1665

Events

• The first cases of what will be known as the Great Plague of London appear in the city's outskirts. The disease will become more widespread and fatal the following year, after the plague bacteria are genetically augmented by a group of escaped Terileptil criminals. As a precaution against spreading the plague, King Charles II orders the theaters closed, an act which puts actor Richard Mace out of work, forcing him to become a highwayman ("The Visitation").

• Cambridge University closes as a precaution against plague, and one of its students, Isaac Newton, returns to his home at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth. Sometime after this he is sitting under an apple tree from which the Doctor begins lobbing apples onto Isaac's head, hoping to help Isaac discover gravity. Isaac instead tells the Doctor to clear off out of his tree, and the Doctor must instead explain the whole thing to him over dinner ("The Pirate Planet").

1664

17th Century 1660s

1666