- 982-985 The Norseman Eric the Red founds a colony in western Greenland; the settlement lasts until the fourteenth or fifteenth century.
- c. 1000 Leif Ericsson, returning to Greenland from Norway, is driven onto the North American coast, which he explores and tries unsuccessfuly to settle.
- 1555 Abdication of Charles V in favor of his son Philip and brother Ferdinand; Philip II inherits control over the Low Countries
- 1566 Beeldenstorm: Iconoclastic fury. Calvinist destruction of Catholic images begins in Flanders
- 1568 Dutch nobles Egmont and Hoorn beheaded at Brussels; the Dutch revolt against Spain begins
- 1572 Capture of Den Briel, strategic city at the mouth of the Rhine, by Dutch "Sea Beggars"
- 1573 Dutch defeat Spanish fleet at battle of Zuiderzee
- 1574 Relief of Leiden, lifting of the Spanish siege
- 1575 Founding of Leiden University
- 1577-1640 Peter Paul Rubens, Flemish painter
- 1579 Union of Utrecht; mutual defensive pact of seven northern provinces against Spain
- 1579-1584 Willem I, prince of Orange-Nassau, serves as first stadholder
- 1580 Crowns of Spain and Portugal united under Philip II
- 1581 Act of Abjuration: representatives of the United Provinces abjure their oath of allegiance to Philip II at The Hague
- 1584 Willem I, prince of Orange-Nassau, assassinated at his home in Delft
- 1584-1625 Prince Maurits of Orange-Nassau assumes the inherited stadholdership
- 1588 Spanish Armada defeated
- 1599-1641 Anthony van Dyck, Flemish painter
- 1602 United East India Company chartered by the States General of the United Provinces
- 1606-1669 Rembrandt van Rijn, Dutch painter
- 1607 Dutch defeat Spanish fleet at Gibraltar
- 1609 Twelve years' truce with Spain; founding of the bank of Amsterdam; Henry Hudson, in command of the East India Company ship Halve Maen, explores from Delaware Bay to the upper Hudson as far as present-day Albany
- 1614 The name New Netherland first appears in an official document; New Netherland Company licensed by the States General; fur trading post Fort Nassau established on Castle Island, present day Port of Albany
- 1618 Synod of Dordrecht; beginning of Thirty Years' War in Germany
- 1619 Beheading of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, leader of the peace party, at the Hague
- 1621 End of the Twelve years' truce with Spain; chartering of the West India Company [WIC] by the States General
- 1624
- First colonists arrive in New Netherland where they are settled at Fort Orange (Albany), the mouth of the Connecticut River, and on High Island (Burlington Island) in the Delaware River; Cornelis May, as senior skipper, becomes first director of New Netherland
- Birthplace of New York State by de facto transformation of the New Netherland territory into a province by imposing the Republic's legal-political infrastructure with the planting of the first settlers on Governors Island (then named Noten Eylant or, in pidgin English, Nutten Island until 1784); the locus of New York's cultural patrimony of toleration.
- 1625-1647 Prince Frederik Hendrik becomes stadholder upon death of Prince Maurits
- 1625 Publication of De Jure Belli et Pacis, by the Dutch statesman and jurist Hugo Grotius, lays foundation for the science of international lawWillem Verhulst arrives as director of New Netherland
- 1626 Daniel van Crieckenbeeck, commander at Fort Orange, killed while supporting a Mahican war party against the Mohawks; Peter Minuit replaces Verhulst as director; purchases Manhattan Island; moves settlers from Fort Orange, Connecticut, and Delaware to Manhattan
- 1628 Piet Heyn captures Spanish silver fleet for the WIC
- 1629 "Freedoms and Exemptions," establishing the patroonship plan of colonization, approved by the WIC
- 1631 Patroonships of Rensselaerswijck (upper Hudson), Pavonia (Jersey City), Swaenendael (Lewes, Delaware), among others, founded in New Netherland
- 1632 Minuit removed as director of New Netherland, replaced by Bastiaen Jansz Crol; Swaenendael destroyed by Indians
- 1632-1675 Jan Vermeer, Dutch painter
- 1633-1638 Wouter van Twiller, director of New Netherland
- 1638 Peter Minuit hired by Swedish South Company, establishes New Sweden on the Delaware River (Wilimington, Delaware); Minuit lost at sea while returning to Sweden
- 1638-1647 Willem Kieft, director of New Netherland
- 1639 WIC opens fur trade to everyone
- 1642-1654 Johan Printz, governor of New Sweden
- 1643-1645 Kieft's war with the Indians around Manhattan Island
- 1647-1650 Prince Willem II as stadholder
- 1647 Petrus Stuyvesant becomes director general of New Netherland, Curaçao, Bonaire, Aruba, and other dependencies in the Caribbean; WIC ship Princess Amalia lost in Bristol Bay, former Director Kieft and Domine Evardus Bogardus drowned with 82 others
- 1648 Peace of Westphalia, settling Eighty Years' War with Spain; end of Thirty Years' War
- 1649 Swedish relief ship Kattan (The Cat) bound for New Sweden lost off Puerto Rico
- 1650 States General, opposing authority of princes of the house of Orange, assume control over Dutch general policy; Hartford Treaty, settling boundary dispute between New Netherland and New England
- 1651 Stuyvesant abandons Fort Nassau (Gloucester, New Jersey); replaces it with Fort Casimir (New Castle, Delaware) below Swedish Fort Christina
- 1652-1654 First Anglo-Dutch War
- 1653 Construction of defensive wall across Manhattan Island (Wall Street) after threat of invasion from New England
- 1654 Swedes under new governor, Johan Rising, capture the Dutch post Fort Casimir on Trinity Sunday, rename it Fort Trefaltighet (Fort Trinity)
- 1655 Stuyvesant conquers New Sweden in the Delaware Valley; Indians around Manhattan attack New Amsterdam, Pavonia, and Staten Island in a conflict called the Peach War.
- 1656 Baruch Spinoza, Dutch philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish parentage, exponent of pantheism, is excommunicated from the synagogue
- 1658-1663 Esopus Indian War in New Netherland
- 1664 English naval force funded by the duke of York and Albany captures New Netherland in a surprise attack during peace time
- 1665-1667 Second Anglo-Dutch War
- 1665 Admiral Michiel Adriaansz de Ruyter retakes most of the WIC trading posts lost previous year to English in Africa; De Ruyter's plans to retake New Netherland aborted
- 1667 Admiral Abraham Crijnsen retakes former Dutch colonies in the Guianas (Wild Coast of South America) seized by the English
- 1672-1674 Third Anglo-Dutch War
- 1673 New York captured by Dutch naval force; New Netherland restored as a Dutch colony
- 1674 New Netherland becomes New York again as a result of the peace of Westminster
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