The 1660s: fire, plague and Newton's great years

The decade was a turning point for science. The Royal Society was founded in London in 1660, and in 1666 the French Academy of Sciences began meeting in Paris. Both encouraged scientists to test ideas through experiments and share results.

Isaac Newton, then in his early twenties, spent 1665 and 1666 at his family home in Lincolnshire while Cambridge University was closed by plague. There he worked out early versions of calculus, experimented with light and colour, and began thinking about gravity. These became known as his 'miracle years'.

London faced two disasters. The Great Plague of 1665 killed around a fifth of the city's people. Then, in September 1666, the Great Fire of London burned for four days and destroyed more than 13,000 houses and St Paul's Cathedral. The city was rebuilt with wider streets and buildings of brick and stone.

In France, Louis XIV began his personal rule in 1661 and started expanding a hunting lodge at Versailles into one of the world's grandest palaces. Across the Atlantic, the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam passed to England in 1664 and was renamed New York.