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The 1740s

1,081 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.

1740 CE103 entries

  • May 31 – Frederick II becomes King in Prussia upon the death of his father, Frederick William I.
  • October 9–22 – Batavia Massacre: Troops of the Dutch East India Company massacre at least 10,000 Chinese Indonesians in Batavia.
  • December 16 – Frederick II of Prussia invades the Habsburg possession of Silesia, starting the War of the Austrian Succession.

1741 CE117 entries

  • February 13 – Sir Robert Walpole, the prime minister of Great Britain, popularizes the term "the balance of power" in a speech in Parliament.
  • May 15 – Nader Shah, Emperor of Persia, narrowly escapes an assassination attempt.
  • August 10 – Raja Marthanda Varma of Travancore defeats the Dutch East India Company in the Battle of Colachel, ending the Dutch colonial rule in India and marking the first "major" defeat of a European colonial military power in India.

1742 CE117 entries

  • April 13 – George Frideric Handel's oratorio The Messiah is first performed, in Dublin, Ireland in aid of local charities.
  • 13 April – first performance of Handel's Messiah staged at Neal's Music Hall in Fishamble Street, Dublin in aid of local charities. Matthew Dubourg leads the orchestra. Handel leaves Ireland on 13 August.
  • 13 April – George Frideric Handel's oratorio The Messiah is first performed in Dublin.

1743 CE118 entries

  • 10 May – In New France, Governor Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville ends his final term (multiple times over 43 years) as Governor of colonial French Louisiana, which he helped colonize; he is succeeded by the Marquis de Vaudreuil (for the next 10 years) and returns to France.
  • June 27 (June 16 O.S.) – War of the Austrian Succession – Battle of Dettingen in Bavaria: British forces, in alliance with those of Hanover and Hesse, defeat a French army under the duc de Noailles; King George II of Great Britain (and Elector of Brunswick) leads his own troops, the last British king to do so.
  • 27 June (16 June O.S.) – War of the Austrian Succession: Battle of Dettingen in Bavaria – British forces, including the Royal Scots Greys, the Scots Guards and the Royal Scots Fusiliers, in alliance with those of Hanover and Hesse, defeat the French; King George II of Great Britain (and Elector of Brunswick) leads his own troops, the last reigning British monarch to participate in a battle.

1744 CE107 entries

  • May 11 – Russia's treasury begins an effort to reduce the number of copper five-kopeck pieces (20 of which equal a Russian ruble) by declaring that it will buy them back at a ruble for every 20 until August 1, after which kopecks would be redeemed at a ruble for every 25; then at the rate of 33 for a ruble on October 1, and 50 for a ruble on and after August 28, 1746.
  • May 22 – The Union of Germany is proclaimed in Frankfurt Frederick II of Prussia, as articles of union are signed between Prussia, Hesse-Kassel and the Rhineland Palatinate.
  • October 19 – William Shirley, the British colonial Governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, announces the declaration of war against the Miꞌkmaq and Maliseet Indian tribes.

1745 CE111 entries

  • February 23 – The royal wedding of the crown prince of France takes place at Versailles: the Dauphin Louis Ferdiand, eldest son of King Louis XV, is united in marriage to Princess Maria Teresa Rafaela of Spain, daughter of King Philip V. The Dauphin never takes the throne, dying in 1765, eight years before the death of his father.
  • 9 July (20 July NS) – Jacobite rising: The Du Teillay, carrying the Young Pretender Charles Edward Stuart from France to Scotland, and her escort L'Elisabeth engage with HMS Lion in the English Channel.
  • November 28 – King George's War: A combined force of troops from the French Army and of the Wabanaki Confederacy (Mi'kmaq, Maliseet, Passamaquoddy, Abenaki and Penobscot tribes) destroys the British American settlement at Fort Saratoga (modern Schuylerville, New York), burning the fort and surrounding buildings to the ground, and killing 15 people. Another 103 survivors are taken prisoner.

1746 CE100 entries

  • 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.
  • October 11 – War of the Austrian Succession – Battle of Rocoux: The French army defeats the allied Austrian, British, Hanoveran and Dutch army in Rocourt.
  • October: Fortress Louisbourg and l'Ile-Royale are returned to France by the Treaty of Aix-La-Chapelle.

1747 CE105 entries

  • 11 February – At the Battle of Grand Pré, Col. Arthur Noble's detachment of British troops from Massachusetts, face off against a French and Mi'kmaq force under Nicholas Antoine Coulon de Villiers. Noble and around 70 of his soldiers were killed.
  • April 9 – The Scottish Jacobite Lord Lovat is beheaded at Tower Hill, London, for high treason. He was the last person in Britain to be beheaded, although beheading would not be formally abolished until more than 200 years later.
  • December 13 – The ordeal of the Maryland freighter sloop Endeavour begins when the ship departs Annapolis for the West Indies and encounters a hurricane. With its masts and rigging torn away, the ship drifts for six months before finally ending up at the island of Tiree off the coast of Scotland

1748 CE98 entries

  • April 24 – A congress assembles at Aix-la-Chapelle (now Aachen), with the intent to conclude the War of the Austrian Succession. The treaty is signed on October 18.
  • 24 April – War of the Austrian Succession: A congress assembles at Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen) with the intent to conclude the war.
  • August 26 – The first Lutheran Church body in America is founded at a conference in Philadelphia, organized by German-born evangelist Henry Muhlenberg and attended by pastors of orthodox and pious Lutheran communities. The two groups agree to create a common liturgy to govern public worship.

1749 CE105 entries

  • August 19 – At a ceremony in San Antonio, Texas (then a part of the New Spain province of Nuevo Santander), four Apache chiefs and Spanish colonial officials and missionaries literally "bury the hatchet", placing weapons of war into a pit and covering it as a symbol that the Apaches and the Spaniards will fight no further war against each other.
  • September 5 – A delegation of 33 members of the Catawba Indian nation and 73 from the Cherokee nation arrive in Charleston, South Carolina, to discuss a peace treaty with South Carolina's provincial governor, James Glen.
  • September 23 – Grand Chief Jean-Baptiste Cope, of the Miꞌkmaq Indian nation in Canada, declares war against the British Empire after the building of the fort at Halifax, Nova Scotia and begins hostilities by taking 20 British hostages at Canso.