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The 1700s

630 sourced entries across 10 years, inside the 18th century. Each year below opens its own page; the lines under it are that year’s highest-ranked entries.

1700 CE65 entries

1701 CE46 entries

  • January 18 – The electorate of Brandenburg–Prussia becomes the Kingdom of Prussia, as Elector Frederick III is proclaimed King Frederick I. Prussia remains part of the Holy Roman Empire. It consists of Brandenburg, Pomerania and East Prussia. Berlin is the capital.
  • February 17 (February 6, 1700 O.S.) – The 5th Parliament of William III in England assembles. Future British Prime Minister Robert Walpole enters the House of Commons for the first time and soon makes his name as a spokesman for Whig policy.
  • July 24 – A French emporium named Fort Ponchartrain is founded along the west side of the Detroit River in North America, and later becomes the site of the city of Detroit.

1702 CE79 entries

  • January 12 – In North America, ships from Fort Maurepas arrive at Twenty-Seven Mile Bluff to build Fort Louis de la Mobile (future Mobile, Alabama), to become the capital of French Louisiana.
  • September 25 – General John Churchill forces the surrender of Venlo on the Meuse River.
  • October 18 – Queen Anne's War: Battle of Flint River – Spanish and Apalachee Indian forces fail in their attack against Creek Indians, supported by English traders, in the modern-day U.S. state of Georgia.

1703 CE63 entries

  • February – Soldiers at Fort Louis de la Mobile celebrate Mardi Gras in Mobile, starting the tradition for Mobile, Alabama.
  • July 29–31 – Daniel Defoe is placed in a pillory in London, then imprisoned until mid-November for the crime of seditious libel after publishing his satirical political pamphlet The Shortest Way with the Dissenters (1702).
  • November 19 – The so-called Man in the Iron Mask dies in the Bastille. He is buried under the name of "Marchioly".

1704 CE70 entries

  • February 29 – Raid on Deerfield (Queen Anne's War): French Canadians and Native Americans sack Deerfield, Massachusetts, killing over 50 English colonists.
  • June 2 – Annular solar eclipse is visible from a region of the Southern Ocean between South Africa and Antarctica.
  • August 13 (August 2 OS) – War of the Spanish Succession – Battle of Blenheim: Allied troops under John Churchill, Earl of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy defeat the Franco-Bavarian army.

1705 CE74 entries

  • April 16 – Queen Anne of England honours Isaac Newton with the title of Knight Bachelor at Trinity College, Cambridge.
  • June 20 – The Pact of Genoa is signed by representatives of England and the Spanish Principality of Catalonia as a military alliance providing for English troops to be stationed in Catalonia as part of the War of Spanish Succession.
  • December 21 – The Sophia Naturalization Act is passed by the Parliament of England, which naturalizes Sophia of Hanover (next in succession to the British throne) and the Protestant "issue of her body" as British subjects.

1706 CE56 entries

  • June 29 – Flemish Jesuit missionary François Noël is welcomed in China by the Kangxi Emperor at the Forbidden City in Beijing, and discusses the Emperor's disdain over the disapproval of Jesuit accommodation of Confucian rites by the Roman Catholic Church.
  • July 22 – The Treaty of Union between Scotland and England is agreed upon in London, for ratification by the national legislatures.
  • October – Twinings founder, Thomas Twining, opens the first known tea room at 216 Strand, London, still open .

1707 CE59 entries

  • January 16 – The Treaty (or Act) of Union, of the two Kingdoms of Scotland and England, is ratified by the Parliament of Scotland by a vote of 110 to 68.
  • February 15 – As part of the process of the unification of Scotland and England as Great Britain, Scotland selects 16 members to sit in the House of Lords at the Palace of Westminster.
  • October 22 – Scilly naval disaster: Four British Royal Navy ships run aground in the Isles of Scilly, because of faulty navigation. Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell and at least 1,450 sailors all drown.

1708 CE56 entries

  • February 26 – HMS Falmouth, a 50-gun fourth-rate ship of the line built at Woolwich Dockyard for the British Royal Navy, is launched.
  • September 28 (O.S.); September 29 (Swedish calendar); October 9 (N.S.) – Great Northern War: Battle of Lesnaya – Peter the Great of Russia defeats the forces of the Swedish Empire.
  • December 17 – Deborah Churchill, British pickpocket and prostitute, is executed before a large crowd for being an accomplice to murder.

1709 CE62 entries

  • May 6 – The first influx into Britain of poor refugee families of German Palatines from the Rhenish Palatinate arrives in England. Most of them are Protestants en route to the New World colonies.
  • July 8 (June 27 Old Style; June 28 in the Swedish calendar) – Great Northern War: Battle of Poltava in the Cossack Hetmanate (Ukraine) – Peter the Great leads forces of the Tsardom of Russia to a decisive victory over Swedish forces under Charles XII, ending the Swedish invasion of Russia and effectively ending Sweden's role as a major power in Europe.
  • July 9 – Christopher Slaughterford of London is executed in Guildford for the murder of Jane Young, his fiancée. He is the first person in modern England executed for murder based exclusively on circumstantial evidence, and he maintains his innocence to the last.