date: March 31

text: March 31 – Infanta Mariana Victoria of Spain, queen regent of Portugal (d. 1781)


date: April 4

section: Births

text: April 4 – Benjamin Kennicott, English churchman and Hebrew scholar (d. 1783)

source_section: Births


date: April 7

text: April 7 – Hugh Blair, Scottish preacher and man of letters (d. 1800)


date: April 26

text: April 26 – Esek Hopkins, American Revolutionary War admiral (d. 1802)


date: May 16

text: May 16 – Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Italian mathematician (d. 1799)


date: May 17

text: May 17 – Robert Darcy, 4th Earl of Holderness, English diplomat and politician (d. 1778)


date: May 23

text: May 23 – William Hunter, Scottish anatomist (d. 1783)


date: May 31

text: May 31 – Jacob Christian Schäffer, German inventor, botanist and professor (d. 1790)


date: July 5

text: July 5 – Francis Seymour-Conway, 1st Marquess of Hertford, Viceroy of Ireland (d. 1794)


date: July 18

text: July 18 – Saverio Bettinelli, Italian writer (d. 1808)


date: August 11

text: August 11 – Frederick Haldimand, Swiss-born British colonial governor (d. 1791)


date: October 19

text: October 19 – Victor-François, 2nd duc de Broglie, Marshal of France (d. 1804)


date: November 3

text: November 3 – John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, English statesman (d. 1792)


date: January 6

section: Deaths

text: January 6 – Giovanni Vincenzo Gravina, Italian writer and jurist (b. 1664)

source_section: Deaths


date: January 17

text: January 17 – Captain Benjamin Church, Plymouth Colony settler and military officer (b. c. 1639)


date: February 1

text: February 1 – Charles Talbot, 1st Duke of Shrewsbury, English politician (b. 1660)


date: February 17

text: February 17 – Charlotte Lee, Countess of Lichfield, illegitimate daughter of King Charles II of England (b. 1664)


date: February 18

text: February 18 – Pierre Antoine Motteux, French-born English dramatist (b. 1663)


date: February 21

text: February 21 – Manuel II (Mpanzu a Nimi) becomes the new monarch of the Kingdom of Kongo (located in western Africa in modern-day Angola) when King Pedro IV (Nusamu a Mvemba) dies after a reign of 22 years. Manuel reigns until 1743.

source_section: Events › January – March


date: March 28

text: March 28 – Thomas Micklethwaite, Lord Commissioner of the Treasury (d. 1678)


date: May 30

text: May 30 – Arnold Joost van Keppel, 1st Earl of Albemarle, Dutch favorite of William III of England (b. 1670)


date: August 4

text: August 4 – René Lepage de Sainte-Claire, lord-founder of Rimouski in eastern Quebec, Canada (b. 1656)


date: September 12

text: September 12 – Louise de Maisonblanche, illegitimate daughter of Louis XIV of France (b. 1676)


date: September 20

text: September 20 – George St Lo, Royal Navy officer and administrator (b. 1655)


date: November 22

text: November 22 – Blackbeard, English pirate (killed) (b. 1680)


date: December 9

text: December 9 – Vincenzo Coronelli, Italian cartographer and encyclopedist (b. 1650)


date: December 10

text: December 10 – Stede Bonnet, Barbadian "gentleman pirate" (hanged) (b. 1688)


date: February 3

section: Geopolitics & Diplomacy

text: February 3 (January 23 Old Style) – The Riksdag of the Estates (the parliament of Sweden) recognizes Ulrika Eleonora's claim to the Swedish throne, after she has agreed to sign a new Swedish constitution. Thus, she is recognized as queen regnant of Sweden.

source_section: Events › January–March


text: February 21 – The Riksdag of the Estates in Sweden adopts the Instrument of Government (1719), a constitution which (with slight amendment in 1720) introduces the "Age of Liberty" in the country; it includes limited women's suffrage.


date: October 28

text: October 28 – Sweden and Denmark-Norway sign an armistice, halting combat in the Great Northern War between them, with final terms agreed to in the Treaty of Frederiksborg on July 3, 1720.

source_section: Events › October–December


date: November 9

text: November 9 – Treaties of Stockholm (Great Northern War): In a treaty with Hanover, Sweden cedes the Duchies of Bremen and Verden (in northern Germany) to Hanover.


date: February 28

section: Conflict & Security

text: February 28 – Farrukhsiyar, the Mughal Emperor of India since 1713, is deposed by the Sayyid brothers, who install Rafi ud-Darajat in his place. In prison, Farrukhsiyar is strangled by assassins on April 19.


date: April 4

text: April 4 – The French army under James FitzJames, 1st Duke of Berwick, invades the Basque provinces of Spain, with 20,000 troops crossing into Navarre.

source_section: Events › April–June


date: April 19

text: April 19 – In Louisiana (New France), Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville's brother Serigny arrives on a French man-of-war, bringing news that war had been declared between France and Spain (since December 1718).


date: April 26

text: April 26 – King Philip V of Spain departs Madrid and leads 15,000 men of the Spanish Army into Navare to fight the French under Berwick.


date: May 14

text: May 14 – In Louisiana (New France), Bienville, from Mobile, captures Pensacola, but Pensacola is later recaptured by the Spanish, and again re-taken by Bienville.


date: June 4

text: June 4 – Battle of Ösel Island: A Russian naval force defeats the Swedish fleet.


date: June 10

text: June 10 – Battle of Glen Shiel: British forces defeat the Jacobites and their Spanish allies in Scotland.


date: June 20

text: June 20 – Battle of Francavilla: The Austrians are defeated by the Spanish.


date: June 30

text: June 30 – French forces under the Duke of Berwick, open the Siege of San Sebastian.


date: July 16

text: July 16 – Attack on Marstrand: the Carlsten fortress in Sweden surrenders to a Danish and Norwegian force after a siege of seven days. Colonel Henrich Danckwardt, who surrendered the fortress to Peter Tordenskjold after being away from it while it was still defensible, is beheaded on September 16.

source_section: Events › July–September


date: August 13

text: August 13 – In the Battle of Stäket, Crown Prince Frederick I of Sweden leads the successful defense of Stockholm from Russian Admiral Fyodor Apraksin's Baltic Fleet during the Russian Pillage.


date: August 19

text: August 19 – Siege of San Sebastian: The Spanish garrison surrenders to the Duke of Berwick.


date: October 11

text: October 11 – Fernando Manuel de Bustillo Bustamante y Rueda, the Spanish Governor-General of the Philippines, is assassinated in a bloody coup d'etat by supporters of the Archbishop of Manila, whom Bustamante had imprisoned.


date: October 14

text: October 14 – The British Army, under the command of Major General George Wade, invades and captures the forts of Vigo on the Atlantic coast of Spain.


date: July 11

section: Exploration & Expansion

text: July 11 – Russia's Baltic Sea fleet is first spotted from the Swedish coast, starting the Russian Pillage of 1719–21 as part of the Great Northern War.


date: January 23

section: Religion & Belief

text: January 23 – The Principality of Liechtenstein is created, within the Holy Roman Empire.


date: June 18

section: Technology & Infrastructure

text: June 18 – Captain John Perry fixes the Dagenham Breach of the River Thames in England.


date: October 21

text: October 21 – The Red Canal is opened in the Russian capital, Saint Petersburg, after seven years of construction, at a ceremony in the presence of the Tsar Peter the Great.


section: Health & Medicine

text: Europe's first systematic population census is taken in the Kingdom of Prussia's Margraviate of Brandenburg.

source_section: Events › Undated


date: December 2

section: Disasters & Accidents

text: December 2 – Workers in Falun Mine, Sweden, find the apparently petrified body of "Fet-Mats" Israelsson (d. 1677), in a flooded part of the copper workings.


date: January 8

section: Climate & Environment

text: January 8 – Carolean Death March begins: A catastrophic retreat by a largely-Finnish Swedish-Carolean army under the command of Carl Gustaf Armfeldt across the Tydalen mountains in a blizzard kills around 3,700 men and cripples a further 600 for life.


date: March 6

text: March 6 – A serious earthquake (estimated magnitude >7) in El Salvador results in large fractures, liquefaction zones, and a sulphuric gas leak. It destroys houses, churches and monasteries.


date: May 25

text: May 25 – An earthquake in Turkey damages İzmit and Istanbul, damaging some city walls and ruining mosques and palaces.


date: March 17

section: Culture & Society

text: March 17 – The coronation of Ulrika Eleonora as Queen of Sweden takes place in Stockholm.


date: April 25

text: April 25 – Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe is published in London. Initially anonymous, by the end of the year it will have run through four editions and is significant in establishing extended realistic fiction as a literary genre.


date: August 20

text: August 20 – Princess Maria Josepha of Austria, at one time the heir presumptive to the throne of Austria's Habsburg Empire, marries Frederick Augustus, Elector of Saxony ten days after renouncing any claim to the Austrian throne.


date: September 3

text: September 3 – The three-story tall Opernhaus am Zwinger, one of the largest opera houses in the world at the time, opens in Dresden by staging Antonio Lotti's Giovi in Argo.


date: December 22

text: December 22 – Andrew Bradford publishes the American Weekly Mercury, Pennsylvania's first newspaper.


text: James Figg opens one of the first indoor venues for combat sports, adjoining the City of Oxford tavern in Oxford Road.


text: Raine's Foundation School, Bethnal Green (founded by Henry Raine), opens in Wapping (closed 2020).


date: January 17

text: January 17 – Samuel Enderby, English whale oil merchant who sponsored Arctic exploration (d. 1797)

source_section: Births › January


date: March 4

text: March 4 – George Pigot, 1st Baron Pigot, British governor of Madras (d. 1777)

source_section: Births › March


date: March 13

text: March 13 – John Griffin, 4th Baron Howard de Walden, British nobleman and soldier (d. 1797)


date: March 23

text: March 23 – Anna Catharina Bischoff, Lady (or mummy) of the Barfüsser Church (d. 1787)


date: April 5

text: April 5 – Reza Qoli Mirza Afshar, prince of Persia (d. 1747)

source_section: Births › April


date: April 8

text: April 8 – Edmund Pery, 1st Viscount Pery, Irish politician, Speaker of the Irish House of Commons (d. 1806)


date: April 24

text: April 24 – Giuseppe Marc'Antonio Baretti, Italian-born English literary critic and author (d. 1789)


date: June 28

text: June 28 – Étienne François, duc de Choiseul, French general, diplomat, statesman (d. 1785)

source_section: Births › June


date: September 17

text: September 17 – James Smith, signatory to the United States Declaration of Independence (d. 1806)

source_section: Births › September


date: November 14

text: November 14 – Leopold Mozart, German/Austrian composer, father of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (d. 1787)

source_section: Births › November


date: December 13

text: December 13 – Thomas Gillespie, North Carolina planter (d. 1797)

source_section: Births › December


date: December 18

text: December 18 – William Stanhope, 2nd Earl of Harrington, British Army general (d. 1779)


date: December 25

text: December 25 – George Campbell, figure of the Scottish Enlightenment (d. 1796)


date: December 28

text: December 28 – Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes, French diplomat (d. 1787)


date: February 23

text: February 23 – Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg, German Lutheran clergy (b. 1682)

source_section: Deaths › February


date: March 10

text: March 10 – Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond, French architect (b. 1679)

source_section: Deaths › March


date: April 7

text: April 7 – Jean-Baptiste de La Salle, French priest, education reformer, saint in the Catholic Church (b. 1651)

source_section: Deaths › April


date: April 15

text: April 15 – Françoise d'Aubigné, Marquise de Maintenon, mistress and later secret wife of King Louis XIV of France (b. 1635)


date: April 21

text: April 21 – Philippe de La Hire, French mathematician and astronomer (b. 1640)


date: May 3

text: May 3 – Pierre Le Gros the Younger, sculptor from France (b. 1666)

source_section: Deaths › May


date: June 6

text: June 6 – Louis Ellies Dupin, French historian and theologian (b. 1657)

source_section: Deaths › June


date: June 17

text: June 17 – Joseph Addison, English essayist, poet, playwright and politician (b. 1672)


date: July 16

text: July 16 – Meinhardt Schomberg, 3rd Duke of Schomberg, English general (b. 1641)

source_section: Deaths › July


date: July 21

text: July 21 – Marie Louise Élisabeth d'Orléans, French princess (b. 1695)


date: July 22

text: July 22 – Heneage Finch, 1st Earl of Aylesford, English lawyer and politician (b. 1649)


text: July 22 – Giovanni Gioseffo dal Sole, Italian painter and engraver (b. 1654)


date: August 9

text: August 9 – Charles Middleton, 2nd Earl of Middleton, English and Scottish politician (b. 1649)

source_section: Deaths › August


date: September 29

text: September 29 – Muhammad Shah is crowned as the 12th Mughal Emperor of India at Shahjahanabad (modern-day Delhi), 12 days after the death of Shah Jahan II from tuberculosis.


