date: June 26

text: June 26 – The Battle of Fort Albany, an attack by 100 French colonial volunteers and Cree natives on the British Hudson's Bay Company outpost at Fort Albany on Hudson Bay. John Fullartine, commander of the post, leads a successful defense of the fort and 18 of the attackers are killed and then retreat. The site becomes part of a Cree First Nation reserve in the Canadian province of Ontario.


date: July 8

section: Conflict & Security

text: July 8 (June 27 Old Style; June 28 in the Swedish calendar) – Great Northern War: Battle of Poltava in the Cossack Hetmanate (Ukraine) – Peter the Great leads forces of the Tsardom of Russia to a decisive victory over Swedish forces under Charles XII, ending the Swedish invasion of Russia and effectively ending Sweden's role as a major power in Europe.

source_section: Events › July–December


date: July 30

text: July 30 – War of the Spanish Succession: Tournai is captured by John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy.


date: August 28

text: August 28 – Pamheiba is crowned King of Manipur.


date: September 11

text: September 11 (August 31 Old Style) – War of the Spanish Succession: Battle of Malplaquet – Troops of the Dutch Republic, Habsburg monarchy, the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Prussia, led by the Duke of Marlborough, drive the French from the field, but suffer twice as many casualties.


date: October 9

text: October 9 – War of the Spanish Succession: The British army captures Mons.


date: May 6

section: Exploration & Expansion

text: May 6 – The first influx into Britain of poor refugee families of German Palatines from the Rhenish Palatinate arrives in England. Most of them are Protestants en route to the New World colonies.

source_section: Events › April–June


date: October 12

section: Religion & Belief

text: October 12 – Chihuahua City in Mexico is founded.


text: Basil Lazarus III becomes Syriac Orthodox Maphrian of the East.

source_section: Events › Date unknown


date: January 10

section: Technology & Infrastructure

text: January 10 – Abraham Darby I successfully produces cast iron using coke fuel at his Coalbrookdale blast furnace in Shropshire, England.

source_section: Events › January–March


date: March 28

text: March 28 – Johann Friedrich Böttger reports the first production of hard-paste porcelain in Europe, at Dresden.


date: July 13

text: July 13 – Production of Eau de Cologne is begun by perfumier Johann Maria Farina in Germany, founding Johann Maria Farina gegenüber dem Jülichs-Platz.


text: The first piano is exhibited in Florence by its inventor Bartolomeo Cristofori, who names it "gravicembalo col piano e forte", a name which is subsequently shortened to "pianoforte" and then "piano".


text: The second Eddystone Lighthouse, erected off the south west coast of England by John Rudyerd, is completed.


date: August 8

section: Science & Discovery

text: August 8 – The hot air balloon of Bartolomeu de Gusmão flies in Portugal.


text: A collapsible umbrella is introduced in Paris.


date: April 21

section: Crime & Justice

text: April 21 – Mirwais Hotak takes control of Kandahar (in Afghanistan) by murdering the Persian governor, Gurgin Khan, known also as George XI.


date: July 9

text: July 9 – Christopher Slaughterford of London is executed in Guildford for the murder of Jane Young, his fiancée. He is the first person in modern England executed for murder based exclusively on circumstantial evidence, and he maintains his innocence to the last.


section: Disasters & Accidents

text: Priceless medieval altarpieces, created by Tyrolese sculptor Michael Pacher, are destroyed.


date: January 6

section: Climate & Environment

text: January 6 – Western Europe's Great Frost of 1709, the coldest period in 500 years, begins during the night, lasting three months, with its effects felt for the entire year. In France, the Atlantic coast and Seine River freeze, crops fail, and 24,000 Parisians die. Floating ice enters the North Sea.


date: October 14

text: October 14 – The Chinese region of Ningxia is shaken by a 7.5 earthquake killing more than 2,000 people.


text: Herculaneum, an ancient town in Ercolano, Campania, Italy and buried under volcanic ash and pumice in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, is discovered by accident when attempts to drill a well for a monastery encountered marble and other materials.


date: February 1

section: Culture & Society

text: February 1 or 2 – During his first voyage, Captain Woodes Rogers encounters marooned privateer Alexander Selkirk, and rescues him after four years living on one of the Juan Fernández Islands, inspiring Daniel Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe. After sacking Guayaquil, he and Selkirk will visit the Galápagos Islands.


date: February

text: February – In America, Mardi Gras is celebrated one more time with Masque de la Mobile in the capital of French Louisiana, Mobile, Alabama, before Mobile is moved 27 miles (43 km) down the Mobile River to Mobile Bay in 1711.


date: July 26

text: July 26 – Reinhard Keiser's opera Desiderius, König der Langobarden is premiered in Hamburg.


date: December 26

text: December 26 – The first performance of the opera Agrippina by George Frideric Handel takes place at the Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo in Venice.


text: The first modern edition of William Shakespeare's plays is published in London, edited by Nicholas Rowe.


text: Trinity School is founded as the charity school of Trinity Church, in New York City.


text: De Nostri Temporis Studiorum Ratione (On the Study Methods of Our Times) is published by Neapolitan philosopher Giambattista Vico.


date: January 2

section: Births

text: January 2 – Teresia Constantia Phillips, British autobiographer (d. 1765)

source_section: Births › January–March


date: January 13

text: January 13 – Mollie Sneden, operator of a ferry service at Palisades, New York in the United States (d. 1810)


date: February 9

text: February 9 – George Venables-Vernon, 1st Baron Vernon, British politician (d. 1780)


date: February 24

text: February 24 – Jacques de Vaucanson, French inventor of mechanical automata (d. 1782)


date: February 27

text: February 27 – Timothy Woodbridge American missionary, deacon, schoolteacher, judge, Superintendent of Indian Affairs (d. 1774)


date: March 31

text: March 31 – Louis-Charles Le Vassor de La Touche, French naval general, governor of Martinique, governor general of the Windward Islands (d. 1781)


date: April 2

text: April 2 – Josiah Taft, farmer, local official, and Massachusetts legislator (d. 1756)

source_section: Births › April–June


date: June 9

text: June 9 – Francis Towneley, English Catholic and supporter of the exiled House of Stuart or Jacobite (d. 1746)


date: August 10

text: August 10 – Jean-Jacques Lefranc, Marquis de Pompignan, French man of letters and erudition (d. 1784)

source_section: Births › July–September


date: October 9

text: October 9 – Jean-Baptiste de Belloy, Archbishop of Paris and cardinal of the Catholic Church (d. 1808)

source_section: Births › October–December


date: November 18

text: November 18 – Henry Loftus, 1st Earl of Ely (d. 1783)


date: December 1

text: December 1 – Franz Xaver Richter, Austro-Moravian singer, violinist, composer, conductor and music theoretician (d. 1789)


date: December 14

text: December 14 – Charles Lawrence, British military officer who (d. 1760)


date: December 21

text: December 21 – Arnaud-François Lefèbvre, Apostolic Vicar of Cochin (d. 1760)


date: January 20

section: Deaths

text: January 20 – François de la Chaise, French confessor of King Louis XIV (b. 1624)

source_section: Deaths


text: February 9 – François Louis, Prince of Conti, French general (b. 1664)


date: February 11

text: February 11 – Louise Hollandine of the Palatinate, German artist (b. 1622)


date: February 19

text: February 19 – Tokugawa Ienobu becomes the sixth shōgun of the Tokugawa dynasty of Japan, after the death of the shōgun Tsunayoshi, who had been head of government since 1680.


