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The 1720s

1,010 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.

1720 CE113 entries

  • January 21 – Treaties of Stockholm (Great Northern War): Sweden and Prussia sign a treaty by which part of Swedish Pomerania, including the town of Stettin, is ceded to Prussia.
  • 11 June – Robert Walpole and his ally and brother-in-law Charles Townshend rejoin the government as Paymaster of the Forces and Lord President of the Council ending the Whig Split lasting since 1717. Within a year they will be Prime Minister and Northern Secretary respectively.
  • August 14 – The Spanish Villasur expedition, which set out on June 16 from New Mexico, with the intention of checking French influence on the Great Plains of North America, ends in failure, as it is ambushed by a Pawnee and Otoe force.

1721 CE97 entries

  • April 26 – Pirates John Taylor and Olivier Levasseur capture the 700-ton Portuguese galleon Nossa Senhora do Cabo at Réunion. The total value of treasure on board (from Goa) is estimated as between £100,000 and £875,000, one of the largest pirate hauls ever.
  • November 2 (October 22 Old Style) – The Romanov and architect of the Great Northern War Peter I, is proclaimed the first Emperor of All the Russias. This replaces the 174-year-long Tsardom of Russia with the Russian Empire, which will collapse almost 200 years later in 1917.
  • December 22 – Philip V of Spain signs a Royal Decree in Lerma, transforming the Seminary of Saint Rose of Lima in Caracas into the Universidad Real y Pontificia de Caracas.

1722 CE97 entries

  • February 21 – Nasir-ud-Din Muḥammad Shah, the Grand Mogul of north India's Mughal Empire, names Nizam-ul-Mulk as his Grand Vizier. Three years later, the Nizam will rebel against the Grand Mogul and create his own independent nation as the Nizam of Hyderabad, reigning as Asaf Jah.
  • March 8 – Battle of Gulnabad in Persia: The Pashtun people of Afghanistan, led by Mahmud Hotak, decisively defeat forces of the Persian Safavid dynasty, precipitating its fall.
  • 9 May – General election ends, resulting in a landslide victory for the Whig government of Robert Walpole which increases its majority in the House of Commons to 220.

1723 CE88 entries

  • January – The Estates of the Realm is assembled. The party in favor of naming Charles Frederick, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp as heir to the throne is strengthened, supported by the Empire of Russia.
  • May – Parliament passes the Black Act making poaching a capital offence.
  • July 12 – Christian von Wolff holds a lecture for students and the magistrates at the end of his term as a rector, as a result of which he is banned from Prussia, on a charge of atheism.

1724 CE110 entries

  • January 15 – King Philip V of Spain abdicates the throne in favour of his 16-year-old son Louis I.
  • 20 February – Giulio Cesare in Egitto, an Italian opera by George Frideric Handel, is premiered in London.
  • June 11 – Johann Sebastian Bach leads his cantata O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort (O eternity, you word of thunder), BWV 20, on the first Sunday after Trinity, beginning his second cycle, the chorale cantata cycle.

1725 CE118 entries

  • January 6 – J. S. Bach leads the first performance of Liebster Immanuel, Herzog der Frommen, BWV 123, a chorale cantata for Epiphany.
  • January 15 – James Macrae, a former captain of a freighter for the British East India Company, is hired by the Company to administer the Madras Presidency (at this time, the "Presidency of Fort St. George"), and begins major reforms. The area administered is most of Southern India, including what is now the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, parts the states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Telangana, Odisha and the union territory of Lakshadweep.
  • March 30 – The second performance of Johann Sebastian Bach's St John Passion, BWV 245 (including 5 movements from his Weimarer Passion), takes place at St. Thomas Church, Leipzig.

1726 CE102 entries

  • January 27 – J. S. Bach leads the first performance of Alles nur nach Gottes Willen, BWV 72, concluding his third Christmas season in Leipzig on the Third Sunday after Epiphany.
  • March 29 – The first large shipment of slaves is brought to New Orleans as the slave ship L'Aurore arrives with 290 black Africans captured in Gambia. During the 90-day voyage from Gorée in Senegal, 60 of the slaves have died.
  • March 30 – After King Haffon of the West African Kingdom of Whydah (in modern-day Benin) allows Portuguese traders to build the Fort of São João Baptista de Ajudá in the capital at Savi, mercenaries of the Dutch West India Company make a failed attempt to destroy the fort by "throwing two flaming spears over the walls". By 1726, traders from Britain, France, the Netherlands and Portugal are all competing to establish trade with Whydah, which supplies other West Africans to be used as slaves.

1727 CE95 entries

  • January 12 – Abd el-Sayed of Egypt is enthroned, as Pope John XVII of Alexandria becomes the leader of the Coptic Christian Church, as the 105th Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the Holy See of St. Mark. He will serve until his death on April 20, 1745.
  • May 31 – The Royal Bank of Scotland is founded by Royal Charter in Edinburgh.
  • October 11 – George II of Great Britain is crowned. Handel's Coronation Anthems are composed for the event, including Zadok the Priest, which has been played at every subsequent Coronation of the British monarch.

1728 CE91 entries

  • May 6 – Disenfranchising Act, an Act of the Parliament of Ireland, one of a series of penal laws, prohibiting all Roman Catholics from voting, receives royal assent.
  • May 31 – The Royal Bank of Scotland invents the overdraft, allowing Edinburgh merchant William Hogg cash credit (in the amount of £1,000) for his creditors to be paid by the bank until Hogg receives expected revenue to repay the amount owed, plus interest.
  • November 25 – In India, the Maratha Empire's army invades the Mughal Empire's Malwa province, crossing the Narmada River. On November 29, the two armies clash at the Battle of Amjhira; the Maratha troops, commanded by General Chimaji Appa, overcome the defenders of Malwa (now part of India's Andhra Pradesh state) and Malwa's Governor Girdhar Bahadur is killed.

1729 CE99 entries

  • 8 January - Prince Frederick, son of King George II, is created Prince of Wales, nearly two years after his father's accession.
  • February 3 – the foundation stone is laid for the new Irish Houses of Parliament on College Green in Dublin, designed by Edward Lovett Pearce MP as the world's first purpose-built bicameral legislative building.
  • 25 February – James Oglethorpe M.P. begins service as the Chairman of the Gaols Committee to investigate the conditions of Britain's gaols and prisons after the death in Fleet Prison of his friend, Robert Castell. The Oglethorpe Committee's report propels him to notability and marks a start to British penal reforms.