text: Miracle in Moravia: As the Roman army is encircled by the Quadi under intense heat, a violent thunderstorm sweeps away the Quadi in a torrent of water and mud, and refreshes the parched legionaries.

source_section: Events › By place › Roman Empire


text: Avidius Cassius, governor of Syria, suppresses an agrarian revolt in Egypt and is made supreme commander of the Roman army in the East.


text: Last (5th) year of Jianning era and start of Xiping era of the Chinese Han dynasty.

source_section: Events › By place › Asia


text: Battle of Jwawon: Goguryeo Prime Minister Myeongnim Dap-bu defeats the Chinese Han dynasty forces in Manchuria.


text: The Sarmatians attack the lower Danube frontier.


text: The Bucolic War broke out in Egypt. The Egyptians, led by Isidorus, fought against the Roman Empire under Marcus Aurelius.

source_section: Events › By place › Egypt


text: Tatian produces his Diatessaron, a harmony of the four gospels.

source_section: Events › By topic › Religion


text: Emperor Marcus Aurelius crosses the Danube with an expeditionary force. He subdues the Marcomanni and their allies and then, in a pact signed with the Germanic tribes, he imports them into the Roman Empire to occupy areas that have been depopulated by the plague.


section: Crime & Justice

text: Montanism spreads through the Roman Empire.


text: Lu Su, Chinese general and politician (d. 217)

source_section: Births


text: Xu Miao, Chinese official and politician (d. 249)


text: Marcus Macrinius Vindex, Roman praetorian prefect

source_section: Deaths


text: Dou Miao (or Huansi), Chinese empress


text: Hou Lan, Chinese eunuch-official and politician


date: January 21

text: 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.

source_section: Events › January–March


date: February 17

text: February 17 – The Treaty of The Hague is signed between Spain, Britain, France, Austria and the Dutch Republic, ending the War of the Quadruple Alliance with effect from May 20.


date: March 11

text: March 11 (February 29 Old Style) – Queen Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden resigns, to let her husband Frederick I take over as king of Sweden. She had desired a joint rule, in a similar manner to William III and Mary II in Britain, but as the Riksdag of the Estates (Sweden's parliament) refuses this, she abdicates in her husband's favour instead.


date: April 4

text: April 4 – The Riksdag of the Estates elects Frederick I new King of Sweden.

source_section: Events › April–June


date: May 2

text: May 2 – The Riksdag of the Estates in Sweden adopts the Instrument of Government (1720), an amendment of the 1719 constitution continuing the "Age of Liberty" in the country.


date: May 20

text: May 20 – The Treaty of The Hague, signed between Spain and the Quadruple Alliance (Britain, France, the Netherlands and Austria) on February 17, goes into effect. Spain renounces its claims to the Italian possessions of the French throne, and Austria and the Duchy of Savoy trade Sicily for Sardinia.


date: June 11

text: June 11 – The British Parliament approves the Bubble Act (officially the Royal Exchange and London Assurance Corporation Act 1719), prohibiting the formation of joint-stock companies without prior approval by royal charter.


date: July 14

text: July 14 (July 3 O.S.) – The Treaty of Frederiksborg is signed between Denmark–Norway and Sweden, restoring the occupied portion of Swedish Pomerania to Sweden and ending the Great Northern War.

source_section: Events › July–September


date: February 24

text: February 24 – Battle of Nassau: Spanish forces assault the British settlement of Nassau, Bahamas at the end of the War of the Quadruple Alliance.


date: June 19

text: June 19 – At Burhanpur (in the modern-day Indian state of Madhya Pradesh), the Nizam-ul-Mulk of Hyderabad survives an attempted ambush by Mughal Empire forces dispatched by the Sayyid brothers (Syed Abdullah Khan and Syed Husain Ali Khan Barha) and goes on to establish a rival state in southern India.


date: July 27

text: July 27 – The Battle of Grengam takes place in the Ledsund strait between the island communities of Föglö and Lemland. It is the last major naval battle in the Great Northern War taking place in the Åland Islands, marking the end of Russian and Swedish offensive naval operations in Baltic waters.


date: October 8

text: October 8 – Sayyid Hussain Ali Khan Barha, one of the powerful Sayyid brothers of the Mughal Empire in India, is stabbed to death by Turkish nobleman Haider Beg Dughlat after Dughlat distracts him by giving him a petition to read. The assassination is ordered by Nizam ul-Mulk in retaliation for Sayyid Hussain's attempted ambush on June 19.

source_section: Events › October–December


date: October 15

text: October 15 – Muhammad Ibrahim, a grandson of the late Emperor Bahadur Shah I, is freed from prison by conspirators and declared the Mughal Emperor as a rival of his brother Muhammad Shah, beginning a 32-day reign that is described as being "like a drop of dew upon a blade of grass".


date: November 13

text: November 13 – India's Mughal Emperor Muhammad Shah defeats his brother, pretender Muhammad Ibrahim, in a battle at Hasanpur (in Uttar Pradesh). Ibrahim is returned to incarceration at the citadel of Shahjahanabad, part of modern-day Delhi.


date: December 8

text: December 8 – Fath-Ali Khan Daghestani is deposed from his position as Grand Vizier of Iran (at this time, part of the Safavid Empire) and tortured by Mohammadqoli Khan, the bodyguard of the Safavid Shah, Sultan Husayn.


date: May 25

text: May 25 – The British privateer Speedwell, captained by George Shelvocke, is wrecked off of the coast of Chile on the uninhabited "Robinson Crusoe Island" (Más a Tierra, where Alexander Selkirk was marooned for 5 years). The crew is marooned for 5 months but can build a boat from timbers salvaged from the wreck, and is able to escape the island on October 6.


date: August 14

text: 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.


text: The Kangxi Emperor announces that all western businessmen in China can trade only in Guangzhou.

source_section: Events › Date unknown


text: Jonathan Swift begins major composition work on Gulliver's Travels in Ireland.


text: The Tuscarora people leave North Carolina as a result of European colonization.


date: April 17

text: April 17 – Bajirao I is appointed as the Peshwa of the Maratha Empire by Chhatrapati Shahu, succeeding his father Peshwa.


date: June 25

section: Economy & Finance

text: June 25 – The "South Sea Bubble", the phenomenal growth of the South Sea Company, reaches its peak as South Sea stock is priced at £1,060 a share. By the end of September, as panic sales are made, the price falls to £150.


date: July 12

text: July 12 – Under the authority of the Bubble Act, the Lords Justices in Great Britain attempt to curb some of the excesses of the stock markets during the "South Sea Bubble". They dissolve a number of petitions for patents and charters, and abolish more than 80 joint-stock companies of dubious merit, but this has little effect on the creation of "Bubbles", ephemeral joint-stock companies created during the hysteria of the times.


date: September 30

text: September 30 – "South Sea Bubble": The English stock market crashes, with dropping prices for stock in the South Sea Company.


text: Parallel to the English South Sea Bubble France experiences the Mississippi Bubble. Market shares of the Mississippi Company reach a peak price of over 10,000 livres in spring just to plummet to 1,000 by the end of the year. Monthly inflation in France reaches 23 percent and a bank rush ensues when investors try in vain to convert paper notes issued by the Banque Royale into gold and silver. John Law, the Scottish architect of the Bubble, is forced to flee the country.


text: The Town on Queen Anne's Creek, North Carolina is renamed Edenton, in honor of North Carolina Governor Charles Eden; it is incorporated in 1722.


text: The first yacht club in the world, the Royal Cork Yacht Club, is founded in Ireland.


date: February 10

section: Science & Discovery

text: February 10 – Edmond Halley is appointed as Astronomer Royal for England.


date: May

text: May – Great Plague of Marseille begins. The last major outbreak of bubonic plague in western Europe, the disease kill over 100,000 people in the city and surrounding area of France.


text: The Guild Regulation of 1720 is introduced in Sweden.


date: November 16

text: November 16 – Pirate John Rackham (captured on October 22) is brought to trial at Spanish Town in Jamaica; he is hanged at Port Royal two days later. Most of his crew is also hanged but female pirates Mary Read and Anne Bonny are spared.


date: May 3

text: May 3 – The coronation of King Frederick I of Sweden takes place in Stockholm, six weeks after his rule began.


date: June 1

text: June 1 – British silversmiths are once again allowed to use sterling silver after 24 years of being limited to a higher quality (but softer) Britannia silver.


text: The Academia Real da Historia is founded in Lisbon, Portugal.


text: Il teatro alla moda, a satirical pamphlet by Benedetto Marcello, is published anonymously in Venice.


