• June 27 – Patriarch Cyril of Constantinople is deposed for high treason and strangled and thrown into the sea by Janissaries on Ottoman Sultan Murad IV's command.

• September 21 – The Treaty of Hartford is signed, ending the Pequot War between British American colonists and the Pequot.
• September – John Spofford arrives in Boston Harbor on the ship John of London and is one of the first people to establish Rowely, Essex County, Massachusetts.
• October 21 – The Great Thunderstorm breaks out in Widecombe-in-the-Moor, England.
• November – The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland is summoned to Glasgow by King Charles I of England.
• December 18 – Mazarin becomes first adviser to French potentate Richelieu on the death of Leclerc du Tremblay.
• December 21 – The full moon is in total eclipse from 1:12 to 2:47 UT and the solstice occurs later in the day at 16:05 UT.

• Scottish Covenanters meet at Muchalls Castle to compose responses to the Bishops of Aberdeen.
• Pedro Teixeira makes the first ascent of the Amazon River, from its mouth to Quito, Ecuador. The same trip had been made in the opposite direction in 1541.
• Dutch merchant Willem Kieft is appointed Director of New Amsterdam by the Dutch West India Company.
• The Netherlands colonizes Mauritius.
• The Dutch settle in Ceylon.
• The Finnish postal service, Suomen Posti, is founded.
• New Haven, the first planned city in America, is founded.
• Sultan Murad IV captures Baghdad.
• Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan and his sons capture the city of Kandahar from the Safavids.
• Shipwrecked English buccaneer Peter Wallace called "Ballis" by the Spanish, settles near and perhaps gives his name to the Belize River, the first known European settlement in Belize.
• The Beijing Gazette makes an official switch in its production process of newspapers, from woodblock printing to movable type printing; private newspapers in Ming dynasty China were first mentioned in 1582.

