Autumn – Probable completion of the Exeter Canal, the first in England, and with the first use of a pound lock in England (engineer: John Trew of Glamorgan).[1][2]
December 29 – Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, while studying at the University of Rostock in Mecklenburg, loses part of his nose in a duel with fellow nobleman and relation Manderup Parsberg over a mathematical formula.[3][4]