date: January 2

text: January 2 – José de Gálvez, Spanish politician (d. 1787)


date: January 27

text: January 27 – Samuel Foote, English dramatist and actor (d. 1777)


date: January 30

text: January 30 – Charles De Geer, Swedish industrialist, entomologist (d. 1778)


date: March 9

text: March 9 – Philip Yorke, 2nd Earl of Hardwicke, English politician (d. 1790)


date: March 13

text: March 13 – Charles Bonnet, Swiss naturalist and writer (d. 1793)


date: April 23

text: April 23 – Vilna Gaon, Lithuanian rabbi (d. 1797)


date: July 18

text: July 18 – Gilbert White, English naturalist and cleric (d. 1793)


date: August 18

text: August 18 – Laurence Shirley, 4th Earl Ferrers, English murderer (d. 1760)


date: October 4

text: October 4 – Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Italian artist (d. 1778)


date: October 8

text: October 8 – Geneviève Thiroux d'Arconville, French novelist, translator and chemist (d. 1805)


date: October 19

text: October 19 – John Woolman, American Quaker preacher, abolitionist (d. 1772)


date: November 1

text: November 1 – Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte, French admiral (d. 1791)


text: November 16 – Carlo Antonio Campioni, French-born composer (d. 1788)


date: December 24

text: December 24 – Anna Maria Mozart (née Pertl; d. 1778), wife of Leopold Mozart and mother of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Maria Anna Mozart


date: January 10

text: January 10 – Ramon Perellos, Spanish 64th Grandmaster of the Knights Hospitaller (b. 1637)


date: January 12

text: January 12 – William Ashhurst, Lord Mayor of London (1693–1694) (b. 1647)


date: January 19

text: January 19 – Eleonor Magdalene of Neuburg, Holy Roman Empress (b. 1655)


date: January 31

text: January 31 – Thomas Grey, 2nd Earl of Stamford, English privy councilor (b. c. 1645)


date: January

text: January – Francis Daniel Pastorius, founder of Germantown, Pennsylvania (b. 1651)


date: April 2

text: April 2 – Joseph Dudley, colonial Governor of Massachusetts (b. 1647)


date: April 20

text: April 20 – George Gordon, 1st Earl of Aberdeen, Lord Chancellor of Scotland (b. 1637)


date: April 21

text: April 21 – Antoine Hamilton, French writer (b. 1646)


date: July 12

text: July 12 – King Sukjong of Joseon (b. 1661)


date: August 3

text: August 3 – Anthonie Heinsius, Dutch politician (b. 1641)


text: August 3 – Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, English poet (b. 1661)


date: August 21

text: August 21 – John Leake, English Royal Navy admiral (b. 1656)


date: November 12

text: November 12 – Peder Tordenskjold, Norwegian naval hero (b. 1690)


date: December 29

text: December 29 – Maria Margarethe Kirch, German astronomer (b. 1670)


date: April 4

text: April 4 – Robert Walpole becomes the first Prime Minister of Great Britain (although this is more a term of disparagement at this time).


date: September 10

text: September 10 (August 23 Old Style) – The Treaty of Nystad is signed, ending the Great Northern War.

source_section: Events › July –September


date: October 22

text: October 22 – The Kelantan Sultanate is established at Kelantan Darul Naim (modern-day Kelantan Darul Naim, Malaysia).

source_section: Events › October –December


date: August 18

text: August 18 – The Sack of Shamakhi occurs, in the Persian Safavid Empire.


date: November 2

text: 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.


text: José de Azlor y Virto de Vera, Marquis of San Miguel de Aguayo and governor of Spanish Texas, establishes the fort of Presidio La Bahía at its original location, on the ruins of the failed French Fort Saint Louis.


text: A suggestion box is developed under the eighth shōgun of Japan, Yoshimune Tokugawa.


date: July 31

text: July 31 – The Spanish expedition led by Coahuila Governor José de Azlor y Virto de Vera, sent to recapture Texas from the French, encounters Neches River the smaller French force of Louis Juchereau de St. Denis, who had led the French expansion westward from the Louisiana territory. Realizing that his forces are badly outnumbered, St. Denis abandons hope of colonizing the east Texas territory and Azlor retakes the area.


date: May 8

text: May 8 – Pope Innocent XIII succeeds Pope Clement XI, as the 244th pope.


text: Regular mail service between London and New England is established.


text: April 21 – The deadliest outbreak of smallpox in the history of Boston begins when the British ship HMS Sea Horse arrives in Boston Harbor with a crew of sailors who had survived a smallpox epidemic. One of the Seahorse crew who had cleared quarantine develops symptoms the next day and infects other people in a lodging house. Over the next 10 months, 5,759 cases of smallpox are recorded in Boston and 844 people die of the disease.


date: June 26

text: June 26 – Dr. Zabdiel Boylston of the Harvard University School of Medicine begins the first public inoculation campaign in order to slow the smallpox epidemic in Boston, giving a vaccine to his own son, and then to his slave and the slave's infant son.


date: April 26

text: 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.


date: January 6

text: January 6 – The Committee of Inquiry on the collapse of the South Sea Company in Great Britain publishes its findings.


date: March 24

text: March 24 – Johann Sebastian Bach's Brandenburg concertos are completed, and dedicated to Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg-Schwedt.


date: December 22

text: 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.


date: January 17

text: January 17 – Countess Palatine Elisabeth Auguste of Sulzbach, politically active Electress of Bavaria (d. 1794)


date: February 3

text: February 3 – Friedrich Wilhelm von Seydlitz, Prussian general (d. 1773)


date: February 21

text: February 21 – John McKinly, American physician, President of Delaware (d. 1796)


date: March 8

text: March 8 – Elizabeth Pierrepont, Duchess of Kingston-upon-Hull, English noble (d. 1788)


date: March 19

text: March 19 – Tobias Smollett, Scottish physician and author (d. 1771)


date: April 14

text: April 14 – John Hanson, President of the Continental Congress of America (d. 1783)


date: April 15

text: April 15 – Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, English military leader (d. 1765)


date: April 19

text: April 19 – Roger Sherman, signer of the United States Declaration of Independence (d. 1793)


date: June 19

text: June 19 – Johann de Kalb, Bavarian-French military officer who served as a major general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War (d. 1780)


date: July 14

text: July 14 – John Douglas, Scottish Anglican bishop and man of letters (d. 1807)


date: August 4

text: August 4 – Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Marquess of Stafford, English politician (d. 1803)


date: September 10

text: September 10 – Peyton Randolph, 1st and 3rd President of the Continental Congress (d. 1775)


date: November 22

text: November 22 – Joseph Frederick Wallet DesBarres, Swiss-born cartographer and Canadian statesman (d. 1824)


date: December 6

text: December 6 – Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes, French statesman (d. 1794)


date: January 26

text: January 26 – Pierre Daniel Huet, French churchman and scholar (b. 1630)


date: February 5

text: February 5 – James Stanhope, chief minister of Great Britain, dies a day after collapsing while vigorously defending his government's conduct over the "South Sea Bubble" in Parliament.


text: February 5 –James Stanhope, 1st Earl Stanhope, English chief minister (b. 1673)


date: February 24

text: February 24 – John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Normanby, English statesman and poet (b. 1648)


date: April

text: April – Mary Read, English-born pirate


date: July 8

text: July 8 – Elihu Yale, American benefactor of Yale University (b. 1649)


date: July 18

text: July 18 – Jean-Antoine Watteau, French painter (b. 1684)


date: July 19

text: July 19 – Sir Jonathan Trelawny, 3rd Baronet, British bishop (b. 1650)


date: August 3

text: August 3 – Grinling Gibbons, Dutch-born woodcarver (b. 1648)


date: September 17

text: September 17 – Marguerite Louise d'Orléans, French princess (b. 1645)


date: October 11

text: October 11 – Edward Colston, English merchant, philanthropist (b. 1636)


date: December 13

text: December 13 – Alexander Selkirk, Scottish-born sailor (original "Robinson Crusoe"), of yellow fever (b. 1676)


date: December 17

text: December 17 – Richard Lumley, 1st Earl of Scarbrough, English statesman (b. 1650)


date: December 25

text: December 25 – António Luís de Sousa, 2nd Marquis of Minas, Portuguese general, governor-general of Brazil (b. 1644)


date: February 21

text: 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.


date: May 5

text: May 5 – Pennsylvania colony enacts a statute, requiring all persons importing any person previously convicted of sodomy, to pay £5 for each such incoming person.


date: May 9

text: May 9 – The 1722 British general election (began March 19) closes with Prime Minister Robert Walpole's Whig Party increasing its majority in the House of Commons of Great Britain, capturing 48 additional seats from the Tory Party and having a 389 to 169 advantage.


text: Peter the Great of Russia creates the Table of Ranks.


text: Johann Sebastian Bach composes The Well-Tempered Clavier.


text: Edenton is incorporated as the county seat of Chowan County, North Carolina. The governor and assembly of North Carolina move to Edenton, making it the de facto capital of North Carolina until 1746, when the government is moved to New Bern.


date: February 10

text: February 10 – The Battle of Cape Lopez begins off of the coast of West Africa (and present-day Gabon), as the Royal Navy brings an end to the piracy of Bartholomew Roberts, nicknamed "Black Bart". Captained by Chaloner Ogle of the Royal Navy, HMS Swallow fires its cannons as Roberts sails his ship Royal Fortune toward the oncoming Swallow in order to gain time by forcing Swallow to turn around. Standing on the deck, Roberts and two of his crew are killed by the second wave of cannon fire. The remaining 272 pirate crew are captured.


date: March 8

text: 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.


date: April 5

text: April 5 (Easter Sunday) – Dutch admiral Jacob Roggeveen lands on what is now Easter Island.


date: July 25

text: July 25 – Father Rale's War (1722–1725) begins along the Maine and Massachusetts border.


date: July 26

text: July 26 (July 15 O.S.) – The Russo-Persian War (1722–1723) begins with Peter the Great's Persian campaign.


date: October 23

text: October 23 – The six-month-long Siege of Isfahan ends, when the Safavid capital Isfahan capitulates to the Afghan rebels. Safavid Sultan Husayn abdicates, and acknowledges Mahmud Hotak as the new Shah of Persia.


text: The "Brown Bess" muzzle-loading smoothbore musket becomes the British Army's standard infantry firearm for land combat for more than a century.


date: November 15

text: November 15 (November 4 O.S.) – Russia's Emperor Peter the Great issues an order establishing the Caspian Flotilla during its war against Persia to gain complete control of the landlocked Caspian Sea.


text: A small group of Bohemian Brethren (the "Hidden Seed") from northern Moravia are allowed to settle in a new village, Herrnhut, on the Berthelsdorf estate of the pietist Count Nicolaus Zinzendorf in Upper Lusatia (Saxony), forming the Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine, seed of the Moravian Church's renewal.


date: April 2

text: April 2 – The first Silence Dogood letter, written by Benjamin Franklin, is printed.


text: The Chiesa del Purgatorio, Venafro, Italy, Catholic Church is built.


text: Modern music theory finds definition in Jean-Philippe Rameau's Traité de l'harmonie réduite à ses principes naturels (Treatise on Harmony), published in Paris.


date: June 15

text: June 15 – Pirate Edward Low and his men sail the stolen ship Rebecca into Port Roseway near modern Shelburne, Nova Scotia, where 13 fishing boats from Massachusetts are anchored. Over the next few days, the pirates board the boats and lay siege to them. On June 19, Low confiscates the schooner Mary from its owner, Joseph Dolliber, outfits it with cannons and renames it the Fancy. Eight of the fishermen are taken hostage as the stolen vessel departs, including Philip Ashton.


date: August 24

text: August 24 – Francis Atterbury, Anglican Bishop of Rochester and Dean of Westminster, is arrested in his deanery and confined in the Tower of London for treason, accused of leading the Jacobite "Atterbury Plot" in support of the pretender James Francis Edward Stuart with the aim of overthrowing the House of Hanover and King George I of Great Britain and restoring the House of Stuart by installing Prince James as "King James III".


date: November 20

text: November 20 – The Dutch East India Company cargo ship Schoonenberg runs aground in South Africa's Struis Bay and is looted by most of its 110 crew, beginning a legend and questions of whether the wreck was part of a conspiracy or simply an accident. Almost 300 years later, the event is reconstructed in detail by investigators.


