300px|thumb|[[May 25: Stuart Restoration: King Charles II lands at Dover and sets foot on English soil in his return from exile]]
thumb|The [[Stuart Restoration begins.]]
Events
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January–March
- January 1
- At daybreak, English Army Colonel George Monck, with two brigades of troops from his Scottish occupational force, fords the River Tweed at Coldstream in Scotland to cross the Anglo-Scottish border at Northumberland, with a mission of advancing toward London to end military rule of England by General John Lambert and to accomplish the English Restoration, the return of the monarchy to England. By the end of the day, he and his soldiers have gone through knee-deep snow to Wooler while the advance guard of cavalry had covered to reach Morpeth.
- At the same time, rebels within the New Model Army under the command of Colonel Thomas Fairfax take control of York and await the arrival of Monck's troops.
- Samuel Pepys, a 36-year-old member of the Parliament of England, begins keeping a diary that later provides a detailed insight into daily life and events in 17th century England. He continues until May 31, 1669, when worsening eyesight leads him to quit. Pepys starts with a preliminary note, "Blessed be God, at the end of the last year I was in very good health, without any sense of my old pain but upon taking of cold. I lived in Axe-yard, having my wife and servant Jane, and no more in family than us three." For his first note on "January 1. 1659/60 Lords-day", he notes "This morning (we lying lately in the garret) I rose, put on my suit with great skirts, having not lately worn any other clothes but them," followed by recounting his attendance at the Exeter-house church in London.
- January 6 – The Rump Parliament passes a resolution requesting Colonel Monck to come to London "as speedily as he could", followed by a resolution of approval on January 12 and a vote of thanks and annual payment of 1,000 pounds sterling for his lifetime on January 16.
- January 11 – Colonel Monck and Colonel Fairfax rendezvous at York and then prepare to proceed southward toward London. gathering deserters from Lambert's army along the way.
- February 13 – Charles XI becomes king of Sweden at the age of five, upon the death of his father, Charles X Gustavus.
- February 26 – The Rump Parliament, under pressure from General Monck, votes to call back all of the surviving members of the group of 231 MPs who had been removed from the House of Commons in 1648 so that the Long Parliament can be reassembled long enough for a full Parliament to approve elections for a new legislative body.
- March 16 – The Long Parliament, after having been reassembled for the first time in more than 11 years, votes for its own dissolution and calls for new elections for what will become the Convention Parliament to make the return from republic to monarchy.
April–June
- April 2 – The Merces baronets, a British nobility title is created.
- April 4 – The Declaration of Breda, signed by Charles Stuart, son of the late King Charles I of England, promises amnesty, freedom of conscience, and army back pay, in return for support for the English Restoration.
- May 14 – The Irish Parliament declares Charles to be King of Ireland.
- May 15 – John Thurloe is arrested for high treason, for his support of Oliver Cromwell's regime.
- May 21 – The Desormeaux caravan and 300 Iroquois die in explosion at Long Sault.
- May 23 – With the way cleared for his return to England, King Charles II ends his exile at the Hague in the Netherlands and departs from Scheveningen harbor on the English ship Naseby, renamed for the occasion HMS Royal Charles , as part of a fleet of English warships brought by Admiral Edward Montagu.
- May 27
- The Treaty of Copenhagen is signed, marking the conclusion of the Second Northern War. Sweden returns Trøndelag to Norway, and Bornholm to Denmark.
- William Morice takes office as the first Secretary of State for the Northern Department in Great Britain, with responsibility for conducting foreign relations with the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Poland, Russia, and the Holy Roman Empire. Relations with France, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, the Italian states, and the Ottoman Empire are assigned to the Secretary of State for the Southern Department. The position will eventually evolve into the office of the Foreign Secretary.
- May 29 – King Charles II of England arrives in London and assumes the throne, marking the beginning of the English Restoration.
- July 24 – The Great Fire of 1660 begins in Constantinople, capital of the Ottoman Empire (now Istanbul in Turkey), and destroys two-thirds of the city over two consecutive days, consuming 280,000 buildings and killing 40,000 people.
- July – Richard Cromwell, the last Lord Protector of England during its years as a republic, leaves the British Isles quietly and goes into exile in France, taking on an alias as "John Clarke".
- August 19 – Dr Edward Stanley preaches a sermon in the nave of Winchester Cathedral, to commemorate the return of the Chapter, following the English Restoration.
- August 29 – The Indemnity and Oblivion Act, officially "An Act of Free and General Pardon, Indemnity, and Oblivion" is given royal assent. as a general pardon for everyone who had committed crimes during the English Civil War and Interregnum (with the exception of certain crimes such as murder, piracy, buggery, rape and witchcraft, and people named in the act such as those involved in the regicide of Charles I). It also said that no action was to be taken against those involved at any later time, and that the Interregnum was to be legally forgotten.
- September 1 – Grigore I Ghica becomes the new Prince of Wallachia (now in Romania)
- September 14 – The 13-day long Battle of Lyubar begins at Liubar (now in Ukraine) during the Russo-Polish War between soldiers of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth against Russia and ends with a victory by Poland.
- September 16 – Juan Francisco Leiva y de la Cerda arrives in Mexico City as the new Viceroy of New Spain.
- September 25 – Samuel Pepys has his first cup of tea (an event recorded in his diary).
- October 13 to October 19 – Ten of the 57 "regicides" who signed the death warrant of Charles I of England in 1649 are executed over a period of one week, mostly at Charing Cross by being hanged, drawn and quartered, a process which includes being disemboweled (in some cases before they have died) and then and burned. The first to die is Thomas Harrison, a leader of the Fifth Monarchists. He is followed by John Carew (October 15); John Cook and Hugh Peter (October 16); (Adrian Scrope, John Moore, Gregory Clement and Thomas Scot) (October 17); and Daniel Axtell and Francis Hacker (October 19).
- November 28 – At Gresham College in London, twelve men, including Christopher Wren, Robert Boyle, John Wilkins, and Sir Robert Moray meet after a lecture by Wren, and decide to found "a College for the Promoting of Physico-Mathematicall Experimentall Learning" (later known as the Royal Society).
- December 8 – The first English actress appears on the professional stage in England in a non-singing role, as Desdemona in Othello at Vere Street Theatre in London, following the reopening of the theatres (various opinions have been advanced that the actress was Margaret Hughes, Anne Marshall or Katherine Corey). Historian Elizabeth Howe notes, however, that both William Davenant and Thomas Killigrew had women in their acting companies before 1660, and that Anne Marshall might be just one of the first rather than the actual first.
- December 15 – Andres Malong, a native chieftain of the town of Binalatongan (now San Carlos) in the Philippines, leads a successful revolt against the Spanish colonial administrators to liberate Pangasinan. He is proclaimed the King of Pangasinan, but the rebellion is suppressed on January 17, 1661,
- December 29 – The Convention Parliament is dissolved by King Charles II and elections are called for what will be called the Cavalier Parliament.