* 1678 – Robert LaSalle builds the Le Griffon, the first known ship built on the Great Lakes.

Historically, this proceeded from the labours of Jean de Launoy ( 1603 – 1678 ), " le dénicheur des saints ", and Louis Sébastien le Nain de Tillemont, who had shown the falsity of numerous lives of the saints ; while theologically it was produced by the Port Royal school, which led men to dwell more on communion with God as contrasted with the invocation of the saints.

* Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna Viceroy of Aragon, 1678 – 1681, in Spain.

* 1678 – Horatio Walpole, 1st Baron Walpole of Wolterton, English diplomat ( d. 1757 )

* 1678 – William Croft, English composer ( d. 1727 )

* 1678 – Daniel Neal, English historian ( d. 1743 )

* 1678 – Yongzheng Emperor of China ( d. 1735 )

Louis XIV of France conquered parts of Alsace and Lorraine ( 1678 – 1681 ), and had invaded and devastated the Electorate of the Palatinate ( 1688 – 1697 ) in the War of Palatinian Succession.

Peace was fragile, and war broke out again between France and the Dutch Republic in the Franco-Dutch War ( 1672 – 1678 ).

* 1736 – Filippo Juvarra, Italian architect ( b. 1678 )

* 1678 – Venetian Elena Cornaro Piscopia is the first woman awarded a doctorate of philosophy when she graduates from the University of Padua.

* 1678 – Nicola Francesco Haym, Italian composer and musician ( d. 1729 )

* 1678 – Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor ( d. 1711 )

* 1621 – Andrew Marvell, English poet ( d. 1678 )

Other notable violinists included Antonio Vivaldi ( 1678 – 1741 ) and Giuseppe Tartini ( 1692 – 1770 ), who, in their compositions, reflected the increasing technical and musical demands on the violinist.

* 1678 – John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll, Scottish soldier ( d. 1743 )

After consultation with both canon lawyers and theologians in France and Germany, Dominique Marie Varlet ( 1678 – 1742 ), a Roman Catholic Bishop of the French Oratorian Society of Foreign Missions, ordained Bishop Steenoven.

Political parties first appeared during the Exclusion Crisis of 1678 – 1681.

An uprising by soldiers and planters in 1684 during the governorship of John Blackmore ( 1678 – 1689 ) led to the death of three mutineers in an attack on Fort James and the later execution of four others.

* 1678 – Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, English philosopher and politician ( d. 1751 )

* 1642 – Giovanni Maria Bononcini, Italian violinist and composer ( d. 1678 )

* 1601 – Jan Brueghel the Younger, Flemish painter ( d. 1678 )

** Jerónimo Lobo, Portuguese Jesuit missionary ( d. 1678 )

Jerónimo Lobo ( 1593-29 January, 1678 ) was a Portuguese Jesuit missionary.

When the Portuguese arrived in India at Kozhikode ( Calicut ) on the Malabar Coast ( Kerala ) in 1498, the Malayalam name chakka was recorded by Hendrik van Rheede ( 1678 – 1703 ) in the Hortus Malabaricus, vol.

In 1678 Zumba accepted a peace treaty offered by the Portuguese Governor of Pernambuco, which required that the Palmarinos relocate to Cucaú Valley.

Oates claimed he had been at a Jesuit meeting held at the White Horse Tavern in the Strand, London on April 24, 1678.

* In addition to his magnum opus, the Istoria della Compagnia di Gesu for which he wrote 6 volumes, as Jesuit historiographer Bartoli produced 5 Jesuit Lives: Vincenzo Caraffa 1651, Robert Bellarmine 1678, Stanislas Kostka 1678, Francis Borgia 1681, and his science teacher Niccolo Zucchi 1682

Boscobel featured prominently in the Popish Plot: the informer Stephen Dugdale accused the guests who witnessed the Jesuit John Gavan taking his final vows there in 1678 of plotting treason, and several of them, including Gavan himself, were executed or imprisoned.

The memorial is located in Straits State Park near St. Ignace in the modern-day U. S. state of Michigan, where he founded a Jesuit mission in 1671 and was buried in 1678.

The English botanist and missionary John Banister collected Magnolia virginiana in 1678 and sent it to England, where it flowered for Bishop Henry Compton.

On 18 November 1678 René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle departed Fort Frontenac for Niagara in a brigantine with a crew including La Motte and the Récollet missionary Louis Hennepin, following the north shore of Lake Ontario to mitigate the effects of a storm.

* April 4 – Daniel Neal, English historian ( b. 1678 )

* October 4 – John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll, Scottish soldier ( b. 1678 )

* June 10 – Thomas Hearne, British antiquarian ( b. 1678 )

* October 8 – Yongzheng Emperor of China ( b. 1678 )

* August 9 – Simon Ockley, English orientalist ( b. 1678 )

* April 17 – Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor ( b. 1678 )

* February 20 – Jean Jacques d ' Ortous de Mairan, French geophysicist ( b. 1678 )

* June 24 – Adrien-Maurice, 3rd duc de Noailles, French soldier ( b. 1678 )

* April 19 – Peter Lacy, Irish-born Russian Field marshal ( b. 1678 )

* December 12 – Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, English statesman and philosopher ( b. 1678 )

* August 13 – John Cruger, Dutch-born Mayor of New York ( b. 1678 )

* January 31 – Filippo Juvara, Italian architect ( b. 1678 )

* August 14 – William Croft, English composer ( b. 1678 )

* January 8 – Thomas Aikenhead ( hanged ) ( b. c. 1678 )

* March 8 – Abraham Darby I, first of that name of three generations of an English Quaker family that was key to the development of the Industrial Revolution ( b. 1678 )

His works included the poem Annus Mirabilis ( 1667 ) and the tragedy All For Love ( 1678 ) ( b. 1631 )

* August 8: Madeleine de Verchères, daughter of a François Jarret, a seigneur in New France, and Marie Perrot ( b. 1678 )

* Johann Michael Doser ( b. 1678 in Degelsdorf – 1756 ) was an artist, mainly in the fields of wood carvings und sculptures for altars