/year

The 1730s

526 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.

1730 CE49 entries

  • March 16 – The establishment by Thomas Cresap of Wright's Ferry under the authority of the Province of Pennsylvania becomes the basis for Cresap's War, a nine-year-long conflict also known as the Maryland-Pennsylvania boundary dispute; the conflict mainly centers in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and York County, Pennsylvania on either bank of the Susquehanna River.
  • September 1 – A volcano erupts on Lanzarote, the easternmost of the Canary Islands and threatens the Spanish inhabitants. On Gran Canaria, the regent of the islands reports to Madrid that the flames are visible even from 130 mi away.
  • December 9 – The first documented notice in North America about freemasonry is published in The Pennsylvania Gazette in an article by its publisher, Benjamin Franklin.

1731 CE45 entries

  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.

1732 CE58 entries

  • January 21 – Russia and Persia sign the Treaty of Riascha at Resht. Based on the terms of the agreement, Russia will no longer establish claims over Persian territories.
  • February 9 – The Swedish East India Company begins its profitable first expedition to China, departing Gothenburg on the ship Friedericus Rex Sueciae under the command of Colin Campbell.
  • August 16 – The Order of Malta under the command of Jacques-François de Chambray defeats a convoy of the Ottoman Empire and frees 14 Christian slaves, following the naval battle of Damietta.

1733 CE49 entries

  • March 25 – English replaces Latin and Law French as the official language of English and Scottish courts following the enforcement of the Proceedings in Courts of Justice Act 1730.
  • June 15 – The Danish West India Company buys the island of Saint Croix from France for 750,000 livres.
  • October 5 – The election of Augustus III, to succeed his father as King of Poland, sparks the War of the Polish Succession.

1734 CE47 entries

  • January 8 – Salzburgers, Lutherans who were expelled by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Salzburg, Austria, in October 1731, set sail for the British Colony of Georgia in America.
  • May 27 – French and Swiss troops suppress the slave insurrection in the Danish West Indies on the island of Saint John (part of the modern-day U.S. Virgin Islands) after six months and restore control of the plantations to the Danish owners.
  • June 30 – War of the Polish Succession: Russian troops take Gdańsk (German: Danzig), which had been besieged since February 1734, after the failure of a French expedition to relieve the city.

1735 CE55 entries

  • February 14 – The Order of St. Anna is established in Russia, in honor of the daughter of Peter the Great.
  • August 16 (August 5 old style) – John Peter Zenger of The New York Weekly Journal becomes a symbol of freedom of the press when he is acquitted of seditious libel against William Cosby, the British Governor of the Province of New York. A jury concludes that what Zenger published was true.
  • September 22 – Sir Robert Walpole, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, becomes the first British premier to move into London's 10 Downing Street.

1736 CE62 entries

  • June 8 – Leonhard Euler writes to James Stirling describing the Euler–Maclaurin formula, providing a disconnection between integrals and sums.
  • September 7 – An Edinburgh crowd drags John Porteous out of his cell in Tolbooth Prison, and lynches him.
  • December 7 – Benjamin Franklin builds the first volunteer fire company in Philadelphia.

1737 CE56 entries

  • June 21 – In Britain, the Theatrical Licensing Act requires plays to be submitted to the Lord Chamberlain for censorship.
  • June 30 – Russo-Turkish War, 1735-1739: Russian forces under Field Marshal Munnich storm the Ottoman fortress of Ochakov, and take prisoner 4,000 Turks.
  • October 7 – At least 300,000 people are killed when a tropical cyclone strikes the Bay of Bengal in India and modern-day Bangladesh. The storm sends 12 m high waves over the Sundarbans delta, and overflows the Hooghly River.

1738 CE55 entries

  • January 7 – After the Maratha Empire of India wins the Battle of Bhopal over the Jaipur State, Jaipur cedes the Malwa territory to the Maratha in a treaty signed at Doraha.
  • July 1 – English metallurgist William Champion is granted a patent for his process of extracting zinc from other materials in a furnace.
  • September 18 – Samuel Johnson composes his first solemn prayer (published 1785).

1739 CE50 entries

  • January 3 – A 7.6 earthquake shakes the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in China killing 50,000 people.
  • February 24 – Battle of Karnal: The army of Iranian ruler Nader Shah defeats the forces of the Mughal emperor of India, Muhammad Shah.
  • May 12 – John Wesley lays the foundation stone of the New Room, Bristol in England, the world's first Methodist meeting house.