date: September 23

text: September 23 – La Nouvelle-Orléans (New Orleans), recently established by France as the capital of the Louisiana Territory is hit by what is later called the "Great Hurricane of 1722", starting with 7 ft high waves, followed by winds in excess of 100 mph. By September 24, "Almost every public building in New Orleans, from the hospital to the cathedral" is "either unroofed or totally ruined."


date: January 27

text: January 27 – Daniel Defoe's novel Moll Flanders is published anonymously in London.


date: February 16

text: February 16 – Peter the Great, Emperor of All Russia, announces that his heir to the throne will be his 4-year old grandson, Prince Pyotr Alekseivich.


date: September 6

text: September 6 – Wälättä Giyorgis, a 16-year-old who nursed Ethiopia's Emperor Bakaffa back to health after he fell ill, marries the Emperor and begins her rise to power as the Empress Mentewab. Upon Bakaffa's death in 1730, Mentewab becomes the regent for her son by Bakaffa, Iyasu II.


text: The first public theatre in Denmark, Lille Grønnegade Theatre, is founded in Copenhagen.


date: February 24

text: February 24 – John Burgoyne, British army officer, playwright and politician (d. 1792)


date: March 23

text: March 23 – Jean-Baptiste Chappe d'Auteroche, French astronomer (d. 1769)


date: April 11

text: April 11 – Christopher Smart, English poet (d. 1771)


date: May 28

text: May 28 – Hugh Pigot (Royal Navy officer, born 1722), British Royal Navy admiral (d. 1792)


date: July 11

text: July 11 – Prince George William of Hesse-Darmstadt, German prince (d. 1782)


date: August 5

text: August 5 – William Fortescue, 1st Earl of Clermont, Irish politician (d. 1806)


date: September 2

text: September 2 – William Crawford, American soldier and surveyor (died 1782)


date: September 13

text: September 13 – John Home, Scottish minister, soldier, author (d. 1808)


date: September 16

text: September 16 – Gabriel Christie (British Army officer), British Army general (d. 1799)


date: September 27

text: September 27 – Samuel Adams, Boston politician, leader in the American Revolution (d. 1803)


date: November 5

text: November 5 – William Byron, 5th Baron Byron, English dueller (d. 1798)


date: November 19

text: November 19 – Benjamin Chew, Chief Justice of colonial Pennsylvania (d. 1810)


date: December 28

text: December 28 – John Pitcairn, British Marine officer who was stationed in Boston (d. 1775)


date: December 30

text: December 30 – Charles Yorke, Lord Chancellor of Great Britain (d. 1770)


date: January 21

text: January 21 – Charles Paulet, 2nd Duke of Bolton, English supporter of William III of England (b. 1661)


date: January 23

text: January 23 – Henri de Boulainvilliers, French nobleman (b. 1658)


date: January 29

text: January 29 – Carl Gustav Rehnskiöld, Swedish military leader (b. 1651)


date: February 5

text: February 5 – Éléonore Desmier d'Olbreuse, Duchess of Braunschweig-Lüneburg (b. 1639)


date: February 10

text: February 10 – Bartholomew Roberts, Welsh pirate (b. 1682)


date: March 11

text: March 11 – John Toland, Irish philosopher (b. 1670)


date: April 13

text: April 13 – Charles Leslie, Irish Anglican theologian (b. 1650)


date: April 21

text: April 21 – Robert Beverley, Jr., historian of Colonial Virginia (b. 1673)


date: June 5

text: June 5 – Johann Kuhnau, German composer (b. 1660)


date: June 16

text: June 16 – Marc'Antonio Zondadari, Italian-born 65th Grandmaster of the Knights Hospitaller (b. 1658)


date: September 20

text: September 20 – John Lauder, Lord Fountainhall, Scottish jurist (b. 1646)


date: December 5

text: December 5 – Marie Anne de La Trémoille, princesse des Ursins, politically active Spanish court official (b. 1642)


date: December 8

text: December 8 – Elizabeth Charlotte, Princess Palatine, wife to Philippe I, Duke of Orléans (b. 1652)


date: December 20

text: December 20 – After the longest reign by a Chinese Emperor in history (61 years), the Kangxi Emperor dies, and is succeeded by his son Yinzhen as Yongzheng Emperor.


date: February 15

text: February 15 – King Louis XV of France attains his majority on his 13th birthday, bringing an end to the regency of his cousin Philippe II, Duke of Orléans.


date: September 1

text: September 1 – The Treaty of Saint Petersburg is signed in Russia, ending the Russo-Persian War (1722–1723).


date: November 23

text: November 23 – The Province of Carolina charters New Bern as Newbern (the town later becomes the capital of North Carolina until Raleigh is founded).


date: March 9

text: March 9 – The Mapuche Uprising begins in Chile as the indigenous Mapuche people, commanded by Toqui (war chief) Vilumilla, leading an attack against the city of Tucapel. The war lasts until February 13, 1726.


date: March 28

text: March 28 – The capture of Rasht from the Persian Empire by the Russian Empire brings Rasht and the Gilan Province under Russian control.


date: June 26

text: June 26 – Russo-Persian War: Baku surrenders to the Russians.


date: October 23

text: October 23 – Russian Emperor Peter the Great authorizes an incentive for men of Serbia to join a new Russian Imperial Army unit, the Serbian Hussar Regiment. The Emperor sends Jovan Albanez to recruit new officers and troops with a grant of farmable land in Russia, and 1,070 take advantage of the offer over the next two years.


date: May 30

text: May 30 – Johann Sebastian Bach assumed the office of Thomaskantor in Leipzig, presenting his first new cantata, Die Elenden sollen essen, BWV 75, in the St. Nicholas Church on the first Sunday after Trinity.


date: July 12

text: 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.


date: September 14

text: September 14 – Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller António Manoel de Vilhena lays down the first stone of Fort Manoel in Malta.


date: August 11

text: August 11 – The Ostend Company is chartered by merchants and shipowners to establish trade for the Austrian Netherlands in the East Indies and West Indies. Over the next two days, 54 major investors in Antwerp purchase the shares of stock in the company.


text: The Province of Carolina incorporates Beaufort, North Carolina, as the Port of Beaufort, making it the third incorporated town in the province.


date: January 25

text: January 25 – English-born pirate Edward Low intercepts the Portuguese ship Nostra Signiora de Victoria. After the Portuguese captain throws his treasure of 11,000 gold coins into the sea rather than surrendering it, Low orders the captain's brutal torture and execution, then has the rest of the Victoria crew murdered. Low commits more atrocities this year, but is not certainly heard of after the end of the year.


date: April 1

text: April 1 – In Switzerland, the attempt by Major Abraham Davel to make the canton of Vaud independent of the Swiss government, is put down, one day after he and 500 men had taken control of the Vaudois capital, Lausanne. Davel is arrested, tortured and tried for treason; he is beheaded on April 24.


date: May 27

text: May 27 – The Black Act 1723, intended to combat illegal hunting in Great Britain, comes into force and expands the number of crimes that are punishable by death, and remains in effect for 100 years.


date: February 4

text: February 4 – The Kangxi Era ends in Qing dynasty China, and the Yongzheng Era begins, with the coronation of Yinzhen, the Yongzheng Emperor.


date: July 2

text: July 2 – Bach's Magnificat is first performed.


date: July 18

text: July 18 – Johann Sebastian Bach leads the first performance of his cantata Erforsche mich, Gott, und erfahre mein Herz, BWV 136, in Leipzig on the eighth Sunday after Trinity.


date: August 15

text: August 15 – The Peterhof Palace is opened in a formal ceremony just outside Saint Petersburg, capital of the Russian Empire.


date: December 26

text: December 26 – Bach leads the first performance of Darzu ist erschienen der Sohn Gottes, BWV 40, his first Christmas Cantata composed for Leipzig.


date: January 5

text: January 5 – Nicole-Reine Lepaute, French astronomer, mathematician (d. 1788)


date: February 15

text: February 15 – John Witherspoon, American signer of the Declaration of Independence (d. 1794)


date: February 23

text: February 23 – Richard Price, Welsh philosopher (d. 1791)


date: April 20

text: April 20 – Cornelius Harnett, American Continental Congressman (d. 1781)


date: June 3

text: June 3 – Giovanni Antonio Scopoli, Italian-born physician, naturalist (d. 1788)


date: June 20

text: June 20 – Adam Ferguson, Scottish philosopher, historian (d. 1816)


text: June 20 – Theophilus Lindsey, English theologian (d. 1808)


date: July 1

text: July 1 – Pedro Rodríguez, Count of Campomanes, Spanish statesman, writer (d. 1802)


date: July 10

text: July 10 – William Blackstone, English jurist (d. 1780)


date: July 16

text: July 16 – Sir Joshua Reynolds, English painter (d. 1792)


date: September 11

text: September 11 – Johann Bernhard Basedow, German educational reformer (d. 1790)


date: November 8

text: November 8 – John Byron, English admiral (d. 1786)


date: November 30

text: November 30 – William Livingston, American politician, journalist (d. 1790)


text: December 26 – Friedrich Melchior, baron von Grimm, German writer (d. 1807)


date: March 31

text: March 31 – Edward Hyde, 3rd Earl of Clarendon, British Governor of New York and New Jersey (b. 1661)


date: April 5

text: April 5 – Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, Austrian architect (b. 1656)


date: July 26

text: July 26 – Robert Bertie, 1st Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven, English statesman (b. 1660)


date: August 10

text: August 10 – Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, who had served as the Regent of France to rule for King Louis XV from 1715 until the latter's attainment of majority on February 15, is appointed by the King to serve as his Prime Minister, but dies in office less than four months later.


date: August 14

text: August 14 – Edward Northey (barrister), British barrister and politician (b. 1652)


date: August 21

text: August 21 – Dimitrie Cantemir, Moldavian linguist and scholar (b. 1673)


date: August 23

text: August 23 – Increase Mather, American Puritan minister (b. 1639)


date: August 26

text: August 26 – Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, Dutch scientist (b. 1632)


date: October 10

text: October 10 – William Cowper, 1st Earl Cowper, Lord Chancellor of England (b. c. 1665)


date: October 19

text: October 19 – Godfrey Kneller, German-born artist (b. 1646)


date: October 28

text: October 28 – Christopher Vane, 1st Baron Barnard, English politician and peer (b. 1653)


date: October 31

text: October 31 – Gian Gastone de' Medici becomes the new Grand Duke of Tuscany upon the death of his father Cosimo III de' Medici; he will be the state's last ruler from the House of Medici. During his reign, the state treasury is depleted and Tuscany becomes one of the poorest nations in Europe.


date: November 19

text: November 19 – Antoine Nompar de Caumont, French courtier and statesman (b. 1632)


date: December 1

text: December 1 – Susanna Centlivre, English dramatist, actress (b. 1669)


date: January 15

text: January 15 – King Philip V of Spain abdicates the throne in favour of his 16-year-old son Louis I.


date: June 23

text: June 23 – The Treaty of Constantinople is signed, partitioning Persia between the Ottoman Empire and Russia.


date: July 31

text: July 31 – The Hyderabad State is created in India, as Mughal Emperor Muhammad Shah rewards his associate Mir Qamar-ud-din Khan. Qamar-ud-din becomes the first Nizam of Hyderabad. The princely state exists for more than 220 years, coming to an end after India's independence from Britain.


date: September 4

text: September 4 – José de Grimaldo, who had been Prime Minister for Spain's King Philip V until the latter's abdication in January, resumes office with the return of King Philip.


