March 22 - In the Jamestown massacre, Algonquian Native Americans kill 347 English settlers around Jamestown, Virginia (1/3 of the colony's population) and destroys the Henricus settlement.
May 13 — the Eendracht, DutchVOC sailing ship and the second recorded European ship to make landfall on Australian soil, is wrecked off the western coast of Ambon Island, Dutch East Indies.
Étienne Brûlé is the first European to see Lake Superior.
Portugal loses control of the island of Ormus, after 107 years.
Spanish galleon Nuestra Señora de Atocha sinks off the Florida Keys, while carrying copper, silver, gold, tobacco, and indigo. (Wreck discovered 1985).