1731 CE
Louise Hippolyte becomes the second woman to serve as Princess of Monaco, the reigning monarch of the tiny European principality, ascending upon the death of her father Prince Antonio. She reigns only nine months before dying of smallpox on December 29. The Pacific Fleet of the Russian Navy is established by order of the Empress Anna of Russia, who directs Grigory Skornyakov-Pisarev to assume command over the new fleet and to develop Okhotsk as a major port. Patrona Halil, an ethnic Albanian and a janissary who instigated a mass uprising in 1730 within the Ottoman Empire that brought Mahmud I to power as the new Sultan, is strangled to death in Mahmud's presence after the rebellion is suppressed.
In the 1730s, the 18th century.
Geopolitics & Diplomacy
- 19 February – Empress Anna Ioannovna signed a decree accepting the Young Horde of the Kazakh Khanate under Russian protection. This act marked the beginning of Kazakhstan's gradual integration into the Russian Empire.Russiasource
- March 16 – The Treaty of Vienna is signed between the Holy Roman Empire, Great Britain, the Dutch Republic and Spain.source
- 16 March – Treaty of Vienna signed between the Holy Roman Empire, Great Britain, the Dutch Republic and Spain.United Kingdomsource
- August 15 – King Frederick William I of Prussia forgives his 19-year-old son, Prince Frederick, who has been confined since November to the town of Küstrin (now Kostrzyn nad Odrą in Poland) for his 1730 attempt to desert from the Prussian Army. Nine years later, having been politically rehabilitated, Prince Frederick succeeds his father as King and is later remembered as "Frederick the Great".source
- 4 November - Empress Anna Ioannovna establishes the Cabinet of Ministers, a supreme state body that functioned until December 23, 1741.Russiasource
- Royal Colony of North Carolina Governor George Burrington asks the North Carolina General Assembly to pass an act establishing a town on the Cape Fear River, in what is seen as a political move to shift the power away from the powerful Cape Fear plantation class. The town is laid out in 1733, and incorporated as Wilmington in 1740.source
- The Parliament of Ireland first meets in the new Irish Houses of Parliament on College Green in Dublin designed by Edward Lovett Pearce.Irelandsource
Conflict & Security
- April 9 – British trader Robert Jenkins has his ear cut off after his ship, Rebecca is boarded by Spanish coast guards at Havana in Cuba. The incident becomes the casus belli for the War of Jenkins' Ear in 1739.source
- April – trader Robert Jenkins has his ear cut off by Spanish coast guards in Cuba, casus belli for the War of Jenkins' Ear in 1739.United Kingdomsource
- April - Trader Robert Jenkins has his ear cut off by Spanish coast guards in Cuba leading to the War of Jenkins' Ear in 1739.Walessource
- November 25 – Patrona Halil, an ethnic Albanian and a janissary who instigated a mass uprising in 1730 within the Ottoman Empire that brought Mahmud I to power as the new Sultan, is strangled to death in Mahmud's presence after the rebellion is suppressed.source
- The Corps of Cadets is founded to provide military education and training.Russiasource
Exploration & Expansion
- May 10 – The Pacific Fleet of the Russian Navy is established by order of the Empress Anna of Russia, who directs Grigory Skornyakov-Pisarev to assume command over the new fleet and to develop Okhotsk as a major port.source
- 10 May - Pacific Fleet is established as part of the Imperial Russian NavyRussiasource
- 1731-43: The La Verendrye family organize expeditions beyond Lake Winnipeg and direct fur trade toward the east.Canadasource
Religion & Belief
- 4 March – The Reformed Church in Copenhagen is reinaugurated after its rebuilding.Denmarksource
- 9 April – The Diocese of Dijon establishedFrancesource
- 7 October – The rebuilt Trinitatis Church is reinaugurated in Copenhagen.Denmarksource
- Proceedings in Courts of Justice Act 1730: Legal proceedings in the courts to be conducted in the English language.United Kingdomsource
- Edward Samuel - Athrawiaeth yr EglwysWalessource
Economy & Finance
Technology & Infrastructure
- 1731: Fort St. Pierre on Rainy Lake established by Christopher Dufrost de La Jemeraye and Jean Baptiste de La Vérendrye. This was the first fort in La Verendrye's expansion of the "Posts of the West".Canadasource
- The Ladoga Canal, connecting the Volga River to the Baltic Sea, is completed.Russiasource
- Cumbernauld House, to designs by William Adam, is built.Scotlandsource