date: December 7

text: December 7 – By order of the Nizam, Hyderabad is made the permanent capital of the Indian princely state of the same name. It becomes capital of the Indian states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh


date: December 14

text: December 14 – The Viceroyalty of Zhili (modern-day Hebei province) is recreated in the Chinese Empire by the Emperor Yongzheng for the first time in 55 years, with Li Weijun as the first Viceory. Zhili exists as a viceroyalty until the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1912.


text: The Austrian Netherlands agree to the Pragmatic Sanction.


date: January 22

text: January 22 – Bruno Mauricio de Zabala, Spanish Captain general of the Río de la Plata, forces the Portuguese to abandon their fortified settlement at what will become the city of Montevideo in Uruguay.


text: Blenheim Palace construction is completed in England. It is presented as a gift from the nation to the Duke of Marlborough, for his involvement in the Battle of Blenheim in 1704.


date: January 18

text: January 18 – The Dutch East India Company cargo ship Fortuyn, on its maiden voyage, departs from the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa after a layover of 16 days following its arrival from the Netherlands. With a crew of 225 commanded by Pieter Westrik, the ship departs for Batavia in the Dutch East Indies and is never seen again.


date: April 28

text: April 28 – The first of the seven Drapier's Letters, satirical pamphlets seeking to arouse public opinion in Ireland against the imposition by the British of a privately minted copper coinage, is published by Jonathan Swift, Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin and author, writing under the pseudonym "M. B., Drapier", identifying himself as a drapier or seller of cloth.


date: May 13

text: May 13 – Cardinal Giulio Piazza, the Archbishop of Faenza, comes within four votes of being elected the new Pope


date: May 29

text: May 29 – Cardinal Vincenzo Orsini, the Archbishop of Benevento, accepts the papacy, two days after being unanimously selected by the cardinals at the papal conclave in Rome. He becomes the 245th pontiff as Pope Benedict XIII.


date: June 11

text: June 11 – Johann Sebastian Bach leads his cantata O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort (O eternity, you word of thunder), BWV20, on the first Sunday after Trinity, beginning his second cycle, the chorale cantata cycle.


date: October 2

text: October 2 – Muhammad bin Nasir is elected as the new Imam of Oman after the overthrow of his brother, Saif bin Sultan II.


date: December 2

text: December 2 – The Metropolitan Mojsije Petrović, leader of the Serbian Orthodox Church within the Habsburg monarchy, issues a 57-point decree to purge the church of the Turkish influence.


date: September 24

text: September 24 – The Paris Bourse, the stock exchange for France, is created by order of King Louis XV on the advice of Nicolas Ravot d'Ombreval, four years after a financial panic had shut down trading. Stock markets had already been set up in Lyon, Bourdeaux and Toulouse.


date: December 24

text: December 24 – Francesco Valesio resumes writing his Diario di Roma, 13 years after he ceased his recording of daily life in Rome.


text: China expels foreign missionaries.


date: July 27

text: July 27 – "Peter the Wild Boy" is captured near Helpensen in Hanover.


date: November 11

text: November 11 – Joseph Blake (alias "Blueskin"), English highwayman, is hanged in London.


date: November 16

text: November 16 – Highwayman Jack Sheppard is hanged in London.


text: November 16 – Willem Mons, lover of Catherine I of Russia, is executed, and his head preserved in alcohol.


text: Shah Mahmud Hotaki of Afghanistan goes insane.


date: November 19

text: November 19 – The Dutch East India Company frigate Slot ter Hooge strikes rocks and sinks off Porto Santo Island, Madeira, with the loss of 221 of the 254 people on board.


text: December 7 – In the aftermath of an attack against Jesuit Catholics led by the Lutheran mayor of the Prussian city of Thorn (modern-day Toruń, Poland), ten Lutheran officials (including mayor Johann Gottfried Rösner) are executed in the town square. Rösner and seven others are decapitated by an axe, while two others are hanged, drawn and quartered for blasphemy.


date: January 28

text: January 28 – Saint Petersburg State University is established in Russia.


date: February 8

text: February 8 – Catherine I of Russia is officially named tsaritsa by her husband, Peter the Great.


date: February 20

text: February 20 – The premiere of Giulio Cesare, an Italian opera by George Frideric Handel, takes place in London.


date: April 7

text: April 7 – (Good Friday) Bach leads the first performance of his St John Passion,""carefully designed with a great deal of musico-theological intent", on Good Friday.


date: April 10

text: April 10 – Bach leads the first performance of his cantata Erfreut euch, ihr Herzen, BWV 66, his first cantata composed for Easter in Leipzig.


date: April 23

text: April 23 – Johann Sebastian Bach leads the first performance of his cantata Du Hirte Israel, höre, BWV 104, illustrating the topic of the Good Shepherd in pastoral music.


date: June 24

text: June 24 – On the Feast of St. John the Baptist, Bach leads the first performance of his Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam, BWV7, the third cantata of his chorale cantata cycle.


date: July 2

text: July 2 – On the Feast of the Visitation, Bach leads the first performance of his Meine Seel erhebt den Herren, BWV10, the fifth cantata of his chorale cantata cycle.


date: August 13

text: August 13 – Johann Sebastian Bach leads the first performance of Nimm von uns, Herr, du treuer Gott, BWV 101, a chorale cantata on a famous tune.


date: August

text: August – Longman, the oldest surviving publishing house in England, is founded in London by Thomas Longman.


date: September 10

text: September 10 – Johann Sebastian Bach leads the first performance of Jesu, der du meine Seele, BWV 78, a chorale cantata based on a passion hymn by Johann Rist.


date: September 29

text: September 29 – J. S. Bach leads the first performance of Herr Gott, dich loben alle wir, BWV 130, for the feast of archangel Michael, based on Paul Eber's hymn in twelve stanzas.


date: October 15

text: October 15 – The historic Teatro Nuovo opera house is inaugurated in Naples with the premiere of Antonio Orefice's comic opera Lo Simmele.


date: October 22

text: October 22 – J. S. Bach leads the first performance of Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele (Adorn yourself, O dear soul) in Leipzig on the 20th Sunday after Trinity, based on the communion hymn of the same name.


date: October 31

text: October 31 – George Frideric Handel's opera Tamerlano is performed for the first time, premiering in London. The opera will be revived as late as 2009.


date: December 25

text: December 25 – J. S. Bach leads the first performance of Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ, BWV 91, in Leipzig, based on Luther's 1524 Christmas hymn.


text: The Kaitokudō academy merchant school, part predecessor of Osaka University is founded in Japan.


date: January 12

text: January 12 – Frances Brooke, English writer (d. 1789)


date: February 28

text: February 28 – George Townshend, 1st Marquess Townshend, British field marshal (d. 1807)


date: March 1

text: March 1 – Manuel do Cenáculo, Portuguese prelate and antiquarian (d. 1814)


date: March 6

text: March 6 – Henry Laurens, political leader during the American Revolutionary War, father of John Laurens (d. 1792)


date: March 27

text: March 27 – Jane Colden, American botanist (d. 1766)


date: April 12

text: April 12 – Lyman Hall, American signer of the Declaration of Independence (d. 1790)


date: May 7

text: May 7 – Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser, Alsatian-born Austrian general (d. 1797)


date: May 19

text: May 19 – Augustus Hervey, 3rd Earl of Bristol, British admiral, politician (d. 1779)


date: June 8

text: June 8 – John Smeaton, English civil engineer (d. 1792)


date: June 15

text: June 15 – Countess Palatine Maria Franziska of Sulzbach, German aristocrat (d. 1794)


date: August 25

text: August 25 – George Stubbs, English painter (d. 1806)


date: August 27

text: August 27 – John Joachim Zubly, Swiss-born Continental Congressman (d. 1781)


date: December 12

text: December 12 – Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood, British admiral (d. 1816)


date: December 18

text: December 18 – Louise of Great Britain, queen of Frederick V of Denmark (d. 1751)


date: February 19

text: February 19 – Pieter Schuyler, British colonial military leader, acting governor of New York (b. 1657)


date: March 7

text: March 7 – Pope Innocent XIII dies at the age of 68 after less than three years as the Roman Catholic pontiff.


date: March 15

text: March 15 – Regent Marie Jeanne Baptiste of Savoy-Nemours (b. 1644)


date: April 28

text: April 28 – Streynsham Master, English colonial administrator (b. 1640)


date: May 21

text: May 21 – Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer, English statesman (b. 1661)


date: June 11

text: June 11 – Ludovico Sabbatini, Italian Roman Catholic priest and saint (b. 1650)


text: June 15 – Henry Sacheverell, English churchman and politician (b. 1674)


date: June

text: June – Magdelaine Chapelain, French fortune teller and poisoner (b. 1651)


date: July 13

text: July 13 – Sir Richard Levinge, 1st Baronet, British politician (b. 1656)


date: August 2

text: August 2 – Patrick Hume, 1st Earl of Marchmont, Scottish statesman (b. 1641)


date: August 31

text: August 31 – Louis I of Spain dies of smallpox, aged 17, after a reign of seven months, and his father Philip V resumes the throne.


date: October 16

text: October 16 – Yeongjo becomes the new emperor of Korea after the death of his older brother Gyeongjong. He reigns for almost 52 years until his death on April 22, 1776.


date: October 29

text: October 29 – William Wollaston, English philosophical writer (b. 1659)


date: November 16

text: November 16 – Jack Sheppard, British criminal (executed) (b. 1702)


date: January 15

text: 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.


date: January 25

text: January 25 – The Spanish corsair Amaro Pargo receives the title of Hidalgo (nobleman).


date: April 30

text: April 30 – Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor and King Philip V of Spain sign the Treaty of Vienna.


date: July 8

text: July 8 – Mattheus de Haan becomes the new Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies (modern-day Indonesia), governing until his death on June 1, 1729 in Batavia (modern Jakarta).


date: September 16

text: September 16 – The Treaty of Hanover is signed between Great Britain, France and Prussia.


date: November 5

text: November 5 – The fourth and final treaty of the 1725 Peace of Vienna is signed to create an alliance between Austria and Spain.


date: December 12

text: December 12 – Johan Willem Ripperda of the Netherlands, the former Dutch Ambassador to Spain, arrives in Madrid and claims that King Philip V has appointed him as the new Prime Minister. The bluff is successful and he is granted authority by the King's advisers, but after four months, he is forced to resign.


date: December 15

text: December 15 – A treaty is signed by chiefs of four member tribes of the Wabanaki Confederacy (the Abenaki, Pequawket, Mi'kmaq, Maliseet) and representatives of three British provinces in North America (Massachusetts Bay, New Hampshire and Nova Scotia) and their allies, the Mohawk nation, bringing an end to Dummer's War, named for acting Massachusetts Bay Governor William Dummer.


date: May 12

text: May 12 – The Black Watch is raised as a military company, as part of the pacification of the Scottish Highlands under General George Wade.


date: October 23

text: October 23 – Russia dispatches 1,500 troops and 120 civilians to Russia's border with China, on a mission to survey the boundaries in order to make a treaty with the Chinese Empire. Serbian adventurer Sava Vladislavich leads a group of cartographers to prepare maps in advance of traveling on to Beijing.


date: May 15

text: May 15 – Bach leads the first performance of his cantata Ich bin ein guter Hirt, BWV 85, about Jesus as the Good Shepherd.


