1746 CE

Zakariya Khan Bahadur, the Mughal Empire's viceroy administering Lahore (in what is now Pakistan), orders the massacre of the city's Sikh people. War of the Austrian Succession – Battle of Rocoux: The French army defeats the allied Austrian, British, Hanoveran and Dutch army in Rocourt. Fortress Louisbourg and l'Ile-Royale are returned to France by the Treaty of Aix-La-Chapelle.

In the 1740s, the 18th century.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

19 March – an act of the Parliament of Great Britain prohibits the export of glass from Ireland.Ireland source
23 March – The County of Ledreborg is established by Johan Ludvig Holstein from the manors of Ledreborg and Skullerupholm as well as Hulegården, Kornerupgård, Breientvedgården, Bonderup (sold 1764), Næsbyholm (sold 1764) and Bavelse (sold 1764).Denmark source
October: Fortress Louisbourg and l'Ile-Royale are returned to France by the Treaty of Aix-La-Chapelle.Canada source
Gabriel Johnston, British Governor of the Province of North Carolina, moves to New Bern, the province's largest. New Bern replaces Edenton as the capital of North Carolina until Raleigh is established in 1792.source
An act to enforce the execution of an act of this session of parliament, for granting to his Majesty several rates and duties upon houses, windows, or lights includes a general provision confirming that all statutes naming England apply equally to Wales and Berwick-upon-Tweed.United Kingdom source
The Wales and Berwick Act 1746 is passed by the Parliament of Great Britain. It specifies that all future laws applying to England will also be applicable to Wales and Berwick-upon-Tweed. It is finally repealed in its entirety by the Interpretation Act 1978.Wales source

Conflict & Security

January 8 – The Young Pretender Charles Edward Stuart occupies Stirling, Scotland.source
8 January – Jacobite rising of 1745: Charles Edward Stuart ("Bonnie Prince Charlie") with his Jacobite forces occupies Stirling.Scotland source
January 17 – Battle of Falkirk Muir: British Government forces are defeated by Jacobite forces.source
February 19 – Prince William, Duke of Cumberland, issues a proclamation offering an amnesty to participants in the Jacobite rebellion, directing them that they can avoid punishment if they turn their weapons in to their local Presbyterian church.source
21 February – Jacobite rising: Siege of Inverness ends with British government forces surrendering Old Fort George to the Jacobite army under threat of mining.Scotland source
February 22 – Brussels, at the time part of the Austrian Netherlands, surrenders to France's Marshal Maurice de Saxe.source
March 10 – Zakariya Khan Bahadur, the Mughal Empire's viceroy administering Lahore (in what is now Pakistan), orders the massacre of the city's Sikh people.source
April 16 – The Battle of Culloden in Scotland, the final pitched battle fought on British soil, brings an end to the Jacobite rising of 1745.source
16 April – the Battle of Culloden, the final pitched battle fought on British soil, brings an end to the Jacobite rising of 1745.Scotland source
16 April – Battle of Culloden brings an end to the Jacobite rising. Culloden is the last pitched battle fought on British soil. George Frideric Handel composes the oratorio Judas Maccabaeus to commemorate the Duke of Cumberland's victory.United Kingdom source
3 May – "Battle of Loch nan Uamh": Royal Navy sloops attack French privateers which have landed money (and brandy) intended to aid the Jacobite cause in the Sound of Arisaig.United Kingdom source
6 May – William Pitt the Elder appointed Paymaster of the Forces and Henry Fox appointed Secretary at War.United Kingdom source
May 27 – The three Scottish leaders of the Jacobite uprising— the Earl of Kilmarnock, Lord Balmerino, and Lord Lovat— are imprisoned for treason in the Tower of London, where they are held by the British government until their execution. Boyd and Balmerino are beheaded in August, while Fraser is not put to death until April 1747.source
June 16 – Battle of Piacenza: Austrian forces defeat French and Spanish troops.source
June 16 – Battle of Piacenza: Austrian forces defeat the French and Spanish (War of the Austrian Succession)France source
October 11 – War of the Austrian Succession – Battle of Rocoux: The French army defeats the allied Austrian, British, Hanoveran and Dutch army in Rocourt.source
October 11 – Battle of Rocoux: French forces defeat the allied Austrian, British, Hanoverian and Dutch (War of the Austrian Succession)France source
November 4 – Anwaruddin Khan, the Nawab of the Arcot State in South India, is driven back by the Captain Louis Paradis of the French Army after he and 10,000 soldiers attempt to drive the French back out of Madras.source
December 5 – Rallied by a teenage boy, Giovanni Battista Perasso (nicknamed Balilla"), the citizens of the Republic of Genoa rise up against the Austrian occupying troops and the collaborator Military Governor, the Genoese Marquis of Botta d'Adorno. By December 11, the Austrian soldiers are driven from the Italian city-state, but return a few months later.source