Science & Discovery
- November 25 – Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler announces his use of the irrational number e (approximately 2.71828) as the base for the concept of the natural logarithm, describing it in a letter to German mathematician Christian Goldbach.source
- John Bevis observes the Crab Nebula for the first time in the modern era.United Kingdomsource
- Humphrey Lhuyd - Britannicae Descriptionis CommentariolumWalessource
Health & Medicine
- February 20 – Louise Hippolyte becomes the second woman to serve as Princess of Monaco, the reigning monarch of the tiny European principality, ascending upon the death of her father Prince Antonio. She reigns only nine months before dying of smallpox on December 29.source
- September – The first successful appendectomy is performed by English surgeon William Cookesley.source
- September – the first successful appendectomy is performed by surgeon William Cookesley.United Kingdomsource
- December 29 – Jacques Grimaldi, the husband of the reigning monarch of Monaco, Louise Hippolyte, succeeds to the throne after Louise's death from smallpox. Jacques I rules until his own death in 1751.source
- Laura Bassi becomes the first official female university teacher, on being appointed professor of anatomy at the University of Bologna, at the age of 21.source
- Christian Rantzau was appointed Governor-General of Norway.Norwaysource
- Publication in Edinburgh of The Poor Man's Physician, or The receipts of the famous John Moncrief of Tippermalloch; being a choice collection of simple and easy remedies for most distempers, very useful for all persons, especially those of a poorer condition ... To which is added The method of curing the small pox and scurvy, by the eminent Dr. Archibald Pitcairn (3rd edition).Scotlandsource
Disasters & Accidents
- January 8 – An avalanche from the Skafjell mountain causes a massive wave in the Storfjorden fjord in Norway that sinks all boats that happen to be in the water at the time and kills people on both shores.source
- 8 January – An avalanche from the Skafjell mountain causes a massive wave in the Storfjorden fjord, that sinks all boats that happen to be in the water at the time and kills people on both shores.Norwaysource
- February 3 – A fire in Brussels at the Coudenberg Palace, at this time the home of the ruling Austrian Duchess of Brabant, destroys the building, including the state records stored therein.source
- 8 April – Maglekilde Watermill is the first of a number of buildings which are destroyed in a series of devastating fires that hits Roskilde in 1731.Denmarksource
- April 28 – A fire at White's Chocolate House, near St. James's Palace in London, destroys the historic club and the paintings therein, but is kept from spreading by the fast response of firemen.source
- 28 April – a fire at White's Chocolate House, near St. James's Palace in London, destroys the historic club and the paintings therein, but is kept from spreading by the fast response of firemen.United Kingdomsource
- June 4 – The English market town of Blandford Forum is destroyed by fire, with the exception of 26 houses. About one-third of the uninsured losses are paid for by the collection of disaster relief money.source
- 4 June – great fire destroys much of the centre of Blandford Forum, Dorset.United Kingdomsource
- 5 June – Tiverton fire of 1731, a great fire in Tiverton, Devon.United Kingdomsource
- September 30 – The village of Barnwell, Cambridgeshire, England, is "burned down entirely" by a fire.source
- 30 September – the village of Barnwell, Cambridgeshire, is "burned down entirely" by a fire.United Kingdomsource
- October 23 – A fire at Ashburnham House in Westminster destroys 114 irreplaceable manuscripts (including a manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle) and damages 98 others (among them the manuscript of Beowulf). Richard Bentley, the King's librarian and the House's owner, saves the only copy of the Codex Alexandrinus, carrying it under one arm as he leaps from a window. Bentley's ten year labor in translating the Greek Testament is ruined by the blaze. The remaining 844 manuscripts later form the heart of the collections of the British Library.source
- 23 October – fire at Ashburnham House in London damages the nationally owned Cotton library, housed there at this time.United Kingdomsource
Culture & Society
- 23 April - Henry Fielding's latest work, The Welsh Opera, is performed in Haymarket. It includes personal attacks on Frederick, Prince of Wales.Walessource