date: March 9

text: March 9 – Ralph Montagu, 1st Duke of Montagu, English diplomat (b. 1638)


text: April 2 – Giovanni Battista Gaulli, Italian artist working in the High Baroque and early Rococo periods (b. 1639)


date: April 21

text: April 21 – Gurgin Khan (George XI of Kartli), Persian Governor of Kandahar (b. 1651)


text: April 21 – Emmanuel Philibert, Prince of Carignano, Prince of Savoy (b. 1628)


date: June 17

text: June 17 – Trịnh Cương becomes the new king of northern Vietnam (Đàng Ngoài) upon the death of his grandfather, Trịnh Căn, and begins a 20-year reign until his death on December 20, 1729


date: August 31

text: August 31 – Andrea Pozzo, Jesuit Brother, architect and painter (b. 1642)


date: September 14

text: September 14 – Luis Manuel Fernández de Portocarrero, Spanish cardinal and archbishop of Toledo (b. 1635)


date: October 2

text: October 2 – Ivan Mazepa, Hetman of Ukraine (b. 1639)


text: October 9 – Barbara Palmer, 1st Duchess of Cleveland, English mistress of Charles II of England (b. 1640)


date: October 31

text: October 31 – Henry Hyde, 2nd Earl of Clarendon, English nobleman (b. 1638)


section: Geopolitics & Diplomacy

text: Emperor Marcus Aurelius forms a new military command, the praetentura Italiae et Alpium. Aquileia is relieved, and the Marcomanni are evicted from Roman territory.

source_section: Events › By place › Roman Empire


text: Marcus Aurelius signs a peace treaty with the Quadi and the Sarmatian Iazyges. The Germanic tribes of the Hasdingi (Vandals) and the Lacringi become Roman allies.


text: Armenia and Mesopotamia become protectorates of the Roman Empire.


text: The Costoboci cross the Danube (Dacia) and ravage Thrace in the Balkan Peninsula. They reach Eleusis, near Athens, and destroy the temple of the Eleusinian Mysteries.


date: May

text: May – June – Aelius Aristides, Greek orator, delivers a public speech in Smyrna, lamenting the damage recently inflicted to the sacred site of Eleusis.


text: Xu Gan, Chinese philosopher and poet (d. 218)

source_section: Births


text: Zhao Yan, Chinese general and politician (d. 245)


text: Sima Lang, Chinese official and politician (d. 217)


text: Tian Yu, Chinese general and politician (d. 252)


date: January 1

text: January 1 – In Prussia, Cölln is merged with Alt-Berlin by Frederick I to form Berlin.


date: February 17

text: February 17 – Mauritius, a Dutch colony since 1638, is abandoned by the Dutch.


date: April 5

text: April 5 – Pylyp Orlyk, a Cossack of Ukraine, is elected as the Hetman of the Zaporizhian Host and immediately issues the Pacts and Constitutions of Rights and Freedoms of the Zaporizhian Host.


date: June 8

text: June 8 – The Tuscarora nation sends a petition to the Province of Pennsylvania, protesting the seizure of their lands and enslavement of their people, by citizens of the Province of Carolina.


date: February 28

text: February 28 (Swedish calendar) February 27 (Julian). March 10 (Gregorian) – Battle of Helsingborg: Fourteen thousand Danish invaders, under Jørgen Rantzau, are decisively defeated by an equally large Swedish army, under Magnus Stenbock.


date: March 1

text: March 1 – The Sacheverell riots start in London with an attack on an elegant Presbyterian meeting-house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, followed by riots through the West End of London.


date: May 12

text: May 12 – Battle of Sirhind: An army of 70,000 Sikh rebels, led by Banda Singh Bahadur defeat a force of 25,000 Mughal Empire troops commanded by General Wazir Khan, who is killed in the combat. The battle takes place near Sirhind in what is now the Indian state of Punjab.


date: July 27

text: July 27 – The Battle of Almenar takes place in the Iberian theatre of the War of the Spanish Succession.

source_section: Events › July–September


date: August 20

text: August 20 – War of the Spanish Succession – Battle of Saragossa: The Spanish-Bourbon army, commanded by the Marquis de Bay, is soundly defeated by the forces of the Habsburg monarchy, under Guido Starhemberg and their allies.


date: September 26

text: September 26 – Great Northern War – Capitulation of Livonia: the Swedish garrison in Riga surrenders, ending Swedish rule in modern Latvia.


date: October 4

text: October 4 – Great Northern War – the Battle of Køge Bay between Denmark and Norway has an indecisive outcome.

source_section: Events › October–December


date: October 5

text: October 5 – October 13 - British forces under Francis Nicholson conduct the successful Siege of Port Royal against a French Acadian garrison and the Wabanaki Confederacy at the Acadian capital, Port Royal, marking the start of British control of what became Nova Scotia.


date: October 10

text: October 10 – Great Northern War – Capitulation of Estonia: the Swedish garrison in Reval (Tallinn) surrenders, ending Swedish rule in Estonia.


date: October 11

text: October 11 – The Battle of Rahon is fought between Sikhs and Mughal Empire.


date: October 13

text: October 13 – Queen Anne's War – Siege of Port Royal: The French surrender, giving the British permanent possession of Nova Scotia.


date: October

text: October – The start of the Mascate War (a.k.a. the War of the Peddlers) between two rival mercantile groups the Zillioto family and the Astrid family in colonial Brazil.


date: December 8

text: December 8 – War of the Spanish Succession – Battle of Brihuega: An outnumbered British force under James Stanhope is forced to surrender.


date: December 10

text: December 10 – War of the Spanish Succession – Battle of Villaviciosa: The indecisive battle between retreating Austrian-Dutch forces and a Franco-Spanish army is fought out.


text: December 10 – The Battle of Lohgarh takes place between Sikh forces and the Mughal army.


date: June

text: June – Protestant Swiss and German Palatines, under the leadership of Christoph von Graffenried, travel to Bath County in the Province of Carolina. The settlers displace the native town of Chattoka and found New Bern, named for von Graffenried's hometown of Bern in Switzerland.


date: September 7

text: September 7 – In Jonathan Swift's satirical Gulliver's Travels, fictional Gulliver sets off on his fourth and final journey, a voyage to the Land of the Houyhnhnms.


date: November 30

text: November 30 – The first visit to the Pacific islands of Palau is made by a Jesuit expedition led by Francisco Padilla; unfortunately, the ship is driven to Mindanao by a storm, leaving two priests stranded.


text: Explorer Juan Arias Diaz becomes the first non-Incan visitor to Choquequirao, an Inca site in Peru.


date: April 18

text: April 18 – Thomas Hancorne gives the county of Swansea's assize sermon, "The right way to honour and happiness" in which he espouses his High Church beliefs.


text: John Smithwick begins brewing Smithwick's ale at Kilkenny, Ireland (St. Francis Abbey Brewery).


date: May 6

section: Economy & Finance

text: May 6 – The South Sea Company begins.


