1758 CE

Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus (Carl von Linné) publishes in Stockholm the first volume (Animalia) of the 10th edition of Systema Naturae, the starting point of modern zoological nomenclature, introducing binomial nomenclature for animals to his established system of Linnaean taxonomy. Among the first examples of his system of identifying an organism by genus and then species, Linnaeus identifies the lamprey with the name Petromyzon marinus. He introduces the term Homo sapiens. (Date of January 1 assigned retrospectively.). Samuel Johnson begins publishing the series of essays The Idler (1758–1760) in the Universal Chronicle. Seven Years' War – Battle of Domstadtl: Austrian forces under Ernst Gideon von Laudon and Joseph von Siskovits rout an enormous convoy with supplies for the Prussian army, guarded by strong troops of Hans Joachim von Zieten.

In the 1750s, the 18th century.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

Monday October 2 - The Nova Scotia Provincial Parliament, Canada's oldest Legislative Assembly, first met on 2 October 1758 with 22 members. For the first hundred years, this Assembly was known as the Provincial Parliament, and an elected member was called "MPP" Member of the Provincial Parliament. Since 1867, the name "Parliament" has been reserved for the federal assembly at Ottawa, and the Nova Scotia Assembly has been known as the "Legislature", with an elected member called "MLA" Member of the Legislative Assembly.Canada source
The Natural History of Iceland is reprinted in English.Iceland source

Conflict & Security

January 22 – Russian troops under the command of William Fermor invade East Prussia and capture Königsberg with 34,000 soldiers; although the city is later abandoned by Russia after the Seven Years' War ends, the city again comes under Russian control in 1945 during World War II and is now named Kaliningrad.source
20 April – Marathas attacked Lahore and occupied it.India source
April 29 – Battle of Cuddalore: A British fleet under Sir George Pocock engages the French fleet of Anne Antoine, Comte d'Aché indecisively near Madras.source
May 21 – Seven Years' War – French and Indian War: Mary Campbell is abducted from her home in Pennsylvania by members of the Lenape Nation.source
June 8 – Seven Years' War – French and Indian War: Siege of Louisbourg: James Wolfe's attack at Louisbourg, Nova Scotia, commences.source
June 9–10 – Spanish-Barbary Wars – Battle of Cape Palos: a Spanish squadron of three ships of the line defeats a Barbary squadron made up of a ship of the line and a frigate.source
June 23 – Seven Years' War – Battle of Krefeld: Anglo-Hanoverian forces under Ferdinand of Brunswick defeat the French.source
June 30 – Seven Years' War – Battle of Domstadtl: Austrian forces under Ernst Gideon von Laudon and Joseph von Siskovits rout an enormous convoy with supplies for the Prussian army, guarded by strong troops of Hans Joachim von Zieten.source
30 June – Seven Years' War – Battle of Domstadtl: Austrian forces under Ernst Gideon von Laudon and Joseph von Siskovits rout an enormous convoy with supplies for the Prussian army, guarded by strong troops of Hans Joachim von Zieten.Germany source
July 6 – Seven Years' War – Battle of Bernetz Brook: British troops defeat the French.source
July 8 – Seven Years' War: French and Indian War: French forces hold Fort Carillon against the British at Ticonderoga, New York.source
8 July – French and Indian War: Battle of Carillon; French forces hold Fort Carillon against British at Ticonderoga, New York.United Kingdom source
July 25 – Seven Years' War – French and Indian War: The island battery at Fortress Louisbourg is silenced, and all French warships are destroyed or taken.source
August 3 – Seven Years' War – Battle of Negapatam: Off the coast of India, Admiral Pocock again engages d'Aché's French fleet, this time with more success.source
August 25 – Seven Years' War – Battle of Zorndorf: Frederick halts the Russian army of Count Wilhelm Fermor near the Oder.source
August 25 – Seven Years' War – Wilhelm Fermor's troops are defeated by Frederick near the Oder during the Battle of Zorndorf.Russia source
August 26–28 - Battle of Fort Frontenac: Colonel John Bradstreet, with nearly 3,000 men, mostly colonial militia, takes and burns Fort Frontenac, (present-day Kingston).Canada source
August 27 – Seven Years' War – British troops under the command of Colonel John Bradstreet capture Fort Frontenac (near the site of what is now Kingston, Ontario) from the French.source
September 3 – Távora affair: Joseph I of Portugal survives an assassination attempt.source
September 14 – Seven Years' War – French and Indian War: Battle of Fort Duquesne: A British attack on Fort Duquesne (modern-day Pittsburgh) is defeated.source
26 September – Battle of Tornow, a Swedish-Prussian engagement during the ongoing Pomeranian War.Sweden source
October 14 – Seven Years' War: Battle of Hochkirch: Frederick loses a hard-fought battle against the Austrians under Marshal Leopold von Daun, who besieges Dresden.source
November 25 – Seven Years' War: French and Indian War: French forces abandon Fort Duquesne to the British, who then name the area Pittsburgh.source
Marquis Gabriel de Lernay, a French officer captured during the Seven Years' War, establishes a military lodge in Berlin, with the help of Baron de Printzen, master of The Three Globes Lodge at Berlin, and Philipp Samuel Rosa, a disgraced former pastor.source
The French and Indian War, the North American theater of the worldwide Seven Years' WarFrance source
Peter Williams – Blodau i BlantWales source

