Alexander VII's pontificate has been shadowed by…

The tension between the two Yellow Banners factions and Suksaha in the first years of the regency of Kangxi has been kept in check by an even handed Sonin; the four ministers have managed to maintain a relatively peaceful and efficient working relationship.

Sonin's health begins to deteriorate due to old age, and the dynamics of the regency began to shift as Sonin gradually takes more time off on sabbatical.

Oboi monopolizes decision making by dominating the indecisive Ebilun and works to sideline Suksaha during policy discussions especially on issues concerning the welfare of the Manchu Banners.

Sonin, realizing his days are numbered, attempts in 1667 to restore some balance to the regency and to neutralize Oboi's rapidly expanding power clique, by petitioning a request that the fourteen year old Emperor Kangxi assume personal rule ahead of schedule.

Thus, soon after his granddaughter Heseri is made the Empress Xiao Cheng Ren, leaving Suksaha at odds with Oboi politically, Emperor Kangxi formerly takes over the reins of power in a ceremony on August 25, a month after Sonin's death.

This is followed by an official decree technically downgrading the three remaining ministers to the status of "advisers" while still remaining at their posts.

Even with the formal authority of office, however, the young Emperor finds it difficult to curb the growing power of Oboi.

Oboi and his ally Banbursan, in a fierce power struggle, produce a list of twenty-four crimes allegedly committed by Suksaha and compels the young emperor to execute Suksaha and his family.

Oboi controls Ebilun completely and soon establishes a system of near absolute rule unto himself.

The situation in Ukraine is further complicated by the Ottoman Empire, which tries to gain control of the disputed region and plays all factions against each other.

The Commonwealth is meanwhile weakened by the rokosz of Jerzy Lubomirski.

The Russian Orthodox church council, condemning the Old Believers, exiles Avvakum once again, this time to the White Sea port of Pustozersk.

Lubomirski’s rebellion ends with the Agreement of Łęgonice, which forces the King to give up his planned reforms and the introduction of vivente-rege free elections.

Vivente Rege (Latin: "during the previous king's life" is a form of king's election, where the king's successor, usually of the same dynasty, is elected before the old king died: it has long been an important element of politics in Poland during the times of the free election of kings, when monarchs would attempt to push through the election of their heir, and Polish nobility (szlachta) would oppose it, on the grounds that it would lead to absolute monarchy.)

Lubomirski himself, now a broken man, dies soon after.

All but Sabbatai’s most faithful or self-seeking disciples are disillusioned by his apostasy.

Even so, Sabbatai's movement, which becomes known as Sabbateanism, spreads to Venice, Hamburg, London, Amsterdam, and other cities in Europe and North Africa.

Very little is known about Vermeer and his works.

One of his most famous masterpieces, Girl with a Pearl Earring—which, as the name implies, uses a pearl earring for a focal point—is signed "IVMeer" but not dated.

It is sometimes referred to as "the Mona Lisa of the North" or "the Dutch Mona Lisa".

It is unclear whether this work had been commissioned, and if so, by whom.

In any case, it is probably not meant as a conventional portrait.

More recent Vermeer literature points to the image being a tronie, the Dutch seventeenth-century description of a ’head’ that was not meant to be a portrait.

After the most recent restoration of the painting in 1994 the subtle color scheme and the intimacy of the girl’s gaze on to the spectator have been greatly enhanced.

Pratt's most influential building is Clarendon House, constructed between 1664 and 1667 for the Lord Chancellor, Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon.

Located on Piccadilly in the City of Westminster, the house is short-lived, and records are limited.

Engravings show a pedimented house similar to Horseheath, but with short wings at each end.

Clarendon represents the most developed form of Pratt's ideal, and is, according to architectural historian John Summerson, "among the first great classical houses to be built in London".

It is widely praised, and is to become widely imitated, for example at Belton House in Lancashire.

Nicholas Perrot, having come as a young man to New France around 1660 with Jesuits, has had the opportunity to visit native tribes and learn their languages.

Forming a fur trading company around 1667, trading out of Green Bay on Lake Michigan, he undertakes expeditions to various tribes and land in and around present-day Wisconsin.

He is sometimes the first white man seen by the native peoples and is generally well received.

Spanish explorers, seeking a route through the southern Rocky Mountains in 1667, establish the town of Paso del Norte (now known as Ciudad Juárez).

The Mission of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, established by the Jesuits as the first permanent Spanish development in the area, will quickly grow in importance as commerce between Santa Fe and Chihuahua crosses it.

Buccaneers had stopped plundering Spanish logwood ships and started cutting their own wood in the 1650s and 1660s.

Logwood extraction now becomes the main reason for the English settlement for more than a century.

A 1667 treaty, in which the European powers agree to suppress piracy, encourages the shift from buccaneering to cutting logwood and leads to more permanent settlement.