date: March 6

text: March 6 – The ancient Roman Pillar of the Boatmen is found during the construction of a crypt under the nave of Notre-Dame de Paris.


date: April 10

text: April 10 – The world's first copyright legislation, Britain's Statute of Anne, becomes effective.


text: Jacob Christoph Le Blon, working in Amsterdam, invents a three-color printing process with red, blue, and yellow plates, a precursor of the modern CMYK printing process.


date: August 24

text: August 24 – Total eclipse of the sun is visible at .


section: Health & Medicine

text: Alexis Littré, in his treatise Diverses observations anatomiques, is the first physician to suggest the possibility of performing a lumbar colostomy for an obstruction of the colon.


date: January 4

text: January 4 – Robert Balfour, 5th Lord Balfour of Burleigh, two days before he is due to be executed for murder, escapes from the Edinburgh Tolbooth by exchanging clothes with his sister.


date: June 24

text: June 24 – In the Isle of Man, Manx coins become legal tender.


date: August 2

text: August 2 – British Royal Navy 90-gun ship HMS Vanguard is relaunched from Chatham; Vanguard sank in Chatham Dockyard in the Great Storm of 1703, but was raised in 1704 for rebuilding.


date: April 19

text: April 19 – Anne, Queen of Great Britain, meets the Four Mohawk Kings.


date: June 16

text: June 16 – Köprülüzade Numan Pasha becomes the grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire.


text: In Sweden, the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala is founded as the Collegium curiosorum.


date: April 13

text: April 13 – Jonathan Carver, colonial American military officer (d. 1780)


date: April 15

text: April 15 – William Cullen, Scottish physician and chemist (d. 1790)


date: April 26

text: April 26 – Thomas Reid, Scottish philosopher (d. 1796)


text: May 6 – Richard Bland, American planter and statesman from Virginia (d. 1776)


date: May 16

text: May 16 – William Talbot, 1st Earl Talbot, English politician (d. 1782)


text: May 16 – Joan Gideon Loten, Governor of Zeylan, Fellow of the Royal Society (d. 1789)


date: August 6

text: August 6 – Frances Jones, colonist (d. 1785)


date: September 22

text: September 22 – Georg Matthias Bose, famous early experimenter in electrostatics (d. 1761)


date: September 29

text: September 29 – Johann Andreas Michael Nagel, German Hebrew scholar and Orientalist (d. 1788)


date: September 30

text: September 30 – John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford, British statesman (d. 1771)


date: October 12

text: October 12 – Jonathan Trumbull, Governor of the Colony and the state of Connecticut (d. 1785)


date: November 8

text: November 8 – Sarah Fielding, English author, sister of the novelist Henry Fielding (d. 1768)


date: November 21

text: November 21 – Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky, Prussian merchant with a successful trade in trinkets (d. 1775)


date: November 22

text: November 22 – Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, German composer (d. 1784)


date: January 4

text: January 4 – Sir Richard Newdigate, 2nd Baronet, English landowner (b. 1644)


date: January 6

text: January 6 – Thomas Fairfax, 5th Lord Fairfax of Cameron, English politician (b. 1657)


date: February 16

text: February 16 – Esprit Fléchier, French writer and Bishop of Nîmes (b. 1632)


date: February 17

text: February 17 – George Bull, English theologian and Bishop of St David's (b. 1634)


date: February 25

text: February 25 – Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut, French explorer (b. c. 1639)


date: March 5

text: March 5 – John Holt, English politician (b. 1642)


date: April 28

text: April 28 – Thomas Betterton, English actor (b. c. 1635)


date: May 29

text: May 29 – Henri Basnage de Beauval, French historian, lexicographer (b. 1657)


date: June 7

text: June 7 – Louise de La Vallière, mistress of King Louis XIV of France (b. 1644)


date: July 25

text: July 25 – Gottfried Kirch, German astronomer, first 'Astronomer Royal' in Berlin (b. 1639)


date: September 19

text: September 19 – Ole Rømer, Danish astronomer (b. 1644)


date: September 22

text: September 22 – Jacques-René de Brisay de Denonville, Marquis de Denonville (b. 1637)


date: September 24

text: September 24 – Charles Berkeley, 2nd Earl of Berkeley, English diplomat (b. 1649)


date: October 19

text: October 19 – Suzanne Henriette of Lorraine, French noblewoman, Duchess of Mantua and Montferrat (b. 1686)


date: April 13

text: April 13 – The Treaty of the Lutsk, a secret agreement between the Tsardom of Russia and the Ottoman Protectorate of Moldavia is signed in Lutsk, Poland-Lithuania (modern-day Ukraine).


date: June 18

text: June 18 – King Louis XIV becomes the longest-reigning monarch in the world, surpassing the previous record of 68 years set by Kʼinich Janaabʼ Pakal in 683. As of 2022, Louis XIV still holds this record.


date: July 11

text: July 11 – The town of São Paulo, Brazil, is elevated to city status.


date: July 21

text: July 21 – The Treaty of the Pruth is signed between the Ottoman Empire and Russia, ending the Pruth River Campaign.


date: December 7

text: December 7 – In the Parliament of Great Britain the Earl of Nottingham successfully proposes a "No Peace Without Spain" amendment.


date: December 12

text: December 12 – A constitution is approved for the Academy of Sciences of the Institute of Bologna, which had been founded in 1690.


date: January

text: January – Cary's Rebellion: The Lords Proprietor appoint Edward Hyde to replace Thomas Cary, as the governor of the North Carolina portion of the Province of Carolina. Hyde's policies are deemed hostile to Quaker interests, leading former governor Cary and his Quaker allies to take up arms against the province.


date: February 24

text: February 24 – Thomas Cary, after declaring himself Governor of North Carolina, sails an armed brigantine up the Chowan River, to attack Governor Hyde's forces fortified at Colonel Thomas Pollock's plantation. The attack fails, and Cary's forces retreat.


date: April 29

text: April 29 – A rabid wolf fatally injures two shepherds in Roncà, North Italy; it also attacks livestock.


date: July 2

text: July 2 – Cary's Rebellion: Lieutenant Governor Alexander Spotswood of Virginia dispatches a company of Royal Marines to assist Governor Hyde. After hearing of this, Cary's troops abandon all of their fortifications along the Pamlico River. Cary and many of his supporters are soon caught and sent to England as prisoners, ending Cary's Rebellion.


date: August 7

text: August 7 – Capture of the galleon San Joaquin: Spanish galleon San Joaquin in a treasure fleet sailing from Cartagena de Indias (modern-day Colombia) to Spain surrenders after an engagement with five British ships.


date: August 9

text: August 9 – John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough with an army of 30,000 besieges Bouchain in the War of the Spanish Succession. The siege lasts 34 days and results in the last major victory for Churchill.


text: September 22 – The Tuscarora War begins when Tuscarora natives under the command of Chief Hancock raid settlements along the south bank of the Pamlico River, within the Province of Carolina (modern-day North Carolina), killing around 130 people.


date: December 5

text: December 5 – Great Northern War: the Battle of Wismar results in a Danish victory over Swedish forces.


date: April 3

text: April 3 – Clipperton Island is rediscovered by Frenchmen Martin de Chassiron and Michel Du Bocage, who draws up the first map and claims the island for France. The island had been discovered by Alvaro Saavedra Cedrón in 1528.


