LYCOS RETRIEVER 
17Th Century: North America
built 290 days ago
Boston Globe, 7/26/99 p.C2 -- Recently, an astronomer at the Lick Observatory in California found in the institution's library a horoscope cast by the 17th-century astronomer Johannes Kepler for an Austrian nobleman, Hans Hannibal Huetter von Huetterhofen. The document had been purchased in Russia in 1886 by the first director of the Lick Observatory and had lain forgotten for a century. Present-day astrologers always drag out poor Kepler in support of their bogus craft. See, they say, even such an eminent scientist as Kepler was a believer. Kepler practiced astrology only as a matter of financial necessity. His heart certainly wasn't in it. He wrote: "A mind accustomed to mathematical deduction, when confronted with the faulty foundations [of astrology], resists a long, long time, like an obstinate mule, until compelled by beating and curses to put its foot into that dirty puddle." Kepler's distrust of the "dirty puddle" hasn't rubbed off on Americans.
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The mainly 19th century village restoration ... includes three 17th century houses. The Britton Cottage, built around 1670 and added to throughout the 18th century, a stone and clapboard farmhouse, is considered an outstanding example of the Dutch vernacular architecture of Staten Island. The Voorlezer’s House, built around the same time, is a small frame building that served as the first schoolhouse in America. The Treasure House was built in the late 1690s. It is a simple clapboard structure in which a hidden treasure of British coins was found hidden in the walls in 1860.
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By the time the 17th century began, the Ottoman empire had reached its high point, and was slowly beginning to decline. Armies from the Austrian empire to the west and the Russian empire to the northeast harried the edges of the Ottoman borders, in their own attempts to acquire power and territory. In the latter half of the 17th century, the Ottomans began to lose ground.
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Founded in the 17th century by Jesuit priests, the town of Itacare in southern Bahia state, in northeastern Brazil, has unique geological characteristics. The coastal strip has extremely fertile soil and rocky cliffs, which means that the Atlantic Forest reaches right to the sea. In 1993, the Brazilian government established an environmental protection area in Itacare to encourage the planned development of the municipality, and this transformed it into one of the most sought-after ecotourism destinations in the country.
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Stephen Greenblatt, the Cogan University Professor and one of the world’s leading Shakespeare scholars, is planning a course that will trace a series of ocean routes that acquired particular importance during the 17th century, uniting Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Greenblatt believes this emphasis on global exchange has particular relevance for today’s world.
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At the dawn of the 17th century, the Middle East and North Africa were divided between two major empires. To the east, in central Asia, lay the Safavid empire of Persia. To the west and north lay the Ottoman empire of Turkey.
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