• January 1
  • Emperor Go-Sai (d. 1685)
  • Nicolas Steno, Pioneer in anatomy and geology, bishop (d. 1686)
  • Antoinette du Ligier de la Garde Deshoulières, French poet born in Paris (d. 1694)
• January 8 – Elisabetta Sirani, Italian painter (d. 1665)
• January 12 – Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg, Austrian field marshal (d. 1701)
• January 20 – Sir William Glynne, 1st Baronet, English politician (d. 1690)
• January 21 – David Elias Heidenreich, Poet, dramatist, librettist and translator (d. 1688)
• January 24 – Charles Sackville, 6th Earl of Dorset, English poet and courtier (d. 1706)
• February 12 – Frederick, Duke of Mecklenburg-Grabow, German nobleman (d. 1688)
• February 18 – Ikeda Tsunamasa, daimyo who ruled the Okayama Domain (d. 1714)
• February 25 – Jørgen Iversen Dyppel, Governor of the Danish West Indies (d. 1683)
• February 28 – John Carmichael, 1st Earl of Hyndford (d. 1710)
• March 6 – Henry Capell, 1st Baron Capell of Tewkesbury, English politician (d. 1696)
• March 14 – Johann Georg Gichtel, German mystic (d. 1710)
• March 15 – Shunzhi Emperor of China (d. c. 1661)
• March 16 – François Crépieul, Jesuit missionary in Canada (d. 1702)
• March 28 – Frederik Ruysch, Dutch physician and anatomist (d. 1731)
• April 2
  • Sir Henry Beaumont, 2nd Baronet, English politician (d. 1689)
  • John Covel, clergyman and scientist who became Master of Christ's College (d. 1722)
• May 6 – Henry Capell, 1st Baron Capell of Tewkesbury, First Lord of the British Admiralty (d. 1696)
• May 9 – Gregorio Vasquez de Arce y Ceballos, Colombian painter (d. 1711)
• May 11 – Guy-Crescent Fagon, physician and botanist (d. 1718)
• May 12 – Pedro Atanasio Bocanegra, Spanish artist (d. 1688)
• May 13 – Richard Simon, French Biblical critic (d. 1712)
• May 29 – John Manners, 1st Duke of Rutland, British nobleman and politician (d. 1711)
• June 2 – Henry Hyde, 2nd Earl of Clarendon (d. 1709)
• June 3 – Thomas Smith (scholar), English scholar (d. 1710)
• June 8 – Pierre Magnol (d. 1715)
• June 21 – Sir William Roberts, 1st Baronet, English politician (d. 1688)
• June 28 – Louise Marie de La Grange d'Arquien (d. 1728)
• June 29 – Heinrich Meibom (doctor), German physicist and scholar (d. 1700)
• July 10 – David Teniers III, Flemish painter (d. 1685)
• July 11 – Olympia Mancini (d. 1708)
• July 15 – Giovanni Buonaventura Viviani, Italian composer (d. 1693)
• July 20 – Ulrik Frederik Gyldenløve, General in Norway during the Scanian War (d. 1704)
• August 3 – William Louis, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen (d. 1665)
• August 6 – Nicolas Malebranche, French philosopher (d. 1715)
• August 7 – John Tufton, 4th Earl of Thanet, English politician (d. 1680)
• August 13 – Durgadas Rathore (d. 1718)
• August 15 – Pieter de Graeff, Dutch politician and noble (d. 1707)
• August 22 – Georg Christoph Eimmart, engraver (d. 1705)
• September 5 – King Louis XIV of France (d. 1715)
• September 10 – Maria Theresa of Spain, wife of Louis XIV of France (d. 1683)
• September 19 – Isaac Milles, English cleric (d. 1720)
• September 20 – Antonio Gherardi, Italian painter (d. 1702)
• September 21 – Philippe de Courcillon, French officer and author (d. 1720)
• September 30 – Maximilian Philipp Hieronymus, Duke of Bavaria-Leuchtenberg, German nobleman (d. 1705)
• October 14 – Bernhard II, Duke of Saxe-Jena (d. 1678)
• October 17 – John Charles, Count Palatine of Gelnhausen (d. 1704)
• October 21 – Lucia Wijbrants, Dutch artist (d. 1719)
• October 31 – Meindert Hobbema, Dutch painter (d. 1709)
• November 8 – Anton van Dale, Dutch minister (d. 1708)
• November 22 – Christoph Cellarius, German classical scholar (d. 1707)
• November 25 – Catherine of Braganza, wife of Charles II of England (d. 1705)
• November 30 – Joachim Feller, German professor at the University of Leipzig (d. 1691)
• December 17 – Anna Sophia II, Abbess of Quedlinburg, German noblewoman (d. 1683)
• December 24 – Tomás de la Cerda, 3rd Marquis of la Laguna (d. 1692)
• December 25 – Michel Bégon (1638–1710), French ancien regime official (d. 1710)

• January 21 – Ignazio Donati, Italian composer (b. c. 1570)
• January 27 – Gonzalo de Céspedes y Meneses, Spanish novelist (b. c. 1585)
• February 26 – Claude Gaspard Bachet de Méziriac, French mathematician (b. 1581)
• April 7 – Shimazu Tadatsune, Japanese ruler of Satsuma (b. 1576)
• April 13 – Henri, Duke of Rohan, French Huguenot leader (b. 1579)
• May 6 – Cornelius Jansen, French bishop and religious reformer (b. 1585)
• June 25 – Juan Pérez de Montalbán, Spanish writer (b. 1602)
• September - Christoph Besold, German jurist (b. 1577)
• September 14 – John Harvard, American clergyman (b. 1607)
• November 9 – Johann Heinrich Alsted, German theologian (b. 1588)
• November 11 – Cornelis Corneliszoon van Haarlem, Dutch painter (b. 1562)
• December 8 – Ivan Gundulić, Croatian poet (b. 1589)
• date unknown – Pietro Paolo Floriani, architect (b. 1585)