date: August 1

text: August 1 – The Dutch East India Company trading ship Zuytdorp leaves the Netherlands on an ill-fated voyage to Indonesia bearing a load of freshly minted silver coins. The wreck site remains unknown until the mid-20th century, on a remote part of the Western Australian coast between Kalbarri and Shark Bay.


date: August 22

text: August 22 – The Quebec Expedition, a British attempt to attack Quebec as part of Queen Anne's War, fails when 8 of its ships are wrecked in the Saint Lawrence River and 890 people, mostly soldiers, drown.


date: September 10

text: September 10 (also dated September 12) – John Lawson, Christoph von Graffenried, two African American slaves and two Native Americans leave on an exploration expedition from New Bern, North Carolina, and travel north by canoe up the Neuse River.


date: September 14

text: September 14 (approximate date) – Tuscarora natives capture John Lawson, Christoph von Graffenried and their expeditionary party, and bring them to Catechna.


date: April 5

text: April 5 (Easter Sunday) – The central tower of Elgin Cathedral in northeast Scotland collapses.


date: May

text: May – Alexander Pope publishes the poem An Essay on Criticism in London.


date: August 14

text: August 14 – The inauguration of the newly built Cathedral of the Assumption takes place in Gozo, Malta.


date: September 18

text: September 18 – Bishop Bogusław Gosiewski sells the town of Maladzyechna in the Minsk Region of Belarus to the mighty Ogiński family.


date: December 8

text: December 8 – The Immaculate Conception Cathedral, Comayagua in Honduras, one of the oldest cathedrals in Central America, is inaugurated.


date: December 15

text: December 15 – The Old Pummerin, a massive bell cast from 208 captured cannons, is consecrated by Bishop Franz Ferdinand Freiherr von Rummel in preparation for its installation in St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna (the Stephansdom).


date: December 25

text: December 25 – The rebuilding of St Paul's Cathedral in London to a design by Sir Christopher Wren is declared complete by Parliament; Old St Paul's had been destroyed by the 1666 Great Fire of London.


date: September 8

text: September 8 – The South Sea Company receives a Royal Charter in Britain.


date: December 13

text: December 13 – Wall Street in New York City becomes the city's first official slave market for the sale and rental of enslaved Africans and Indians.


date: February 3

text: February 3 – A total lunar eclipse occurs, at 12:31 UT.


date: July 29

text: July 29 – Total lunar eclipse at 17:50 UT.


text: Luigi Ferdinando Marsili shows that coral is an animal rather than a plant as previously thought.


text: John Shore invents the tuning fork.


date: May 25

text: May 25 – In Denmark, Helsingør is put under military blockade to prevent an outbreak of plague from spreading to Copenhagen; this year about one third of Helsingør's population is killed by the disease.


date: October 14

text: October 14 – Yostos kills Tewoflos, becoming Emperor of Ethiopia.


date: September 16

text: September 16 (approximate date) – Tuscarora natives kill Lawson. Von Graffenried and one African American slave are known to have been set free.


text: October 14 – Woodes Rogers returns to England after a successful round-the-world privateering cruise against Spain, carrying loot worth £150,000.


date: October 7

text: October 7 – is wrecked on Scaterie Island, Nova Scotia with the loss of 102 lives.


date: October 11

text: October 11 – Panic kills 241 people in the stampede on the Guillottière bridge in France near Lyon. Revelers returning from a festival on the other side of the Rhône river are blocked by from crossing after a collision between a carriage and a cart. At least 25 fall off the bridge and into the river, while 216 are trampled by people behind them.


date: November 5

text: November 5 – The southwest spire of Southwell Minster in Nottinghamshire, England is struck by lightning, resulting in a fire that spreads to the nave and tower, destroying roofs, bells, clock and organ.


date: November 7

text: November 7 – The Dutch East India Company ship Liefde runs aground and sinks off Out Skerries, Shetland, with the loss of all but one of her 300 crew.


date: January 24

text: January 24 – The first performance of Francesco Gasparini's most famous opera Tamerlano takes place at the Teatro San Cassiano in Venice.


date: February 24

text: February 24 – Rinaldo by George Frideric Handel, the first Italian opera written for the London stage, premieres at the Queen's Theatre, Haymarket.


date: February

text: February – French settlers at Fort Louis de la Mobile celebrate Mardi Gras in Mobile (Alabama), by parading a large papier-mache ox head on a cart (the first Mardi Gras parade in America).


date: March 1

text: March 1 – The Spectator is founded by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele in London.


date: August 11

text: August 11 – The first horse race is held at the newly founded Ascot Racecourse, which becomes one of the leading racecourses in England.


date: August 13

text: August 13 – Tamachi Raisinhji becomes Jam Sahib (ruling prince) of Nawanagar State in Gujarat, India.


date: October 16

text: October 16 – Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts is established in Brussels.


date: February 2

text: February 2 – Wenzel Anton, Prince of Kaunitz-Rietberg, Austrian diplomat and chancellor (d. 1794)


date: February 25

text: February 25 – John Perceval, 2nd Earl of Egmont, British politician with Irish connections (d. 1770)


date: April 26

text: April 26 – David Hume, Scottish philosopher, economist, and historian (d. 1776)


date: May 18

text: May 18 – Roger Joseph Boscovich, Croatian-Italian priest and mathematician (d. 1787)


date: June 23

text: June 23 – Giovanni Battista Guadagnini, Italian luthier (d. 1786)


date: July 10

text: July 10 – Princess Amelia of Great Britain, Second daughter of George II of Great Britain (d. 1786)


date: July 26

text: July 26 – Lorenz Christoph Mizler, German music historian, polymath (d. 1778)


date: September 6

text: September 6 – Henry Muhlenberg, Lutheran clergyman and missionary (d. 1787)


date: September 9

text: September 9 – Thomas Hutchinson, historian and last civilian Governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay (d. 1780)


date: September 26

text: September 26 – Richard Grenville-Temple, 2nd Earl Temple, British politician and first Lord of the Admiralty (d. 1779)


date: October 31

text: October 31 – Laura Bassi, Italian physicist and academic (d. 1778)


date: November 19

text: November 19 – Mikhail Lomonosov, Russian polymath (d. 1765)


date: December 4

text: December 4 – Barbara of Portugal, infanta of Portugal and later Queen of Ferdinand VI of Spain (d. 1758)


date: December 25

text: December 25 – Jean-Joseph de Mondonville, French composer and violinist (d. 1772)


date: January 10

text: January 10 – John Manners, 1st Duke of Rutland, English nobleman and politician (b. 1638)


date: January 16

text: January 16 – Blessed Joseph Vaz, Apostle of Ceylon (b. 1651)


date: January 21

text: January 21 – Augustinus Terwesten, 18th century painter from the Northern Netherlands (b. 1649)


date: February 3

text: February 3 – Francesco Maria de' Medici, Duke of Rovere and Montefeltro, Italian Catholic cardinal (b. 1660)


date: March 13

text: March 13 – Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux, French poet and critic (b. 1636)


date: March 15

text: March 15 – Eusebio Kino, Italian Catholic missionary (b. 1645)


date: April 14

text: April 14 – Louis, Grand Dauphin, son of Louis XIV (b. 1661)


date: May 2

text: May 2 – Laurence Hyde, 1st Earl of Rochester, English statesman (b. 1641)


date: June 16

text: June 16 – Maria Amalia of Courland, Landgravine of Hesse-Kassel (b. 1653)


date: July 6

text: July 6 – James Douglas, 2nd Duke of Queensberry, Scottish politician (b. 1662)


date: July 11

text: July 11 – Joseph Ball, American settler, public servant, and maternal grandfather of George Washington (b. 1649)


date: August 22

text: August 22 – Louis François, duc de Boufflers, Marshal of France (b. 1644)


date: August 25

text: August 25 – Edward Villiers, 1st Earl of Jersey, English politician (b. c. 1656)


date: September 22

text: September 22 – William Bartram, English-born politician and settler (b. 1674)


date: May 19

text: May 19 – Peter the Great moves the capital of Russia from Moscow to Saint Petersburg.