Exploration & Expansion

27 June – Charles Edward Stuart flees to the Isle of Skye from Benbecula disguised as Flora MacDonald's maid.Scotland source
27 June – Charles Edward Stuart escapes to the Isle of Skye with the aid of Flora MacDonald.United Kingdom source
August 30: Duc d'Anville Expedition, led by a French aristocrat, arrives at Chebucto (now Halifax Harbour) with 13,000 men in 70 ships. His orders from the King of France: Expel the British from Nova Scotia, then burn Boston and sack New England. Disease and dissension within the command structure defeats d'Anville's force, which despite its formidable strength has no discernible effect on the course of events in North America.Canada source
William Cookworthy discovers kaolin in Cornwall.United Kingdom source

Religion & Belief

10 February – William Pulteney, 1st Earl of Bath forms the Short-lived Ministry following the resignation of Henry Pelham. It lasts a mere two days.United Kingdom source
11 April – to annul future marriages celebrated by Roman Catholic priests if either (or both) of the parties are Protestant.Ireland source
June 18 – Samuel Johnson is contracted to write his A Dictionary of the English Language.source
18 June – Samuel Johnson is contracted to write his A Dictionary of the English Language.United Kingdom source
June 29 – Catherine of Ricci (born 1522) is canonized.source
June – English preacher John Cennick arrives in Ireland to evangelise for the Moravian Church.Ireland source
July 3 – Father Joachim Royo, the last of the five Spanish Catholic missionaries to Fuzhou in China, is captured by Chinese authorities, after having spent three decades defying orders to not evangelize.source
October – foundation stone of new Inveraray Castle laid.Scotland source
9 December – Carl Gustaf Tessin succeed Carl Gyllenborg as Privy Council Chancellery.Sweden source
The town of Vilkovo (Odes'ka oblast', Ukraine) is founded.source
Sidney Griffith joins the Methodist movement, after hearing a sermon by Peter Williams.Wales source
Construction of The Cathedral School, Llandaff, and the "Italian Temple", both designed by John Wood, the Elder, is completed.Wales source

Economy & Finance

Jacques-Pierre de Taffanel de la Jonquière, Marquis de la Jonquière was appointed governor general of New France on March 1, 1746, (b April 18, 1685 – d March 17, 1752)Canada source
DMC (Dollfus-Mieg & Cie.) established as a textile spinning company in Mulhouse by Jean-Henri DollfusFrance source
British Linen Bank chartered as the British Linen Company.Scotland source

Technology & Infrastructure

William Edwards begins his first attempt at building a bridge over the River Taff at Pontypridd.Wales source

Science & Discovery

Eva Ekeblad reports her discovery, of how to make flour and alcohol from potatoes, to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.source
Jean-Étienne Guettard presents the first mineralogical map of France to the Académie des sciencesFrance source

Health & Medicine

11 April – preventing Irish subjects in the service of France or Spain from holding property.Ireland source
August 1 – The wearing of the kilt is banned in Scotland by the Dress Act, which comes into force one year later, on August 1, 1747.source
1 August – Dress Act 1746 proscribes wearing of the tartan.Scotland source
1 August – wearing of the kilt is banned in Scotland by the Dress Act.United Kingdom source
Typhoid fever epidemic breaks out among the Micmac of Nova Scotia.Canada source

Crime & Justice

20 September – Charles Edward Stuart escapes to France with the aid of Flora MacDonald.United Kingdom source

Climate & Environment

October 28 – An earthquake demolishes Lima and Callao, in Peru.source
A volcanic eruption took place near Lake Mývatn.Iceland source

