Multiple historical documents confirm that Japan had established sovereignty over Takeshima at least by the mid-17th century.

ECONOMIST: Letters

In the mid-17th century, English law ruled that any European wines shipped to the colonies had to go via British ports.

WSJ: Will Lyons on Wine: Have Some Madeira, M��Dear

Invented by a Dutch doctor, Franciscus de la Boe, in the mid-17th century, gin (originally called genever) was made by redistilling pure malt spirits with juniper berries.

FORBES: When gin was in

It maybe a little more than 20 years since the end of apartheid opened up the wine industry to the wider world but vines have been tended in this corner of the globe since the mid-17th century.

WSJ: Will Lyons on Wine: Wonders of the Western Cape

In it he reminds us that, between the mid-17th century and World War I, French was the universal language of diplomacy, culture and fashion and that an ability to read and speak it was essential to anyone claiming to be educated.

FORBES: Current Events

All of which, of course, is exactly what has come to be expected of the Hamptons, a broad term applied to the preppy towns, villages and hamlets at the East End of Long Island, originally settled by the Montaukett tribe of Native Americans, then seized by English colonists in the mid-17th century.

BBC: Escape from New York

In the early- to mid-17th Century, both the Dutch and the Spanish had presences on Taiwan.

FORBES: Swift's Psalmanazar: When 'Titillating' Means More Than 'True'

Although the space contains pieces of his own, he has mixed these with mid-century Danish furniture and some 17th- and 18th-century antiques.

WSJ: Herve Van Der Straeten's Design World | Designer