source_section: Events › April –June


date: August 1

text: August 1 – The Stamp Act 1712 is passed in the United Kingdom, imposing a tax on publishers, particularly of newspapers.


date: August 11

text: August 11 – The Peace of Aarau is signed by Catholics and Protestants, ending the Toggenburg War and establishing Protestant dominance in Switzerland, while preserving the rights of Catholics.


text: After many years of settlement, the Town on Queen Anne's Creek is established as a courthouse for Chowan County, North Carolina. The town is renamed Edenton in 1720, and incorporated in 1722.


text: John Arbuthnot creates the character of John Bull to represent Britain.


date: February 10

text: February 10 – Huilliche uprising of 1712: Huilliche people in Chile's Chiloé Archipelago rise up against Spanish encomenderos as vengeance for perceived injustices.


date: April 6

text: April 6–7 – New York Slave Revolt of 1712: An insurrection in New York City results in nine whites being killed, and 21 slaves and other blacks being convicted and executed.


date: April 11

text: April 11 – Great Northern War: the Battle of Fladstrand takes place at sea near Fladstrand, Jylland, between Swedish and Danish forces.


date: July 24

text: July 24 – Battle of Denain: The French defeat a combined Dutch-Austrian force.


text: July 24 – Battle of Villmergen: The Reformed cantons of Switzerland defeat the Catholic cantons.


date: December 20

text: December 20 – Great Northern War: the Battle of Gadebusch is Sweden's final great victory in the war, preventing the loss of the city of Stralsund to Danish and Saxon forces.


date: May 15

text: May 15 – Curuguaty in Paraguay is founded by Juan Gregorio de Bazán y Pedraza on the banks of the Curuguaty River.


text: The VOC Zuytdorp is wrecked off the coast of Western Australia.


text: Early March – Start of the Cassard expedition, a sea voyage by French Navy captain Jacques Cassard during which he ransacks Santiago in the Cape Verde Islands and pillages Montserrat, Antigua, Surinam, Berbice, Essequibo, St. Eustatius and Curaçao, returning to France with loot worth over nine million francs.


date: January 26

text: January 26 – The Old Pummerin, a 18,161 kg bell newly installed in the Stephansdom, St. Stephen's Cathedral, in Vienna, is rung for the first time to mark the entry of Charles VI to Vienna from Frankfurt after his coronation as Emperor. It takes a quarter-hour for 16 men pulling on the bell rope to swing the heavy bell back-and-forth enough for the clapper to strike; the resulting forces endanger the tower so the architect orders that in future the bell be rung only by pulling its clapper.


date: March 3

text: March 3 – Scottish Episcopalians Act 1711 comes into effect, leading to incorporation of the Scottish Episcopal Church.


date: May 22

text: May 22 – Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor is crowned King of Hungary.


date: June 17

text: June 17 – The newly built St Ann's Church, Manchester, England, is consecrated by the Bishop of Chester.


date: December 7

text: December 7 – The charter of Buchach Monastery in Ukraine, founded by Stefan Aleksander Potocki and his wife Joanna née Sieniawska, is signed in Lublin.


date: June 11

text: June 11 – Chatham, Barnstable County, Massachusetts is incorporated as a town.


date: July 8

text: July 8 – The British Royal Navy 50-gun ship HMS Advice is launched at Deptford Dockyard.


text: The first known working Newcomen steam engine is built by Thomas Newcomen with John Calley, to pump water out of mines in the Black Country of England, the first device to make practical use of the power of steam to produce mechanical work.


date: January 8

text: January 8 – Total eclipse of the sun visible from


date: August 23

text: August 23 – The British Royal Navy 60-gun ship HMS Rippon is launched at Deptford Dockyard.


date: December 28

text: December 28 – Total eclipse of the sun visible from


date: March 30

text: March 30 – Anne, Queen of Great Britain administers the Royal touch (a ritual with the intent to cure illness) for the last time; 300 scrofulous people are touched, the last of whom is Samuel Johnson.


date: June 10

text: June 10 – Kurtkulağı Caravanserai in Adana Province, Turkey, is restored and 50 soldiers are appointed to guard it.


date: October 3

text: October 3 – In Scotland a warrant is issued for the arrest of outlaw Rob Roy MacGregor by Advocate Sir James Stewart.


date: November 4

text: November 4 – The Bandbox Plot aims to kill British Lord Treasurer Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford but is foiled by Jonathan Swift (author of Gulliver’s Travels).


date: March 15

text: March 15 – HMS Dragon, a 38-gun fourth rate frigate of the British Royal Navy, is wrecked on Les Casquets rocks to the west of Alderney.


date: September 8

text: September 8 – A severe hurricane buffets Bermuda for eight hours, destroying most of the churches.


date: January 12

text: January 12 – The premiere of the opera Idoménée by André Campra takes place at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal in Paris.


date: January 16

text: January 16 – A military engineering school is established in Moscow which is to become the A.F. Mozhaysky Military-Space Academy.


date: March 11

text: March 11 (February 30 Swedish Style, February 29 on the Julian calendar) – Sweden temporarily adopts the rare February 30, as a day to adjust the Swedish Calendar back to the Julian calendar.


date: June 5

text: June 5 – Reus in Catalonia, Spain is given the title of imperial city by Elisabeth Christine, wife of Archduke Charles.


date: July 20

text: July 20 – Jesus College, Oxford, England, inherits the extensive library of its Principal Jonathan Edwards on his death.


date: September

text: September – Composer George Frideric Handel re-locates to London with the permission of his patron, the future King George I of Great Britain.


date: October 31

text: October 31 – King Philip V of Spain establishes the Biblioteca Nacional de España as the Palace Public Library (Biblioteca Pública de Palacio) in Madrid.


date: November 22

text: November 22 – The first performance of George Frideric Handel's opera Il pastor fido takes place at the Queen's Theatre in the Haymarket, London.


date: December 27

text: December 27 – The premiere of the opera Callirhoé by André Cardinal Destouches takes place at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal in Paris.


text: A translation of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer into Irish, made by John Richardson (1664–1747), is published.


