Events January–March January 2 – A shoemaker in Turin is found to have the first case of bubonic plague there as the plague of 1630 begins spreading through Italy. January 5 – A team of Portuguese military advisers to China's Ming dynasty government arrive at Zhuozhou. Led by Gonçalo Teixeira Corrêa, and accompanied by interpreter João Rodrigues, the group begins training the troops of Governor Sun Yuanhua in using modern cannons. January 11 – Otto III and his brother William Augustus, both, Dukes of Brunswick-Harburg, sell their rights to inherit rule of Brunswick-Lüneburg to Prince Christian for in return of his payment of their debts of more than 150,000 thaler. January 13 – In China, General Yuan Chonghuan is invited to an audience with the Chongzhen Emperor and is arrested on charges of collusion with the enemy. Yuan is executed by the slow death on September 22. January 18 – Nicolò Contarini is elected as the new Doge of the Republic of Venice and spends most of his time fighting a bubonic plague epidemic, but dies in office on April 2, 1631. February 22 – Native American Quadequine introduces popcorn to English colonists.* March 3 – A fleet sent by the Dutch West India Company captures Recife from the Portuguese, establishing Dutch Brazil. March 9 – The 1630 Crete earthquake occurs. March – Fedorovych Uprising: Zaporozhian Cossacks rebel against the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and occupy a large part of modern-day Ukraine. After a number of indecisive skirmishes with a Polish army sent to pacify the region, the Treaty of Pereyaslav is signed, ending the uprising. April–June April 8 – Puritan migration to New England (1620-1640): Winthrop Fleet – The ship Arbella and three others set sail from the Solent in England, with 400 passengers under the leadership of John Winthrop, headed for the Massachusetts Bay Colony in America; seven more, with another 300 aboard, follow in the next few weeks. May 4 – In an invasion of Persia, Ottoman Empire Grand Vizier Gazi Hüsrev Pasha routs the Persians in a battle at Mahidasht near Kermanshah. May 17 – The first case of plague is reported in Milan. By the end of 1631, the city of 250,000 suffers 186,000 deaths, losing almost three-quarters of its population to plague. Italian astronomers Niccolò Zucchi and Daniello Bartoli become the first scienists to observe the belts on the planet Jupiter. May 20 – The Swedish