date: June 24

text: June 24 – The Grand Lodge of Ireland in Dublin holds its first recorded meeting, making it the second most senior Grand Lodge in world Freemasonry, and the oldest in continuous existence.


text: In Qing dynasty China, 66 copies of a 5,020 volume-long encyclopedia, the Complete Classics Collection of Ancient China are printed, necessitating the crafting of 250,000 movable type characters cast in bronze.


text: The Terengganu Sultanate is established at Terengganu Darul Iman (in modern Malaysia).


date: June 23

text: June 23 – The Malt tax riots begin in Scotland in Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, after the price of beer and scotch whisky increases. Earlier in the year, the British government extended the taxes in England on malted grain to brewers and distilleries in Scotland. The rioting then spreads throughout Scottish counties.


text: Freemasonry is established in France, as an English import.


date: November 26

text: November 26 – British astronomers James Bradley and Samuel Molyneux set up a telescope in Molyneux's private observatory to begin their observations of stellar parallax of the star Gamma Draconis. The observations, which start on December 3, lead to Bradley's pioneering discovery of the aberration of light.


date: January

text: January – In Japan, the policy of the Gonin Gumi organizing groups of every five households in a town into units collectively responsible for the good behavior of everyone in the unit, goes into effect as the register of units is completed by the Tokugawa shogunate.


date: February 20

text: February 20 – The first reported case of white men scalping Native Americans takes place in New Hampshire colony.


date: May 24

text: May 24 – Jonathan Wild, fraudulent 'Thief-Taker General', is hanged at Tyburn in London, for actually aiding criminals.


date: August 27

text: August 27 – At least 216 people die in the sinking of the Chameau, a ship of the French Navy, after the vessel is driven by a storm into rocks off of the coast of Nova Scotia. Reportedly, 180 bodies wash ashore near Louisbourg. The ship's cargo, which included a fortune in gold and silver coins, is discovered 240 years later in 1965.


text: A fire in Wapping, London, destroys 70 houses.


date: January 1

text: January 1 – J. S. Bach leads the first performance of his chorale cantata Jesu, nun sei gepreiset, BWV 41, which features the trumpet fanfares from the beginning also in the end.


date: January 6

text: January 6 – J. S. Bach leads the first performance of Liebster Immanuel, Herzog der Frommen, BWV 123, a chorale cantata for Epiphany.


date: January 20

text: January 20 – James Figg hosts the first recorded international boxing match, fought between English livestock drover Bob Whitaker and Venetian gondolier Alberto di Carni in London.


date: February 2

text: February 2 – J. S. Bach leads the first performance of his chorale cantata Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin, BWV 125, based on Luther's paraphrase of the Nunc dimittis.


date: February 23

text: February 23 – J. S. Bach leads his Tafel-Music Shepherd Cantata for the birthday of Christian, Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels.


date: March 25

text: March 25 – Bach's chorale cantata Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, BWV 1, is first performed on the Feast of the Annunciation, coinciding with Palm Sunday.


date: March 30

text: 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.


date: April 1

text: April 1 – J. S. Bach's later Easter Oratorio in its first version is performed at the Nikolaikirche in Leipzig on Easter Sunday.


date: April 2

text: April 2 – J. S. Bach's cantata Bleib bei uns, denn es will Abend werden, BWV 6, is first performed in Leipzig on Easter Monday.


date: May 21

text: May 21 – On the day of the grand wedding of her daughter Anna to the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, Empress Catherine I of Russia creates the Order of Saint Alexander Nevsky


date: July 15

text: July 15 – Sir Richard Everard becomes the 4th Governor of North Carolina.


date: August 15

text: August 15 – The civil marriage of King Louis XV of France and Princess Maria Leszczyńska of Poland is held at Strasbourg. The King is not present, and his cousin, the Duke of Orléans, serves as his proxy.


date: August 19

text: August 19 – J. S. Bach leads the first performance of Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren, BWV 137, a cantata setting the unchanged text of Neander's hymn.


date: September 5

text: September 5 – The day after they meet for the first time, the wedding ceremony of King Louis and Marie takes place in Fontainebleau, making her the Queen Consort of France. Their marriage lasts for almost 43 years until her death in 1768.


date: November 8

text: November 8 – The first newspaper in the Province of New York, the New-York Gazette, is introduced by William Bradford as a weekly publication.


date: November 22

text: November 22 – Chief Chicagou of the Mitchigamea tribe, and chiefs of five other tribes of the Illini Confederation, are received as guests of King Louis XV in Paris. Chicagou pledges the Illini's support of the French presence in North America.


date: December 25

text: December 25 – J. S. Bach leads the first performance of the Christmas cantata Unser Mund sei voll Lachens, BWV 110, making laughter audible in singing.


text: The Four Seasons, a set of violin concertos by Antonio Vivaldi, is published.


text: Gradus ad Parnassum, a seminal work on counterpoint, laying out rules of constructing music, is published by Johann Joseph Fux.


date: February 26

text: February 26 – Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot, French steam vehicle pioneer (d. 1804)


date: March 6

text: March 6 – Henry Benedict Stuart, Italian-born cardinal, Jacobite claimant to the British throne (d. 1807)


date: March 20

text: March 20 – Abdul Hamid I, Ottoman Sultan (d. 1789)


text: April 2 – Giacomo Casanova, Italian adventurer, writer (d. 1798)


date: April 6

text: April 6 – Pasquale Paoli, Corsican patriot, military leader (d. 1807)


date: April 23

text: April 23 – Gerard Majella, Italian Catholic lay brother and saint (d. 1755)


date: April 25

text: April 25 – Augustus Keppel, 1st Viscount Keppel, British admiral (d. 1786)


date: May 12

text: May 12 – Louis Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, French soldier, writer (d. 1785)


date: June 29

text: June 29 – Maria Teresa Cybo-Malaspina, Duchess of Massa, Italian ruler (d. 1790)


date: July 4

text: July 4 – Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, French soldier (d. 1807)


date: July 24

text: July 24 – John Newton, English cleric and hymnist (d. 1807)


date: September 24

text: September 24 – Arthur Guinness, Irish brewer (d. 1803)


date: October 21

text: October 21 – Franz Moritz Graf von Lacy, Austrian field marshal (d. 1801)


date: December 23

text: December 23 – Ahmad Shah Bahadur, 14th Mughal Emperor (d. 1775)


date: January 6

text: January 6 – Chikamatsu Monzaemon, Japanese dramatist (b. 1653)


date: February 7

text: February 7 – Johann Philipp Krieger, German Baroque composer (b. 1649)


date: March 30

text: March 30 – René de Froulay de Tessé, French Marshal and diplomat (b. 1648)


text: April 25 – Paul de Rapin, French historian (b. 1661)


date: May 22

text: May 22 – Robert Molesworth, 1st Viscount Molesworth, Irish politician (b. 1656)


date: May 24

text: May 24 – Jonathan Wild, English criminal (b. 1682)


text: June 29 – Arai Hakuseki, Japanese poet, politician, and writer (b. 1657)


text: June 29 – Juan Manuel Fernández Pacheco, 8th Duke of Escalona, Spanish aristocrat (b. 1650)


date: July 17

text: July 17 – Thomas King, English and British soldier, MP for Queenborough, lieutenant-governor of Sheerness (b. before 1660?)


date: October 10

text: October 10 – Philippe de Rigaud Vaudreuil, Governor-General of New France (b. c. 1643)


text: October 10 – Francesco del Giudice, Italian Catholic cardinal (b. 1647)


date: October 19

text: October 19 – Joan Paul Schaghen is appointed by the Dutch East India Company to serve as the Governor of Ceylon after the death of Johannes Hertenberg.


date: October 24

text: October 24 – Alessandro Scarlatti, Italian composer (b. 1660)


date: December 10

text: December 10 – Nicolaas Hartsoeker, Dutch mathematician and physicist (b. 1656)


date: January 26

text: January 26 – The First Treaty of Vienna is signed between Austria, the Holy Roman Empire and Spain, creating the Austro-Spanish Alliance in advance of a war against Great Britain.


date: February 8

text: February 8 – The Supreme Privy Council is established in Russia.


date: March 31

text: March 31 – France's first ambassador to Russia, Jacques de Campredon, leaves after four years of trying to negotiate a Franco-Russian alliance with Catherine I and a failed attempt to arrange a marriage between King Louis XV and Catherine's daughter Elizabeth.


date: May 1

text: May 1 – Voltaire begins his exile in England.


date: September 14

text: September 14 – The Nanfan Treaty of July 19, 1701 between the Iroquois Confederacy and the British Province of New York, is amended by both parties.


date: October 1

text: October 1 – Juan Bautista de Orendáin y Azpilicueta is appointed again as Secretary of the Universal Bureau (Secretario del Despacho), the equivalent of the Prime Minister of Spain, after the retirement of José de Grimaldo.


date: October 5

text: October 5 – Grigore II Ghica becomes the Prince of Moldavia for the first time after Mihai Racoviță steps aside.


text: Muhammad bin Saud becomes head of the House of Saud.


date: February 13

text: February 13 – The Parliament of Negrete (between Mapuche and Spanish authorities in Chile) brings an end to the Mapuche uprising of 1723–26.


date: March 2

text: March 2 – In London, a night watchman finds a severed head by the River Thames; it is later recognized to be that of the husband of Catherine Hayes. She and an accomplice are later executed.


date: March 10

text: March 10 – China's Yongzheng Emperor issues a special edict instructing his "Vice Minister of Punishments" Huang Bing to interrogate Qin Daoran, who provides the evidence that Yongzheng's brothers Yintang, Yin-ssu and Yin-ti, had conspired to overthrow the Emperor.


date: March 30

text: 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.


text: Late 1726 – Nader Shah recaptures Mashhad.


text: The remaining ruins of Liverpool Castle in England are finally demolished.


date: January 27

text: January 27 – On its maiden voyage, the Dutch East India Company frigate Aagtekerke departs from the Dutch Cape Colony on the second leg of its journey to the Dutch East Indies across the Indian Ocean and is never seen again. Aagtekerke carried a crew of 200 men.


date: December 24

text: December 24 – The settlement of Montevideo is founded by the Spaniards in the Viceroyalty of Peru.


date: January 20

text: January 20 – J. S. Bach leads the first performance of his cantata Meine Seufzer, meine Tränen (My sighs, my tears), BWV 13, for the second Sunday after Epiphany.


date: January 23

text: January 23 (January 12 Old Style) – The Conventicle Act (Konventikelplakatet) is adopted in Sweden, outlawing all non-Lutheran religious meetings outside of church services.


date: September 11

text: September 11 – French bishop André-Hercule de Fleury, later Prime Minister for King Louis XV of France, is made a Roman Catholic Cardinal by Pope Benedict XIII.


date: September 23

text: September 23 – Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, issues an order limiting the number of Jews who can be legally recognized as legitimate householders.


date: September 24

text: September 24 – Permission to celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, celebrated on July 17, is extended by Pope Benedict XIII to the entire Roman Catholic Church.


date: June 11

text: June 11 – André-Hercule de Fleury, recalled from exile by King Louis XV of France (his former pupil), forces banishment of Louis Henri, Duke of Bourbon, the Prime Minister, and the Duke's mistress Madame de Prie from court. Financier Jean Pâris de Monmartel is also removed from his position as Guard of the Royal Treasury.