date: January 2

text: January 2 – Marie-Angélique Memmie Le Blanc, French feral child (d. 1775)


date: January 5

text: January 5 – Ludwig van Beethoven the Elder, Flemish-born German professional singer and music director, grandfather of the well known composer of the same name (d. 1773)


date: February 28

text: February 28 – Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, French general (d. 1759)


date: March 28

text: March 28 – Empress Xiaoxianchun, empress consort of Qing dynasty China (d. 1748)


date: April 23

text: April 23 – Devasahayam Pillai, beatified Indian Catholic (d. 1752)


date: May 13

text: May 13 – Count Johann Hartwig Ernst von Bernstorff, German-Danish statesman (d. 1772)


date: July 12

text: July 12 – Sir Francis Bernard, 1st Baronet, British Colonial governor of New Jersey and Massachusetts Bay (d. 1779)


date: August 12

text: August 12 – Jonas Hanway, English traveller and philanthropist (d. 1786)


date: October 24

text: October 24 – Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp, German duchess (d. 1760)


date: October 30

text: October 30 – Giovanni Pietro Francesco Agius de Soldanis, Maltese linguist, historian and cleric (d. 1770)


date: November 24

text: November 24 – Charles-Michel de l'Épée, French priest and educator of the deaf (d. 1789)


date: December 9

text: December 9 – Alexander Murray of Elibank, Scottish Jacobite intriguer, fourth son of Alexander Murray (d. 1778)


date: December 12

text: December 12 – Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine, Lorraine-born Austrian general and soldier (d. 1780)


date: December 31

text: December 31 – Peter Boehler, German-English Moravian bishop and missionary (d. 1775)


text: January 5 – Richard Jones, 1st Earl of Ranelagh, Irish politician (b. 1641)


date: February 2

text: February 2 – Martin Lister, English naturalist, physician (b. c. 1638)


date: February 12

text: February 12 – Marie Adélaïde of Savoy, wife of Louis, Duke of Burgundy (b. 1685)


date: March 2

text: March 2 – Lorenzo Magalotti, Italian philosopher (b. 1637)


text: March 28 – Jan van der Heyden, Dutch painter (b. 1637)


date: March 30

text: March 30 – Johann Friedrich Mayer, German Lutheran theologian (b. 1650)


date: May 20

text: May 20 – Christian Ernst, Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth (1655–1712) (b. 1644)


date: June 11

text: June 11 – Louis Joseph, Duke of Vendôme, French military commander (b. 1654)


date: June 24

text: June 24 – Simon van der Stel, last Commander and first Governor of the Cape Colony (b. 1639)


date: July 26

text: July 26 – Thomas Osborne, 1st Duke of Leeds, English statesman (b. 1631)


date: August 18

text: August 18 – Richard Savage, 4th Earl Rivers, English soldier (b. c. 1660)


date: September 15

text: September 15 – Sidney Godolphin, 1st Earl of Godolphin, English politician (b. c.1645)


date: November 5

text: November 5 – Charles Honoré d'Albert, duc de Luynes, French noble (b. 1646)


date: November 15

text: November 15 – James Hamilton, 4th Duke of Hamilton, Scottish peer (b. 1658)


date: March 27

text: March 27 – First Treaty of Utrecht between Great Britain and Spain: Philip V is accepted by Britain and Austria as king of Spain; Spain cedes Gibraltar and Menorca to Britain.


date: April 11

text: April 11 – The Second Treaty of Utrecht between Great Britain and France ends the War of the Spanish Succession. France cedes Newfoundland, Acadia, Hudson Bay and St Kitts to Great Britain.


date: May 1

text: May 1 – As part of the Treaty of Utrecht, the Spanish Crown agrees the Asiento de Negros with Anne, Queen of Great Britain, granting a subsidiary of the British South Sea Company, the Real Asiento de Inglaterra, a 30-year monopoly in the supply of African slaves to colonial Spanish America.


date: May 6

text: May 6 – The Parliament of Ireland is dissolved by Queen Anne and new elections are set.


date: June 23

text: June 23 – French residents of Acadia are given one year to declare allegiance to Great Britain, or leave Nova Scotia.


date: July 9

text: July 9 – The Junta de Braços (parliament) of the Principality of Catalonia votes in favour of staying in the War of the Spanish Succession against Philip V of Spain. Army of Catalonia raised.


date: July 13

text: July 13 – The Treaty of Portsmouth brings an end to Queen Anne's War.


date: August 8

text: August 8 – The Parliament of Great Britain, third since the Act of Union, is dissolved


date: August 22

text: August 22 – Voting begins in the 1713 British general election in various constituencies and continues to November 12


date: October 6

text: October 6 – The Treaty of Schwedt is signed between Russia and Brandenburg-Prussia, with the latter accepting the annexation of Baltic territories and paying Russia expenses in return for the southern part of Pomerania, recently taken from Sweden in the Great Northern War.


date: November 12

text: November 12 – The 1713 British general election concludes with the conservative Tories winning 358 of the 558 available seats in the House of Commons, and the liberal Whigs having 200.


date: December 9

text: December 9 – As part of the agreements made at Utrecht to end the War of the Spanish Succession, Great Britain and Spain sign a treaty of commerce and navigation.


date: December 21

text: December 21 – Victor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy is crowned King of Sicily at Palermo, and his wife Anne Marie is crowned as Queen consort. The coronation follows Spain's recognition of Sicilian independence, effective September 22, as part of the Treaty of Utrecht.


text: San Basilio de Palenque officially becomes the first free African town in America, being the first independent place in America from Europeans.


date: January 17

text: January 17 – Tuscarora War: Colonel James Moore leads the Carolina militia out of Albemarle County, North Carolina, in a second offensive against the Tuscarora. Heavy snows force the troops to take refuge in Fort Reading, on the Pamlico River.


date: February 1

text: February 1 – Skirmish at Bender, Moldova: Charles XII of Sweden is defeated by the Ottoman Empire.


date: February 4

text: February 4 – Tuscarora War: The Carolina militia under Colonel James Moore leaves Fort Reading, to continue the campaign against the Tuscarora.


date: March 1

text: March 1 – Tuscarora War: Colonel James Moore's Carolina militia lays siege to the Tuscaroran stronghold of Fort Neoheroka, located a few miles up Contentnea Creek from Fort Hancock.


date: March 20

text: March 20 – Tuscarora War: Colonel James Moore's Carolina militia launches a major offensive against Fort Neoheroka.


date: March 23

text: March 23 – Tuscarora War: Fort Neoheroka falls to the Carolina militia, effectively ending the Tuscarora nation's military strength. Two Tuscaroran allies, the Machapunga and Coree tribes, continue offensive actions against North Carolina.


date: May 2

text: May 2 – In the Great Northern War, a fleet of the Russian Navy, transporting 12,000 soldiers, sails from Kronstadt to attack the Swedish Army at Helsinki.


date: May 21

text: May 21 – Great Northern War: The Russian fleet lands a force of 10,000 men at Pernå on the southern coast of Finland.


date: June 1

text: June 1 (approx.) – Tuscarora War: Colonel James Moore leads the Carolina militia into the Pamlico Peninsula to defeat the Machapunga and Coree tribes.


date: September 1

text: September 1 – Tuscarora War: The Carolina militia, led by Colonel James Moore, returns to South Carolina, after mixed success in the campaign against the Machapunga and Coree tribes.


date: October 17

text: October 17 – The Battle of Pälkäne is fought in what is now Finland between Russia and Sweden, with Russia's Fyodor Arpaskin forcing Finnish troops under Carl Gustaf Armfeldt to withdraw.