- 6 June – The coronation of Christian VI of Denmark.Denmarksource
- June 25 – the Royal Dublin Society is founded by members of the Dublin Philosophical Society, chiefly Thomas Prior and Samuel Madden, as the "Dublin Society for Improving Husbandry, Manufactures and other Useful Arts and Sciences".Irelandsource
- August 23 – The oldest known sports score in history is recorded in the description of a cricket match at Richmond Green in England, when the team of Thomas Chambers of Middlesex defeats the Duke of Richmond's team by 119 to 79.source
- 23 August – the oldest known sports score in history is recorded in the description of a cricket match at Richmond Green, when the team of Thomas Chambers of Middlesex defeats the Duke of Richmond's team by 119 to 79.United Kingdomsource
- September 22 - Griffith Jones (Llanddowror) writes to the SPCK proposing that a Welsh school be set up at Llanddowror. This marks the beginning of the circulating schools movement.Walessource
- Nicolaus Zinzendorf visits Copenhagen and the Moravian Church gains considerable popularityDenmarksource
- Denmark-Norway introduces a new Royal Standard flag.Denmarksource
- William Hogarth produces his A Harlot's Progress series of paintings.United Kingdomsource
Births
- February – Charles Churchill, English poet (died 1764)source
- March 19 – Gabriela Silang, Filipino rebel leader and heroine (died 1763)source
- April 8 – William Williams, signer of the United States Declaration of Independence (died 1811)source
- May 8 – Beilby Porteus, Bishop of London and abolitionist (died 1809)source
- June 2 – Dorothea Biehl, Danish writer (died 1788)source
- July 16 – Samuel Huntington, Patriot in the American Revolution and politician (died 1796)source
- August – Henry Constantine Jennings, English gambler and collector (died 1819)source
- 20 September – Vilhelm Bornemann, Hudge Advocate General, chief of police and Supreme Court justice (born 1801 in Denmark)Norwaysource
- October 10 – Henry Cavendish, English scientist (died 1810)source
- 10 October – Henry Cavendish, scientist (died 1810)United Kingdomsource
- November 7: Robert Rogers, army officer and author (died 1795).Canadasource
- November 9 – Benjamin Banneker, African-American astronomer, surveyor of the District of Columbia (died 1806)source
- November 15 – William Cowper, English poet (died 1800)source
- December 8 – František Xaver Dušek, Czech composer (died 1799)source
- December 12 – Erasmus Darwin, English scientist and grandfather of Charles Darwin (died 1802)source
- December 28 – José de Viera y Clavijo, Spanish writersource
- Nikephoros Theotokis, Greek scholar and theologian (died 1800)source
- Aaron Williams, composer (died 1776)Walessource
Deaths
- January 27 – Bartolomeo Cristofori, Italian maker of musical instruments (born 1655)source
- February 10 – George Carpenter, 1st Baron Carpenter, British Army general (born 1657)source
- February 15 – Mary of Jesus de León y Delgado, Spanish Dominican lay sister and mystic (born 1643)source
- February 22 – Frederik Ruysch, Dutch physician and anatomist (born 1638)source
- February – Thomas Hancorne, Welsh clergyman and theologian (born 1642)source
- March 5 – Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi, Sufi academic (born 1641)source
- 6 April - David Lloyd, Welsh-born American lawyer, 74Walessource
- 16 April – Bartholomæus Deichman, bishop (born 1671).Norwaysource
- April 24 – Daniel Defoe, English writer (born c. 1660)source
- 24 April – Daniel Defoe, writer (born 1660)United Kingdomsource
- May 1 – Johann Ludwig Bach, German composer (born 1677)source
- May 11 – Mary Astell, English feminist writer (born 1666)source
- December 17 – George Lockhart, Scottish writer, spy and politician, killed in duel (born 1673)source
- December 20 – Chhatrasal, Maharaja of Madhya Pradesh (born 1649)source
- December 21 – The Maharaja Chhatrasal, monarch of Bundelkhand in India (part of the modern-day states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh) dies at the age of 82. His kingdom is divided into four parts, with one part going to Baji Rao I of the Marathas and the other three going to his three sons: Harde Sah gets the Panna State, Jagat Rai gets the Jaitpur State and Bharti Chand gets the Jaso State.source
- December 26 – Antoine Houdar de la Motte, French writer (born 1672)source
- December 29 – Louise Hippolyte, Princess of Monaco (born 1697)source
- Robert Chevalier Beauchêne, adventurer in New France.Canadasource