text: The Complete Classics Collection of Ancient China, an immense Chinese encyclopedia, is printed using copper-based movable type printing.


date: August 7

text: August 7 – English-born pirate Nicholas Brown is captured near Xtabi, Jamaica.


date: September 6

text: September 6 – An explosion kills all but seven of the 700 passengers and crew on the Portuguese Navy galleon HMFMS Santa Rosa as its cargo of gunpowder blows up. Historians speculate that of the 693 people on the ship, those who weren't killed by the explosion drowned or were killed by sharks as the ship went down off of the coast of Recife.


date: September 16

text: September 16 – An earthquake strikes Sicily and kills 226 people in Palermo.


date: November

text: November – Mary Toft allegedly gives birth to 16 rabbits in England; the story is later revealed to be a hoax.


date: January 1

text: January 1 – J. S. Bach leads the first performance of Herr Gott, dich loben wir, BWV 16, his church cantata for New Year's Day to a libretto by Georg Christian Lehms.


text: 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.


date: September 8

text: September 8 – J. S. Bach leads the first performance of Geist und Seele wird verwirret, BWV 35, a solo cantata for alto voice.


date: October 27

text: October 27 – J. S. Bach leads the first performance of Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen, BWV 56, one of the few works he calls a cantata.


date: November 8

text: November 8 (October 28 Old Style) – Jonathan Swift's satirical novel Gulliver's Travels is first published (anonymously) in London; it sells out within a week.


date: January 17

text: January 17 – Hugh Mercer, brigadier general in the American Continental Army, and a close friend to George Washington (d. 1777)


date: February 4

text: February 4 – Jean-Jacques Blaise d'Abbadie, Director-general of the Colony of Louisiana (d. 1765)


date: March 8

text: March 8 – Richard Howe, British admiral (d. 1799)


date: April 5

text: April 5 – Benjamin Harrison V, signer of the American Declaration of Independence (d. 1791)


date: April 8

text: April 8 – Lewis Morris, American landowner and developer, signer of the United States Declaration of Independence (d. 1798)


date: April 20

text: April 20 – Joseph de Ferraris, Austrian cartographer of the Austrian Netherlands (d. 1814)


date: June 3

text: June 3 O.S. – James Hutton, Scottish geologist (d. 1797)


date: June 14

text: June 14 O.S. – Thomas Pennant, Welsh naturalist (d. 1798)


date: June 20

text: June 20 – Louise Henriette of Bourbon, Duchess of Orléans, mother of Philippe Égalité (d. 1759)


date: August 2

text: August 2 – Lê Quý Đôn, Vietnamese philosopher, poet, encyclopedist and government official (d. 1784)


date: August 7

text: August 7 – James Bowdoin, American Revolutionary leader, politician (d. 1790)


date: September 1

text: September 1 – François-André Danican Philidor, French composer, chess player (d. 1795)


date: September 2

text: September 2 – John Howard (prison reformer), English philanthropist (d. 1790)


date: December 4

text: December 4 – Lord Stirling, American brigadier-general during the American Revolutionary War (d. 1783)


date: January 2

text: January 2 – Domenico Zipoli, Tuscan-born composer and Jesuit missionary (b. 1688)


date: January 19

text: January 19 – Giovanni Battista Tolomei, Italian Jesuit priest, theologian and cardinal (b. 1653)


date: January 25

text: January 25 – Guillaume Delisle, French cartographer (b. 1675)


date: March 5

text: March 5 – Evelyn Pierrepont, 1st Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull, English politician (b. c. 1665)


date: March 6

text: March 6 – Henrietta Catharina, Baroness von Gersdorff, German noblewoman; poet (b. 1648)


date: March 14

text: March 14 – Chhatrapati Shivaji Raje Bhonsale 2nd, 5th Maratha Emperor (b. 1696)


date: March 29

text: 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.


date: April 26

text: April 26 – Jeremy Collier, English theatre critic, non-juror bishop and theologian (b. 1650)


date: April 28

text: April 28 – Thomas Pitt, British Governor of Madras (b. 1653)


date: May 10

text: May 10 – Charles Beauclerk, 1st Duke of St Albans, English soldier (b. 1670)


date: June 18

text: June 18 – Michel Richard Delalande, French organist, composer (b. 1657)


date: September 22

text: September 22 – Aixinjueluo Yuntang, born Aixinjueluo Yintang, Qing prince (b. 1683)


date: November 20

text: November 20 – Callinicus, Metropolitan of Heraclea dies suddenly only one day after being elected the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, the highest office in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Callinicus is said to have paid a record fee to the Ottoman Sultan to guarantee his appointment.


date: November 23

text: November 23 – Sophia Dorothea of Celle, queen consort of George I of Great Britain (b. 1666)


date: February 20

text: February 20 – German composer George Frideric Handel becomes a British subject.


date: May 17

text: May 17 – Peter II of Russia was made Emperor of Russia, eleven years of age.


date: August 14

text: August 14 – Elections for the House of Commons begin in Great Britain and continue until October 17.


date: October 17

text: October 17 – With voting for the British House of Commons concluding, the Whigs, led by Sir Robert Walpole, increase their supermajority, winning 415 of the 558 seats. The Tories share of Commons decreases from 169 to 128.


date: November 21

text: November 21 – The Netherlands signs the Treaty of Seville.


text: The first Amish move to North America.


date: January 1

text: January 1 – (December 21, 1726 O.S.) Spain's ambassador to Great Britain demands that the British return Gibraltar after accusing Britain of violating the terms of the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht. Britain refuses and the Thirteenth Siege of Gibraltar begins on February 22.


date: February 22

text: February 22 (February 11, 1726 O.S.) – Spain besieges the British-held territory of Gibraltar, in order to recapture it. Britain's Royal Navy begins a blockade of Spanish ports and the unsuccessful siege ends with the signing of a truce on June 24.


date: March 4

text: March 4 – Battle of Halidzor in Armenia: A small group of defenders overcomes a much larger Ottoman Empire army.


date: March 9

text: March 9 – The west African Kingdom of Dahomey, ruled by King Trudo Agaja, conquers and annexes the Kingdom of Xwéda, after King Haffon is killed in battle (three years earlier, Agaja conquered the neighboring state of Allada).


date: June 23

text: June 23 – Spain ceases hostilities after its attempt to recapture Gibraltar from Britain fails. A truce is signed the next day.


date: January 6

text: January 6 – Martin Spanberg and two other members of the First Kamchatka expedition arrive in Okhotsk, after a journey from Saint Petersburg of almost two years. After the end of winter, the 63-member group, commanded by Vitus Bering, proceeds to the Kamchatka River, to prepare for exploration of the Arctic.


date: July 23

text: July 23 – Seventeen Ursuline Sisters from France land in New Orleans, in the Louisiana territory of New France, after a journey that began on February 22. They later create the orphanage which is the predecessor of Catholic Charities and the Ursuline Academy, the oldest Catholic school in the United States.


text: 1727–1800 – Lt. Col. Francisco de Mello Palheta smuggles coffee seeds to Brazil in a bouquet, starting a coffee empire.


date: January 12

text: 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.


date: May 12

text: May 12 – History of the Moravian Church: The 18th century renewal: The Brotherly Agreement is adopted by the Moravian Church community at Herrnhut, under the influence of Count Nicolaus Zinzendorf, beginning the Church's renewal.


date: November 27

text: November 27 – The foundation stone of the Jerusalem's Church in Berlin is laid.


date: May 31

text: May 31 – The Royal Bank of Scotland is founded by Royal Charter in Edinburgh.


date: June 27

text: June 27 – Uxbridge, Massachusetts, is incorporated as a town.


date: December 8

text: December 8 – For the first time since the union of England and Scotland into Great Britain, the Royal Bank of Scotland, which still retains the right to print currency, issues its first pound note, printing paper currency for twenty shillings. The Scottish pound note continues to be printed until 2001 and the smallest denomination now is a five pound note.


date: January 9

text: January 9 – The world-famous Charité Hospital is established in Berlin, to be used for research and to help the poor. Prussia's King Frederick William I had ordered the conversion of a 16-year old institution, originally built in anticipation of an epidemic of the bubonic plague.


date: September 8

text: September 8 – A barn fire during a puppet show in the village of Burwell, Cambridgeshire, England, kills 78 people, many of them children. Another report says that all but six of the 160 persons assembled were killed in the accidental fire.


text: An old woman known as Janet (Jenny) Horne of Loth, Sutherland becomes the last alleged witch in the British Isles to be executed, when she is burned at the stake in Dornoch, Scotland. (Some sources give the date as June 1722.)


date: November 18

text: November 18 – Tabriz earthquake, Persia kills 77,000.


date: February 2

text: February 2 – Johann Sebastian Bach's solo cantata, Ich habe genug, BWV 82, premieres in Leipzig.


date: April 11

text: April 11 – Johann Sebastian Bach's St Matthew Passion (BWV 244b) premieres at St. Thomas Church, Leipzig.


date: August 13

text: August 13 – History of the Moravian Church: The 18th century renewal: The Moravian Church community at Herrnhut undergoes a Pentecostal experience.


date: August 30

text: August 30 – Anne, eldest daughter of King George II of Great Britain, is given the title Princess Royal.


date: October 11

text: 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.


date: December 17

text: December 17 – The London Evening Post, a conservative newspaper, publishes its first issue. It continues in regular publication for 70 years.


date: January 2

text: January 2 – James Wolfe, British general (d. 1759)


date: January 25

text: January 25 – Aron Gustaf Silfversparre, Swedish baron (d. 1818)


date: May 10

text: May 10 – Anne Robert Turgot, French statesman (d. 1781)


date: May 14

text: May 14 – Thomas Gainsborough, English artist (d. 1788)


date: July 26

text: July 26 – Horatio Gates, retired British soldier who served as an American general during the American Revolutionary War (d. 1806)


date: August 14

text: August 14 – Henriette of France, daughter of King Louis XV (d. 1752)


text: August 14 – Princess Louise-Élisabeth of France, daughter of King Louis XV (d. 1759)


date: August 22

text: August 22 – Johann Joseph Gassner, German priest (d. 1779)


date: October 23

text: October 23 – Empress Xiaoyichun of China (d. 1775)


date: November 26

text: November 26 – Artemas Ward, American major general (d. 1800)


date: December 6

text: December 6 – Johann Gottfried Zinn, German anatomist, botanist (d. 1757)


date: December 27

text: December 27 – Arthur Murphy, Irish writer (d. 1805)


date: February 6

text: February 6 – Charles Boit, Swedish enameller, miniature painter (b. 1662)


date: February 10

text: February 10 – Procopio Cutò, French entrepreneur (b. 1651)


date: February 23

text: February 23 – Lionel Tollemache, 3rd Earl of Dysart, British politician and nobleman (b. 1649)


date: March 22

text: March 22 – After 55 years as Sultan of Morocco, Ismail Ibn Sharif dies at the age of 81, prompting a 30-year battle between seven of his sons, for succession to the throne.


date: June 8

text: June 8 – August Hermann Francke, German Protestant minister (b. 1663)


date: July 1

text: July 1 – In India, Shuja-ud-Din Muhammad Khan becomes the new Nawab of Bengal after the death of his father-in-law, Murshid Quli Khan. At the time, Bengal consists of what is now the nation of Bangladesh and the southeast Indian state of West Bengal and is subservient to the Mughal Empire.