date: November 6

text: November 6 – The Dublin election riot breaks out during the fiercely contested Irish General Election. "Police and public order in eighteenth-century Dublin", by Neal Garnham, in Two Capitals: London and Dublin, 1500–1840


date: December 10

text: December 10 – The rebellion of Richard Raworth, Deputy Governor of Fort St. David (now abandoned and in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu near Cuddalore), against the British East India Company comes to an end after two months when forces sent by Bridish Madras Governor Edward Harrison to negotiate a settlement allowing Raworth to surrender in return for amnesty.


date: April 19

text: April 19 – With no living male heirs, Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, issues the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713, to ensure one of his daughters will inherit the Habsburg lands.


text: Basil Matthew II becomes Syriac Orthodox Maphrian of the East.


date: February 25

text: February 25 – Frederick William I of Prussia begins his reign.


date: April 14

text: April 14 – First performance, in London, of Joseph Addison's libertarian play Cato, a Tragedy, which will be influential on both sides of the Atlantic.


date: May 13

text: May 13 – King Philip V of Spain issues an auto accordado that changes the order of succession for the Spanish throne allowing a female descendant within the House of Bourbon to rule. The change will allow his great-great-granddaughter to ascend the throne in 1833 as Queen Isabella II.


date: May 17

text: May 17 – Ottone in villa, the first opera by composer Antonio Vivaldi, is given its initial performance, debuting at the Teatro delle Grazie in Vicenza


text: Ars Conjectandi, a seminal work on probability by Jacob Bernoulli, is published eight years after his death, by his nephew, Niklaus Bernoulli.


date: January 5

text: January 5 – Jorge Juan y Santacilia, Spanish mathematician and naval officer (d. 1773)

source_section: Births › January


date: January 13

text: January 13 – Charlotte Charke, British actor and writer (d. 1760)


date: January 31

text: January 31 – Anthony Benezet, French-born American abolitionist and educator (d. 1784)


date: March 5

text: March 5 – Edward Cornwallis, British military officer, first Governor of Nova Scotia (d. 1776)

source_section: Births › March


date: March 17

text: March 17 – Sir Charles Asgill, 1st Baronet, British politician (d. 1788)


date: March 21

text: March 21 – Francis Lewis, Signatory of the US Declaration of Independence, from Wales (d. 1803)


date: May 11

text: May 11 – James Drummond, 3rd Duke of Perth, Scottish Jacobite army officer (d. 1746)

source_section: Births › May


text: May 13 – Alexis Clairaut, French mathematician, astronomer, and geophysicist (d. 1765)


date: June 3

text: June 3 – Robert Petre, 8th Baron Petre, British peer, renowned horticulturist (d. 1742)

source_section: Births › June


date: September 16

text: September 16 – Charles Lucas, Irish apothecary, physician and politician (d. 1771)

source_section: Births › September


date: October 5

text: October 5 – Denis Diderot, French philosopher (d. 1784)

source_section: Births › October


date: October 7

text: October 7 – Granville Elliott, Army General, British military expert, working for Britain and Palatine forces (d. 1759)


date: October 8

text: October 8 – Yechezkel Landau, influential Polish authority on halakha (Jewish law) (d. 1793)


date: November 24

text: November 24 – Laurence Sterne, Anglo-Irish novelist and Anglican cleric (d. 1768)

source_section: Births › November


date: January 1

text: January 1 – Giuseppe Maria Tomasi, Italian Roman Catholic cardinal (b. 1649)

source_section: Deaths › January


text: January 5 – Jean Chardin, French jeweler, traveler and author (b. 1643)


date: January 8

text: January 8 – Arcangelo Corelli, Italian violinist and composer (b. 1653)


date: January 20

text: January 20 – Pavao Ritter Vitezović, Croatian writer, historian, linguist and publisher (b. 1652)


date: February 4

text: February 4 – Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, English politician and philosopher (b. 1671)

source_section: Deaths › February


date: February 11

text: February 11 – Zulfiqar Khan Nusrat Jung, Nawab of the Carnatic (b. 1657)


date: February 28

text: February 28 – Samuel Whiting Jr., American clergyman 1633–1713 (b. 1633)


text: March 17 – Juraj Jánošík, Slovak outlaw, known as the Slovak Robin Hood (executed) (b. 1688)

source_section: Deaths › March


date: March 26

text: March 26 – Paul I, Prince Esterházy, Palatine of Hungary and Prince of Holy Roman Empire (b. 1635)


date: March 29

text: March 29 – Christian Thomsen Carl, Danish naval officer (b. 1676)


date: July 11

text: July 11 – Joseph Stennett, English Baptist minister and hymnwriter (b. 1663)

source_section: Deaths › July


date: October 31

text: October 31 – Ferdinando de' Medici, Grand Prince of Tuscany, Tuscan prince (b. 1663)

source_section: Deaths › October


date: December 14

text: December 14 – Thomas Rymer, English Historiographer royal (b. 1641)

source_section: Deaths › December


date: December 15

text: December 15 – Carlo Maratta, Italian painter (b. 1625)


date: March 7

text: March 7 – The Treaty of Rastatt is signed between Austria and France, concluding the War of the Spanish Succession between them. Austria receives the Spanish territories in Italy (the Kingdom of Naples, Duchy of Milan and Kingdom of Sardinia), as well as the Southern Netherlands; and from France, Freiburg and Landau. The Austrian Habsburg Empire reaches its largest territorial extent yet, with Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor succeeding Philip V of Spain, as ruler in the ceded territories.

source_section: Events › January–March


date: April 11

text: April 11 – France signs five separate treaties— with Great Britain, the Netherlands, Portugal, Prussia and Savoy— to end hostilities in the War of the Spanish Succession following the negotiations of the Peace of Utrecht.

source_section: Events › April–June


date: June 26

text: June 26 – Spain and the Netherlands sign a peace treaty to end hostilities between those two nations in the War of the Spanish Succession.


date: September 18

text: September 18 – George I, the new King of Great Britain and Ireland, arrives in Britain for the first time in his life, after having departed Hannover and sailing from the Netherlands.

source_section: Events › July–September


date: October 24

text: October 24 – Four Dutch investors, led by brothers Nicolaas and Hendrik van Hoorn, purchase the South American colony of Berbice from French mercenary Jacques Cassard, who had captured the colony from the Van Peere family. A century later, in 1815, the land is ceded to Great Britain and later merged with neighboring colonies to form what is now Guyana.

source_section: Events › October–December


date: November 30

text: November 30 – King Philip V of Spain issues a decree reorganizing the Spanish government to create four ministries, with the Secretary of State being the chief minister, predecessor to the office of Prime Minister of Spain. José de Grimaldo becomes the first person to have the chief ministry.


date: January 21

text: January 21 – After being tricked into deserting a battle against India's Mughal Empire by the rebel Sayyid brothers, Prince Azz-ud-din Mirza is blinded on orders of the Emperor Farrukhsiyar as punishment.


date: February 7

text: February 7 – The Siege of Tönning (a fortress of the Swedish Empire and now located in Germany in the state of Schleswig-Holstein) ends after almost a year, as Danish forces force the surrender of the remaining 1,600 defenders. The fortress is then leveled by the Danes.


