Hans Lippershey that time he became a master lens grinder and spectacle maker and established a shop. He remained in Middelburg until his death, in September 1619. Hans Lippershey is known for the earliest written record of a refracting telescope, a patent he filed in 1608. His work with optical devices grew out of his work as a spectacle maker, an industry that had started in Venice and Florence in the thirteenth century, and later expanded to the Netherlands and Germany. Lippershey applied to the States General of the Netherlands on 2 October 1608 for a patent for his instrument ""for seeing
Jacob Groenewegen Jacob Groenewegen Jacob Groenewegen (died 22 May 1609) was a Dutch merchant, who was the leading merchant ("opperkoopman") on the fleet under Pieter Willemsz. Verhoeff that left Texel on December 21, 1607, and arrived in Bantam on February 15, 1609. Like Verhoeff, he died on May 22, 1609 on one of the Banda Islands, in an ambush set up by the islanders. In that same year, Jacques Specx directed two ships dispatched to establish the first official trade relations between the Netherlands and Japan. These ships, "De Griffioen" (the "Griffin", 19 cannons) and "Roode Leeuw met Pijlen" (the "Red lion