date: July 23

text: July 23 – Simon Harcourt, 1st Viscount Harcourt, Lord Chancellor of Great Britain (b. c. 1660)


date: September 6

text: September 6 – George Hooper, Bishop of St Asaph Bishop of Bath and Wells (b. 1640)


date: September 7

text: September 7 – Glückel of Hameln, German businesswoman and diarist (b. 1647)


date: September 25

text: September 25 – Sarah Kemble Knight, colonial Massachusetts diarist (b. 1666)


text: September 25 – Jakob Abbadie, Swiss Protestant preacher (b. c. 1654)


date: October 10

text: October 10 – Charles III, Prince of Guéméné, French nobleman (b. 1655)


date: December 26

text: December 26 – Jean-Baptiste de La Croix de Chevrières de Saint-Vallier, Catholic bishop of Quebec (b. 1653)


text: December 26 – Baltasar de Zúñiga, 1st Duke of Arión, viceroy of New Spain (b. 1658)


date: June 14

text: June 14 – The Congress of Soissons opens at the French town of Soissons to negotiate a treaty between Great Britain and Spain. The treaty, which is concluded on November 9, 1729, recognizes the Spanish royal family's rule of parts of Italy, and Britain's possession of Gibraltar and Menorca.


date: June 25

text: June 25 – The Treaty of Kyakhta is signed at the border city of Kyakhta, between Russia and China, by representatives of the Tsar Peter II, and the Emperor Yongzheng.


date: July 18

text: July 18 – After a reign of only four months, Abdalmalik is deposed as Sultan of Morocco by his half-brother Ahmad ad Dahabi, whom he had deposed on March 13. Abdalmalik is later captured and executed on March 2, 1729.


date: September 18

text: September 18 – John Deane, a colonial administrator of Britain's British East India Company, returns to Calcutta (Kolkata) after an absence of more than two years, and takes office at Fort William to return to administering the Bengal Presidency, an area now covering the Indian state of West Bengal and the nation of Bangladesh.


date: December 25

text: December 25 – William Burnet, the British Governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay since July 19, is appointed by King George II to be the Governor of the Province of New Hampshire as well, governing both future U.S. states simultaneously until September 7. Up until July, Burnet had been Governor of both New York and New Jersey since 1720.


text: Late Summer – Voltaire ends his exile in England.


date: February 28

text: February 28 – Battle of Palkhed: Maratha Peshwa Bajirao I defeats the first Nizam of Hyderabad, Nizam-ul-Mulk.


date: November 25

text: 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.


date: April 30

text: April 30 – The 82 survivors of the wreckage of the Dutch East India Company frigate Zeewijk arrive in the new ship that they had built, Sloepie, at their original destination of Batavia in the Dutch East Indies (now Jakarta in Indonesia).


date: July 14

text: July 14 – The First Kamchatka Expedition, led by Vitus Bering and his crew sail northward on the ship Archangel Gabriel from the Kamchatka Peninsula, through the Bering Strait, and round Cape Dezhnev.


date: August 16

text: August 16 – Because of advancing Arctic ice, the First Kamchatka Expedition turns around after Vitus Bering concludes (inaccurately) that it had reached the easternmost point of Russia and Asia, and fails to spot the coast of Alaska because of the weather.


date: September 15

text: September 15 – Persian physician Mohammad Mehdi ibn Ali Naqi completes Zad al-musafirin, his treatise for travelers to Persia on preservation of their health. He notes the date as a postscript in his manual.


date: April 14

text: April 14 – Saint Serapion of Algiers, the first Mercedarian (of the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy) is canonized by Pope Benedict XIII.


date: May 16

text: May 16 – Saint Margaret of Cortona, the patron saint of the falsely accused, homeless people and mental illness sufferers, is canonized.


date: May 25

text: May 25 – Pope Gregory VII (Hildebrand of Sovana), who served as pontiff from 1073 to 1085, is canonized as a Roman Catholic saint.


date: March 14

text: March 14 – Jean-Jacques Rousseau leaves Geneva for the first time.


text: English astronomer James Bradley uses stellar aberration (first observed in 1725) to calculate the speed of light, and observes nutation of the Earth's axis.


date: May 31

text: 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.


date: July 23

text: July 23 – At the conclusion of the Szeged witch trials in the city of the same name in Hungary, six men and six women are burned at the stake on the island of Boszorkány Sziget (Hungarian for "Witch Island").


date: October 20

text: October 20–23 – The Copenhagen Fire of 1728 (the largest in the Danish city's history) burns.


date: January 5

text: January 5 – The Real y Pontificia Universidad de San Gerónimo de la Habana, the oldest university in Cuba, is founded in Havana.


date: January 9

text: January 9 – The coronation of Peter II as the Tsar of the Russian Empire takes place in Moscow.


date: January 29

text: January 29 – The Beggar's Opera, the most popular theatrical production of the 18th century, is performed for the first time. The premiere takes place at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre in London. Written by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch, the ballad opera is a satire of Italian opera.


date: July 17

text: July 17 – At the age of 8, Prince Teruhito, son of Emperor Nakamikado, is named as the Crown Prince of Japan. Teruhito becomes the Emperor Sakuramachi at age 15, upon his father's death.


date: August 29

text: August 29 – The City of Nuuk is founded in Greenland, as Fort Godt-Haab, by royal governor Claus Paarss.


text: January 9 – Thomas Warton, English poet (d. 1790)


date: February 3

text: February 3 – Charles Rainsford, British general (d. 1809)


date: February 21

text: February 21 – Emperor Peter III of Russia, husband of Catherine the Great (d. 1762)


date: February 25

text: February 25 – John Wood, the Younger, English architect (d. 1782)


date: March 28

text: March 28 – Anton Raphael Mengs, German-Bohemian painter (d. 1779)


date: April 16

text: April 16 – Joseph Black, Scottish physicist and chemist (d. 1799)


date: August 26

text: August 26 – Johann Heinrich Lambert, Swiss mathematician, physicist and astronomer (d. 1777)


date: August 28

text: August 28 – John Stark, American Revolutionary War general (d. 1822)


date: September 3

text: September 3 – Matthew Boulton, English manufacturer, lifelong key partner of James Watt (d. 1809)


date: September 14

text: September 14 – Mercy Otis Warren, American playwright (d. 1814)


date: October 5

text: October 5 – Chevalière d'Éon, French diplomat, spy, soldier and trans individual (d. 1810)


date: October 7

text: October 7 – Caesar Rodney, American lawyer and signer of the Declaration of Independence (d. 1784)


date: November 10

text: November 10 – Oliver Goldsmith, Irish writer (d. 1774)


text: James Armstrong, American politician and Major of the Continental Army (d. 1800) (est. year of birth)


date: February 13

text: February 13 – Cotton Mather, New England Puritan minister (b. 1663)


date: February 16

text: February 16 – Heinrich of Saxe-Weissenfels, Count of Barby, German prince (b. 1657)


text: February 16 – Maria Aurora von Königsmarck, Swedish noblewoman of Brandenburg extraction (b. 1662)


date: March 4

text: March 4 – Grand Duchess Anna Petrovna of Russia, eldest daughter of Peter the Great (b. 1708)


date: March 7

text: March 7 – Frederick Louis, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Beck (b. 1653)


date: March 20

text: March 20 – Camille d'Hostun, duc de Tallard, Marshal of France (b. 1652)


date: April 21

text: April 21 – Filippo Antonio Gualterio, Italian Catholic cardinal (b. 1660)


date: May 26

text: May 26 – William Cheyne, 2nd Viscount Newhaven, English politician (b. 1657)


date: June 30

text: June 30 – Otto Friedrich von der Groeben, Prussian traveller, soldier and author (b. 1657)


date: August 15

text: August 15 – Marin Marais, French viol player and composer (b. 1656)


text: August 26 – Anne Marie d'Orléans, Queen consort of Sicily and Sardinia (b. 1669)


date: October 1

text: October 1 – Robert Livingston the Elder, New York colonial official (b. 1654)


date: October 15

text: October 15 – Bernard de la Monnoye, French lawyer (b. 1641)


date: November 19

text: November 19 – Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen, German prince (b. 1694)


date: February 14

text: February 14 – King Philip V of Spain issues a royal cedula, directing an effort to offer incentives to families from the Canary Islands for settlements in New Spain north of the Rio Grande in the modern-day U.S. state of Texas (→ Canarian Americans).


date: February 24

text: February 24 (February 13 O.S.) – In the city of Resht in Persia, Russian and Afghani leaders sign a peace treaty, with General Vasily Levashev for Russia and Muhammad Saidal Khan for Afghanistan.


date: April 26

text: April 26 – For the first time in its history, the British House of Commons is adjourned for lack of a quorum. On January 5, 1640, it had first fixed the number of members necessary — 40 — for parliamentary business to be transacted.


date: May 17

text: May 17 – Caroline, Queen Consort becomes the first person to rule Great Britain as regent under the Regency Acts, beginning service as the acting monarch when her husband King George II departs Britain for Germany, where he is the Elector of Hanover. Caroline rules until George's return in October.


date: July 25

text: July 25 – Seven of the original eight Lords Proprietor of the Province of Carolina sell their shares back to the British crown. The 1710 division of the Province is made permanent and the area is reorganized into the Royal Colonies of North Carolina and South Carolina.


date: July 30

text: July 30 – Baltimore, Maryland is founded.


date: November 9

text: November 9 – The Treaty of Seville is signed between Great Britain, France, Spain and the Dutch Republic.


date: September 29

text: September 29 – The Battle of Damghan begins as the Persian Safavid Army, commanded by General Nader Khan Afshar confronts a larger force of rebel Afghan troops commanded by the Emir Ashraf Hotak.


date: October 5

text: October 5 – After seven days of battle, the Persians under Nader Khan Afshar make a daring attack through the center of the Emir Ashraf's battalions, killing 12,000 of the Afghans and forcing the remainder to flee, bringing an end to the Battle of Damghan.


date: November 29

text: November 29 – The Natchez revolt, the worst Native American massacre to take place on Mississippi soil, occurs when Natchez people kill 138 Frenchmen, 35 French women, and 56 children at Fort Rosalie (near modern-day Natchez, Mississippi).


date: December 12

text: December 12 – Under the pretense of a peace offering, the Yazoo and Koroa warriors enter the French settlement at Fort St. Pierre (near modern-day Vicksburg, Mississippi) and kill most of the inhabitants.


text: The third oldest settlement in Mississippi, Port Gibson, is founded by French settlers.


date: March 19

text: March 19 – John of Nepomuk (Jan Nepomucký) of Bohemia is canonized by Pope Benedict XIII more than 300 years after being tortured and drowned in 1393 by order of King Wenceslaus IV; John becomes patron saint of Roman Catholics in the Czech Republic.


date: April 15

text: April 15 – Johann Sebastian Bach's St Matthew Passion, BWV 244b is performed again, at St. Thomas Church, Leipzig.


date: April 3

text: April 3 – Benjamin Franklin, aged 23, writes the essay "A Modest Enquiry Into the Nature and Necessity of Paper Currency" and later applies the economic principles to backing of paper money used in the United States.


text: November 29 – The first (wooden) Putney Bridge is completed, as the only fixed crossing of the River Thames between London Bridge and Kingston, England.