Timeline May 1654

Events in May 1654 3

• 1654 Magdeburg hemispheres experiment Otto von Guericke demonstrates the force of a vacuum Otto von Guericke demonstrated the power of atmospheric pressure before the Imperial Diet at Regensburg, using two bronze hemispheres held together by a vacuum. Teams of horses pulling in opposite directions failed to separate the sealed hemispheres until air was readmitted. The experiment became one of the most famous public demonstrations in the history of physics.
• 1654 Russo-Polish War begins Tsar Alexis invades the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Russian forces crossed into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth after the Pereyaslav Agreement, opening a thirteen-year war. The border fortress of Smolensk, lost to Poland decades earlier, surrendered to the Russians that October. The war devastated Lithuania and reshaped the eastern European balance of power.
• 1654 Swedish capture of Fort Casimir New Sweden seizes the Dutch fort on the Delaware River Governor Johan Rising of New Sweden captured the Dutch-held Fort Casimir on the Delaware River without a fight, renaming it Fort Trinity. The seizure provoked the Dutch West India Company to send a punitive expedition the following year that destroyed New Sweden. The episode marked the last expansion of Sweden's only American colony.