Culture & Society

8 January – Jacobite rising: Charles Edward Stuart ("Bonnie Prince Charlie" or "The Young Pretender") occupies Stirling.United Kingdom source
February 1 – Jagat Singh II, the ruler of the Mewar Kingdom, inaugurates his Lake Palace on the island of Jag Niwas in Lake Pichola, in what is now the state of Rajasthan in northwest India.source
26 March – King George II of Great Britain grants the Dublin Society £500 pa from the Privy Purse.Ireland source
11 April – "for licensing hawkers and pedlars and for the encouragement of English Protestant schools" provides grants for charter schools.Ireland source
May 9 – Voltaire, on being admitted into the Académie française, gives a discours de réception in which he criticizes Boileau's poetryFrance source
September 20 – Bonnie Prince Charlie flees to the Isle of Skye from Arisaig, after the unsuccessful Jacobite rising of 1745, marked by the Prince's Cairn on the banks of Loch nan Uamh.source
October 22 – The College of New Jersey is founded in Princetown, New Jersey. In 1896, it is renamed Princeton University.source
Charles Batteux's Les beaux-arts réduits à un même principe is published in Paris, putting forward for the first time the idea of "les beaux arts": "the fine arts".source
The National College of Art and Design originates as a private drawing school set up by the painter Robert West in Dublin.Ireland source
Charles Smith's The Ancient and Present State of the County and City of Waterford is published in Dublin.Ireland source

Births

January 4 – Benjamin Rush, a Founding Father of the United States (died 1813)source
January 12 – Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, Swiss pedagogue (died 1827)source
January 24 – King Gustav III of Sweden (died 1792)source
February 4 – Tadeusz Kościuszko, Polish general and nationalist (died 1817)source
February 25 – Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, American politician and soldier (died 1825)source
March 3 – Izabela Czartoryska, Polish magnate princess (died 1835)source
March 7 – André Michaux, French botanist (died 1802)source
March 30 – Francisco Goya, Spanish painter (died 1828)source
May 9 – Gaspard Monge, French mathematician and geometer (died 1818)source
July 3 – Henry Grattan, Irish politician (died 1820)source
July 16 – Giuseppe Piazzi, Italian astronomer (died 1826)source
July 23 – Bernardo de Gálvez, Spanish military leader, aids the United States in its quest for independence in the American Revolutionary War (died 1786)source
September 28 – Sir William Jones, English philologist (died 1794)source
28 September – William Jones, philologist (died 1794)United Kingdom source
22 November – Bernt Anker, merchant, chamberlain and playwright (died 1805).Norway source
November 27 – Robert R. Livingston, American signer of the Declaration of Independence (died 1813)source
Sophia Razumovskaya, courtier (born 1803)Russia source

Deaths

March 18 – Grand Duchess Anna Leopoldovna of Russia, regent of Russia (born 1718)source
March 20 – Nicolas de Largillière, French painter (born 1656)source
May 13 – James Drummond, 3rd Duke of Perth, British noble (born 1713)source
21 May - Lewis Morris, Welsh-descended Governor of New Jersey, 74Wales source
May 22 – Thomas Southerne, Irish playwright (born 1660)source
June 14 – Colin Maclaurin, Scottish mathematician (born 1698)source
July 9 – King Philip V of Spain (born 1683)source
July 9 – King Philip V of Spain dies, after a reign of more than 45 years. His oldest living son succeeds him, as Ferdinand VI.source
July 9 - Philip V of Spain (born 1683)Spain source
July 28 – John Peter Zenger, American printer, whose court case advanced freedom of the press in the American colonies (born 1697)source
July 30 – Francesco Trevisani, Italian painter (born 1656)source
August 6 – Christian VI, King of Denmark and Norway (born 1699)source
6 August: Christian VI dies in Hirschholm Palace, Copenhagen, with Frederick V taking over as Monarch.Iceland source
August 8 – Francis Hutcheson, Irish philosopher (born 1694)source
August 18 – Two of the four rebellious Scottish lords, Earl of Kilmarnock and Lord Balmerinoch, are beheaded in the Tower of London (Lord Lovat is executed in 1747).source
18 August – two of the four rebellious Scottish lords, the Earl of Kilmarnock and Lord Balmerinoch, are beheaded in the Tower (Lord Lovat executed 1747).United Kingdom source
November 14 – Georg Steller, German naturalist (born 1709)source
December 8 – Charles Radclyffe, British politician and rebel, by beheading after being convicted of treason against the Crown (born 1693)source