Things That Happened Around The Year 1640

This is just a list of some things I found interesting about the early 17th century. Particularly around the year 1640, which of course in perspective makes little difference. but imagine if you were alive at that time. I'm certain you'd barely be knowledgable of all these things going on, let alone their cultural significance. Even if you were the one who was responsible for it, like a 32 year old Rembrandt, you probably wouldn't have predicted the massive contribution these opuses have made to humanity.

So the pith of my story is that you should continue creating whatever it is that you create, because even if you see no accolades for it now, the significance of it may one day be realized and you (probably long gone) will have made this parallel of a colossal contribution to humanity or answered some question that no one could previously conceive of even asking.  So there you go, and here you are....

ART: 

Rembrandt painted The Girl in a Picture Frame, Danae, The Night Watch, Boaz and Ruth. (Boaz only being recently identified as a Rembrandt in 2012.)

Rembrandt

POETRY:

John Day's poem The Parliament of Bees was published.

MEDICINE:

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp (Rembrandt)

Dutch surgeon Nicolaes Tulp, published Observationes Medicae in which he describes the migraine, the effects of tobacco smoke on the lungs, and describes the placebo effect. Tulp also discovered the ileocecal valve of the intestines, still known as Tulp's valve. 

The book also includes a page with the first western illustration of a chimpanzee, possibly drawn by Tulp himself.

The most popular plate from Nicolaes Tulp's book 

ARCHITECTURE:

Taj Mahal was being built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal.

MUSIC:

Claudio Monteverdi wrote his opera:  Il ritorno di Ulisse in Patria for the burgeoning Venetian opera industry during the last five years of his life.