Exploration & Expansion

February 22 – A fleet of 158 British Royal Navy warships, under the command of Admiral Edward Boscawen, departs from Plymouth toward North America in an effort to conquer the French Canadian territories of New France. Many of the sailors die of nutritional deficiencies along the way, including the scurvy that kills 26 of the crew of HMS Pembroke, captained by future world explorer James Cook on his first long voyage.source
The French build the first European settlement in what becomes Erie County, New York, at the mouth of Buffalo Creek.source
Copenhagen based trading company Hörmangarafélagið ceases operations after handling trade to Iceland since 1743.Iceland source
The agriculturalist Richard Geoghegan reclaims a large tract of land from the sea at Ballyconneely in County Galway.Ireland source

Religion & Belief

21 April – Thomas Secker enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury.United Kingdom source
July 6 – Pope Clement XIII succeeds Pope Benedict XIV, as the 248th pope.source
13 July – Josiah Tucker becomes Dean of Gloucester.Wales source
John Thomas – Caniadau Siôn, vol. 1Wales source

Economy & Finance

February 14 – Vice Chancellor Aleksey Bestuzhev-Ryumin was removed from office.Russia source
J. R. Geigy, predecessor of Novartis, a global pharmaceutical brand, founded in Basel, Switzerland.source
Okadaya (岡田屋), predecessor of AEON, a multiple retailer group, founded in Yokkaichi, Japan.source
German company MAN is founded.Germany source
National income - ₹9,451 millionIndia source

Technology & Infrastructure

24 April – Robert Dodsley and his brother James sign a contract with Edmund Burke to launch The Annual Register.United Kingdom source
29 April – the Wide Streets Commission (officially the Commissioners for making Wide and Convenient Ways, Streets and Passages) is established by the Parliament Street Act 1757 (31 Geo. 2. c. 19 (I)) at the request of Dublin Corporation to govern standards on the layout of streets, bridges, buildings and other architectural considerations, influential in the creation of Georgian Dublin.Ireland source
14 October - First issue of Norrköpings Tidningar.Sweden source
Construction of the Basilica of St. John the Baptist, Saarbrücken is completed.Germany source
Mineral spring discovered at Lucan, Dublin.Ireland source
Summer – work begins on construction of what will become the Grand Canal near Dublin.Ireland source
The gold mines at Gullverket, starts to operate, the mines is operated from 1758 to 1907.Norway source

Science & Discovery

15 April – Samuel Johnson begins publishing the series of essays The Idler (1758–1760) in the Universal Chronicle.United Kingdom source
December 25 – Halley's Comet is sighted by Johann Georg Palitzsch, confirming Edmund Halley's 1705 prediction of its periodicity.source

Health & Medicine

February 23 – Jonathan Edwards, the famed English theologian who had assumed the presidency of what is now Princeton University only a week earlier, sets an example for students and faculty by publicly receiving an inoculation against smallpox. Unfortunately, the vaccine contains live smallpox; Edwards develops the disease and dies on March 22 at the age of 54.source
October – Evan Evans (Ieuan Fardd) becomes curate of Llanllechid.Wales source
Physician Francis Home makes the first attempt to deliver a measles vaccine.Scotland source
circa December – the first Magdalene institution in Britain, Magdalen Hospital for the Reception of Penitent Prostitutes, is founded in Whitechapel, London, by Robert Dingley, Jonas Hanway, and John Fielding.United Kingdom source

Crime & Justice

March 16 – Members of the Comanche Nation loot and destroy the Spanish Mission Santa Cruz de San Sabá (near modern-day Menard, Texas) and kill eight of the people there, including the mission leader, Father Alonso Giraldo de Terreros.source
27 October – the ship Dublin Trader (Captain White) leaves Parkgate, Cheshire, for Dublin, and founders in the Irish Sea; she carries 70,000 Irish pounds in money and £80,000 in goods, while among the 60 passengers lost are Edward, fifth Earl of Drogheda, Theophilus Cibber (the English actor, bound for a season at the Smock Alley Theatre), and (probably) the mezzotint engraver Michael Ford.Ireland source
Le Père de famille, play by Denis DiderotFrance source
Kristen Paulsen is condemned to be executed by burning. He was the last person to be burned for sodomy (sex with animals) in Denmark-Norway. He was burned in Kristiansand.Norway source

