* 1644 – Louise de La Vallière, French mistress of Louis XIV of France ( d. 1710 )

* 1579 – Luis Vélez de Guevara, Spanish writer ( d. 1644 )

* 1644 – Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, Bohemian composer ( d. 1704 )

* Alfonso III d ' Este, Duke of Modena and Reggio ( 1628 – 1644 )

* 1644 – The Chongzhen Emperor, the last Emperor of Ming Dynasty China, commits suicide during a peasant rebellion led by Li Zicheng.

* 1644 – François de Neufville, duc de Villeroi, French soldier ( d. 1730 )

François de Neufville, Duke of Villeroi, Marshal of France, ( 1644 – 1730 ) by Alexandre-François Caminade.

* Nicolas-Hugues Ménard ( 158 – 1644 )

The Pian Breviary was again altered by Sixtus V in 1588, who introduced the revised Vulgate, in 1602 by Clement VIII ( through Baronius and Bellarmine ), especially as concerns the rubrics ; and by Urban VIII ( 1623 – 1644 ), a purist who altered the text of certain hymns.

The Qing Dynasty ( 1644 – 1911 ) was the last imperial dynasty in China.

7: The Ming Dynasty, 1368 – 1644, Part 1.

7, part 1: The Ming Dynasty, 1368 – 1644 ( 1988 ).

8: The Ming Dynasty, 1368 – 1644, Part 1.

8: The Ming Dynasty, 1368 – 1644, Part 2.

* 1709 – Abraham a Sancta Clara, Austrian preacher ( b. 1644 )

* 1644 – Jan Baptist van Helmont, Flemish chemist ( b. 1577 )

* Sir John Gordon, 1st Baronet ( 1610 – 1644 )

* 1644 – Abel Tasman's second Pacific voyage began.

* 1611 – Chongzhen Emperor, Emperor of China ( d. 1644 )

Despite the arguably greater architectural inventiveness of Borromini and Cortona, Bernini's artistic pre-eminence, particularly during the reigns of popes Urban VIII ( 1623 – 1644 ) and Alexander VII ( 1655 – 1665 ), meant he was able to secure the most important commission in the Rome of his day, St. Peter's Basilica.

George Gordon, 1st Earl of Aberdeen ( 6 October 1637 – 20 April 1720 ), Lord Chancellor of Scotland, was the second son of Sir John Gordon, 1st Baronet, of Haddo, Aberdeenshire, ( executed in 1644 ); by his wife, Mary Forbes.

Inoculation was reportedly not widely practised in China until the reign of the Longqing Emperor ( r. 1567 – 1572 ) during the Ming Dynasty ( 1368 – 1644 ), as written by Yu Tianchi in his Shadou jijie ( 痧痘集解 ) of 1727, which he alleges was based on Wang Zhangren's Douzhen jinjing lu ( 痘疹金鏡錄 ) of 1579.

Robert Temple quotes an account from Zhang Yan's Zhongdou xinshu ( 種痘新書 ), or New book on smallpox inoculation, written in 1741 during the Qing Dynasty ( 1644 – 1912 ), which shows how the Chinese process had become refined up until that point:

Smoking of opium came on the heels of tobacco smoking and may have been encouraged by a brief ban on the smoking of tobacco by the Ming emperor, ending in 1644 with the Qing dynasty, which had encouraged smokers to mix in increasing amounts of opium.

China's Cultural Heritage: The Qing Dynasty, 1644 – 1912, Westview Press, 1994.

The Qing Dynasty ( 1644 – 1912 ), however, much favored Confucian classics over Taoist works.

* The Manchu tribal leader Nurhaci breaks his relations with the Ming Dynasty of China, then under the aloof and growingly negligent Wanli Emperor ; Nurhaci's line later becomes the emperors of the Qing Dynasty which overthrows the short-lived Shun Dynasty in 1644 and the remnants of the Ming throne in 1662.

Although the Ming capital Beijing fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng ( who established the Shun Dynasty, soon replaced by the Manchu-led Qing Dynasty ), regimes loyal to the Ming throne — collectively called the Southern Ming — survived until 1662.

The Wanli Emperor ( ruled in 1572 – 1620 ) made attempts to reestablish Sino-Tibetan relations in the wake of a Mongol-Tibetan alliance initiated in 1578, the latter of which affected the foreign policy of the subsequent Manchu Qing Dynasty ( 1644 – 1912 ) of China in their support for the Dalai Lama of the Yellow Hat sect.

These divisional state bureaus included the personnel administration, finance, rites, military, justice, and public works — an administrative model which would last until the fall of the Qing Dynasty ( 1644 – 1912 ).

Image: Lapis lazuli p1070260. jpg | Carved lapis lazuli mountain scene, from the Chinese Qing Dynasty ( 1644 – 1912 ).

In 1644, after the Ming Dynasty's capital of Beijing was sacked by the peasant rebels, the Jurchens ( now called Manchus ) allied with Ming general Wu Sangui and seized control of Beijing, overthrowing the short-lived Shun Dynasty and establishing Qing Dynasty rule ( 1644 – 1912 ) over all of China.

Dorgon was instrumental in moving Manchu forces into Beijing in 1644, proclaiming the Qing dynasty to be the legitimate successor to the Ming Dynasty.

The scholar Gu Yanwu of the early Qing Dynasty ( 1644 – 1912 ) estimated that the previous Ming Dynasty had to employ 47, 004 full-time laborers recruited by the lijia corvée system in order to maintain the entire canal system.

The Manchus established the Qing Dynasty ( 1644 – 1912 ), and under their leadership the Grand Canal was overseen and maintained just as in earlier times.

While Tibet has formally been a part of China since 1644 as part of the Qing Dynasty, from 1912 to 1950 Tibet was dissolved from China proper as a result of the 1911 Revolution and Japanese occupation during WW2.

The Manchus subsequently invaded Ming China in 1644, bringing it under the control of their newly established Qing Dynasty.

Yet, the Qing Dynasty ( 1644 – 1912 ) did consider the island as part of its territory.

Not until the Qing dynasty ( 1644 – 1911 ) do more finely grained distinctions appear in writing.

For example, various Ming Dynasty princes continued to claim the title after the founding of the Qing Dynasty ( 1644 – 1911 ), and Wu Sangui claimed the title during the Kangxi Emperor's reign.

During the Qing Dynasty ( 1644 – 1911 ), for example, imperial convention dictated that at any given time there should be one Empress, one Huang Guifei, two Guifei, four fei and six pin, plus an unlimited number of other consorts and concubines.

When the Manchu Qing Dynasty came to power in 1644, they abolished the southern counterpart, and Hebei became known as " Zhili ", or simply " Directly Ruled ".

During the Qing Dynasty ( 1644 – 1911 ), Shanxi extended northwards beyond the Great Wall to include parts of Inner Mongolia, including what is now the city of Hohhot, and overlapped with the jurisdiction of the Eight Banners and the Guihua Tümed banner in that area.

The Manchu Qing Dynasty which had conquered China in 1644, soon split Huguang into the modern provinces of Hubei and Hunan in 1664.