1683

January–June

• April 10 - Charles V, Duke of Lorraine is appointed commander of the Imperial Army.
• May 3 - Sultan Mehmed IV enters Belgrade.
• May 24 - The Ashmolean Museum opens in Oxford, as the world's first university museum.
• June 12 - The Rye House Plot to assassinate Charles II of England is discovered.

  July–December

• July 8 - Qing dynasty Chinese admiral Shi Lang leads 300 ships with 20,000 troops out of Tongshan, Fujian, and sails towards the Kingdom of Tungning, in modern-day Taiwan and Penghu, in order to quell the kingdom in the name of Qing.
• July 14 - A 140,000-man Ottoman force arrives at Vienna, and starts to besiege the city.
• July 16-17 - Battle of Penghu: Qing Chinese admiral Shi Lang defeats the naval forces of Zheng Keshuang decisively.
• September 5 - Qing Chinese admiral Shi Lang receives the formal surrender of Zheng Keshuang, ushering in the collapse of the Kingdom of Tungning, which is then incorporated into the Qing Empire.
• September 12 - Battle of Vienna: The Ottoman siege of the city is broken with the arrival of a force of 70,000 Poles, Austrians and Germans under Polish–Lithuanian king Jan III Sobieski, whose cavalry turns their flank.
• October 3 - Shi Lang reaches Taiwan and occupies modern-day Kaohsiung.
• October 6 - Germantown, Philadelphia is founded as the first permanent German settlement in North America.
• October 9 - Louis XIV of France makes a morganatic marriage with Madame de Maintenon in a secret ceremony following the death on July 30 of his queen consort, Maria Theresa of Spain.
• November 1 - The English crown colony of New York is subdivided into 12 counties.
• December - The River Thames in England freezes, allowing a frost fair to be held.

  Date unknown

• Wild boars are hunted to extinction in Britain.

  Births

• January 13 - Christoph Graupner, German composer
• January 29 - Juan de Galavís, Spanish Catholic Archbishop of Santo Domingo, Bogotá
• February 28 - René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur, French scientist
• March 1 - Caroline of Ansbach, British queen and regent, wife of George II of Great Britain
• April 3 - Mark Catesby, English naturalist
• June 23 - Étienne Fourmont, French orientalist
• September 7 - Maria Anna of Austria, Archduchess of Austria and queen consort of Portugal
• September 11 - Farrukhsiyar, Mughal Emperor
• September 25 - Jean-Philippe Rameau, French composer
• October 17 - Aixin-Jueluo Yuntang, born Aixin-Jueluo Yintang, Qing prince
• October 25 - Charles FitzRoy, 2nd Duke of Grafton, British politician
• November 10 - King George II of Great Britain
• November 30 - Ludwig Andreas von Khevenhüller, Austrian field marshal
• December 19 - King Philip V of Spain
• December 27 - Conyers Middleton, English minister
• date unknown
• * Anna Maria Thelott, Swedish artist
• * Benedicta Margareta von Löwendal, German industrialist

  Deaths

• January 2 - Sir Thomas Twisden, 1st Baronet, English politician
• January 14 - Edward Thurland, English politician
• January 15 - Philip Warwick, English writer and politician
• January 21 - Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, British politician
• January 28 - Julian Maunoir, French Jesuit priest
• January 30 - Cesare Facchinetti, Italian Roman Catholic cardinal
• February 18 - Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem, Dutch painter
• February 27 - Engel de Ruyter, Dutch admiral
• February 28 - Johann Paul Freiherr von Hocher, Austrian chancellor
• March 6 - Guarino Guarini, Italian architect of the Piedmontese Baroque
• March 8 - Robert Paston, 1st Earl of Yarmouth, English politician, earl
• March 11 - Giovanni Bernardo Carboni, Italian painter
• March 14 - Robert Montagu, 3rd Earl of Manchester, English politician
• March 16 - Henrik Bjelke, Norwegian military officer
• March 19 - Thomas Killigrew, English dramatist
• April 28 - Daniel Casper von Lohenstein, German writer, diplomat and lawyer
• March 29 - Yaoya Oshichi, young Japanese girl burned at the stake for arson
• May 2 - Stjepan Gradić, Croatian philosopher and scientist
• May 15 - John Ernest II, Duke of Saxe-Weimar
• June 4 - Wolfgang George Frederick von Pfalz-Neuburg, German bishop
• July 7 - Elisabeth Henriette of Hesse-Kassel, daughter of William VI
• July 10 - François Eudes de Mézeray, French historian
• July 13 - Arthur Capell, 1st Earl of Essex, English statesman
• July 21 - William Russell, Lord Russell, English politician
• July 26 - Jean Le Vacher, French Lazarist missionary and French consul
• July 30 - Maria Theresa of Spain, French queen, married to Louis XIV of France
• August 4 - Turhan Hatice Sultan, Ottoman Valide Sultan, married to Ibrahim and the mother of Sultan Mehmed IV
• August 18 - Charles Hart, English actor
• August 22 - Sir John Hobart, 3rd Baronet, English landowner and politician
• August 24 - John Owen, English non-conformist theologian
• September 6 - Jean-Baptiste Colbert, French minister of finance
• September 12 - King Afonso VI of Portugal
• September 17 - John Campanius, Swedish Lutheran minister in New Sweden
• October 8 - Philipp Friedrich Böddecker, German organist and composer
• October 9 - Francesco Caetani, 8th Duke of Sermoneta, Governor of the Duchy of Milan
• October 25 - William Scroggs, lord chief justice of England
• November 10
• * John Collins, English mathematician
• * Robert Morison, Scottish botanist and taxonomist
• November 16 - Margareta Huitfeldt, Norwegian-Swedish noble
• November 29 - John Wright, British politician
• December 7
• * John Oldham, English poet
• * Algernon Sidney, English politician
• December 13 - Anna Sophia II, Abbess of Quedlinburg, Abbesses of Quedlinburg
• December 15 - Izaak Walton, English writer
• December 16 - John Knight, Member of the Parliament of England
• December 25 - Samuel Clarke, English writer and priest
• December 27 - Maria Francisca of Savoy
• date unknown
• * Birgitta Durell, Swedish industrialist
• * Roger Williams, English theologian and colonist