Disasters & Accidents

December 13 – The ship Duke William sinks in the North Atlantic, with the loss of over 360 lives, while deporting Acadians from Prince Edward Island to France.source
A fire destroys parts of Christiania, Norway.source

Culture & Society

January 1 – Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus (Carl von Linné) publishes in Stockholm the first volume (Animalia) of the 10th edition of Systema Naturae, the starting point of modern zoological nomenclature, introducing binomial nomenclature for animals to his established system of Linnaean taxonomy. Among the first examples of his system of identifying an organism by genus and then species, Linnaeus identifies the lamprey with the name Petromyzon marinus. He introduces the term Homo sapiens. (Date of January 1 assigned retrospectively.)source
5 April – Founding of Ludwigsburg porcelainGermany source
April – Goronwy Owen becomes headmaster of the grammar school attached to the College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia.Wales source
Rudjer Boscovich publishes his atomic theory, in Theoria philosophiae naturalis redacta ad unicam legem virium in nalura existentium.source
The ballet dancers Marie Barch and Carl Vilhelm Barch debut at the Royal Danish Theater in Copenhagen as the first native ballet dancers.Denmark source
date unknown – The Welsh Charity School becomes co-educational.Wales source

Births

January 9 – George Leveson-Gower, 1st Duke of Sutherland, born Viscount Trentham, British politician and landowner (died 1833)source
January 20 – Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze, French chemist (died 1836)source
February 1 – David Ochterlony, Massachusetts-born general with the East India Company (died 1825)source
3 March – Jens Schou Fabricius, politician (died 1841)Norway source
March 9 – Franz Joseph Gall, German pioneering neuroanatomist (died 1828)source
April 23 – Alexander Cochrane, British Royal Navy officer (died 1832)source
April 28 – James Monroe, fifth President of the United States (died 1831)source
May 6 – Maximilien Robespierre, French revolutionary (died 1794)source
May 6 – André Masséna, Napoleonic general, Marshal of France (died 1817)source
August 24 – Thomas Picton, British soldier, colonial governor (k. 1815)source
3 September – Henrietta Clive, Countess of Powis (died 1822)Wales source
September 20 – Jean-Jacques Dessalines, leader of the Haitian Revolution (died 1806)source
September 21 – Christopher Gore, U.S. lawyer, politician (died 1827)source
September 29 – Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, British admiral (died 1805)source
October 16 – Noah Webster, U.S. lexicographer (died 1843)source
22 October in Hanover – Friedrich Rehberg, German portrait and historical painter (died 1835)Germany source
November 11 – Caleb P. Bennett, U.S. soldier, politician (died 1836)source
Ekaterina Orlova (courtier), courtier (died 1781)Russia source

Deaths

January 7 – Allan Ramsay, Scottish poet (born 1686)source
January 20 – At Cap-Haïtien in Haiti, former slave turned rebel François Mackandal is executed by the French colonial government by being burned at the stake.source
March 22 – Richard Leveridge, English bass and composer (born 1670)source
March 22 – Jonathan Edwards, American minister (born 1703)source
24 March – Sir Thomas Mostyn, 4th Baronet, 53Wales source
May 3 – Pope Benedict XIV (born 1675)source
10 May in Leipzig – Christian Gottlieb Jöcher, German academic, librarian and lexicographer (born 1694)Germany source
July 7 – Marthanda Varma, Rani of Attingal (born 1706)source
July 14 - Abrahaam Kaauw (Boerhaave), Russian medic, personal physician of the Empress (b.1715)Russia source
August 27 – Barbara of Portugal, Princess of Portugal and Queen of Spain (born 1711)source
September 15 – Adina Beg Khan, Nawab of Punjab (born 1710)source
October 14 – James Francis Edward Keith, Scottish soldier and Prussian field marshal (born 1696)source
October 25/8 – Theophilus Cibber, English actor (born 1703)source
November 5 – Hans Egede, Norwegian Lutheran missionary (born 1686)source
5 November – Hans Egede, Lutheran missionary (born 1686)Norway source
December 5 – Johann Friedrich Fasch, German composer (born 1688)source
December 12 – Françoise de Graffigny, French lettrist (born 1695)source
December 17 – Charles Butler, 1st Earl of Arran, Anglo-Irish noble (born 1671)source