date: March 2

text: March 2 – (February 19 old style) The Battle of Storkyro is fought between troops of the Swedish Empire and the Russian Empire, near what is now the village of Napue in Finland. The outnumbered Swedish forces, under the command of General Carl Gustaf Armfeldt, suffer 1,600 troops killed in action while the Russians led by General Mikhail Golitsyn lose 400 men.


date: July 27

text: July 27 – The Imperial Russian Navy gains its first important victory against the Swedish Navy in the Battle of Gangut.


date: September 11

text: September 11 – War of the Spanish Succession: Barcelona is taken after a year's siege, and Catalonia surrenders to Spanish and French Bourbon armies.


date: September 29

text: September 29 – The Great Hatred: the Cossacks of the Tsardom of Russia kill about 800 people overnight on the Finnish island of Hailuoto.


date: December 9

text: December 9 – Ottoman–Venetian War (1714–1718): The Ottoman Empire declares war on the Republic of Venice.


date: April 12

text: April 12 – Italian Jesuit missionary Niccolò Gianpriamo is dispatched from Portugal on an evangelical trip to Asia starting with the Portuguese Indian colony of Goa, where he arrives after five months.


date: July 8

text: July 8 – Longitude prize: The Parliament of Great Britain votes "to offer a reward for such person or persons as shall discover the Longitude" (£10,000 for any method capable of determining a ship's longitude within 1 degree; £15,000, within 40 minutes, and £20,000 within ½ a degree).


text: Louis Juchereau de St. Denis establishes Fort St. Jean Baptiste, at the site of present day Natchitoches, Louisiana (the first permanent European settlement in the Louisiana Territory, after Biloxi (1699) and Mobile, Alabama (1702) were separated).

source_section: Events › Date unknown


date: June 20

text: June 20 – In France, Henri-Charles du Cambout de Coislin, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Metz, condemns the papal bull Unigenitus, issued by Pope Clement XI against the 1671 commentary by Pasquier Quesnel of the four Gospels and inflaming the Jansenist controversy.


date: October 20

text: October 20 – The coronation of George I of Great Britain and Ireland takes place in Westminster Abbey, a little less than three months after George became the new British monarch.


text: Archbishop Tenison's School, the world's earliest surviving mixed gender school, is established by Thomas Tenison, Archbishop of Canterbury, in Croydon, south of London, England.


text: Worcester College, University of Oxford is founded (formerly Gloucester College, closed during the Dissolution of the monasteries).


date: June 3

text: June 3 – The city of Kassel in Germany inaugurates the summer tradition of the "water stairs" or "great cascades" (Grossen Kaskaden) emptying from the base of the Hercules monument down to the Wilhelmshöhe castle.


text: The river Kander (Switzerland) is redirected into Lake Thun.


date: February 28

text: February 28 – (February 17 old style) Russia's Tsar Peter the Great issues a decree requiring compulsory education in mathematics for children of government officials and nobility, applying to children between the ages of 10 and 15 years old.


date: May 19

text: May 19 – Anne, Queen of Great Britain, refuses to allow members of the House of Hanover to settle in Britain during her lifetime.


date: May 20

text: May 20 – Johann Sebastian Bach leads the first performance of his cantata for Pentecost, Erschallet, ihr Lieder, BWV 172, at the chapel of Schloss Weimar.


text: January 21 – Anna Morandi Manzolini, internationally known Italian anatomist and anatomical wax modeler (d. 1774)

source_section: Births


date: February 25

text: February 25 – René Nicolas Charles Augustin de Maupeou, Chancellor of France (d. 1792)


date: March 8

text: March 8 – Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, German Classical composer (d. 1788)


date: March 21

text: March 21 – Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden, British judge (d. 1794)


date: April 1

text: April 1 – Jean-François de Neufforge, Flemish architect and engraver (d. 1791)


date: July 2

text: July 2 – Christoph Willibald Gluck, German composer (d. 1787)


text: July 8 – Pieter van Reede van Oudtshoorn, Dutch administrator of the Cape Colony (d. 1773)


date: July 17

text: July 17 – John Forbes (Royal Navy officer), British admiral of the fleet (d. 1796)


date: August 1

text: August 1 – Richard Wilson (painter), Welsh landscape painter (d. 1782)


date: August 27

text: August 27 – Angélique du Coudray, pioneering French midwife (d. 1794)


date: September 24

text: September 24 – Alaungpaya, King of Burma (d. 1760)


date: October 14

text: October 14 – Christoph Anton Migazzi, Austrian Catholic bishop (d. 1803)


date: October 25

text: October 25 – James Burnett, Lord Monboddo, Scottish judge, scholar of language evolution and philosopher (d. 1799)


date: December 16

text: December 16 – George Whitefield, English Anglican priest (d. 1770)


date: February 21

text: February 21 – Eugen Alexander Franz, 1st Prince of Thurn and Taxis (b. 1652)

source_section: Deaths


date: February 24

text: February 24 – Edmund Andros, English governor in North America (b. 1637)


date: March 13

text: March 13 – John Talbot of Lacock, British politician and general (b. 1630)


date: March 27

text: March 27 – Anthony Ulrich, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (b. 1633)


text: March 27 – Charlotte Amalie of Hesse-Kassel, Queen Consort of Denmark (1670–1699) (b. 1650)


date: April 10

text: April 10 – Samuel Carpenter, Deputy Governor of colonial Pennsylvania (b. 1649)


date: May 5

text: May 5 – Charles, Duke of Berry, grandson of Louis XIV of France (b. 1686)


date: May 15

text: May 15 – Roger Elliott, British general and Governor of Gibraltar (b. c. 1665)


date: June 22

text: June 22 – Matthew Henry, English non-conformist minister (b. 1662)


date: August 26

text: August 26 – Constantin Brâncoveanu, Prince of Wallachia (b. 1654)


date: October 10

text: October 10 – Pierre Le Pesant, sieur de Boisguilbert, French economist (b. 1646)


date: October

text: October – Raja Sitaram Ray, autonomous king, vassal of the Mughal Empire (b. 1658)


date: November 5

text: November 5 – Bernardino Ramazzini, Italian physician (b. 1633)


date: November 7

text: November 7 – Charles Davenant, English economist, politician and pamphleteer (b. 1656)


date: January 22

text: January 22 – Voting begins for the British House of Commons and continues for the next 46 days in different constituencies on different days.


date: February 11

text: February 11 – Tuscarora War: The Tuscarora and their allies sign a peace treaty with the Province of North Carolina, and agree to move to a reservation near Lake Mattamuskeet, effectively ending the Tuscarora War. Large numbers of Tuscarora subsequently move to New York.


date: March 9

text: March 9 – Voting for the British House of Commons concludes, with the liberal Whig Party winning 341 of the 558 seats, and reducing the conservative Tory Party share to 217 seats. Spencer Compton, the Earl of Wilmington, becomes the Speaker of the House of Commons.


text: March 27 – Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, flees from Great Britain to France. His part in secret negotiations with France, leading to the Treaty of Utrecht, has cast suspicion on him in the eyes of the Whig government of Britain. He becomes secretary of state to the Pretender, James Edward Stuart.


date: June 9

text: June 9 – King Philip, ruler of the Crown of Castile and the Crown of Aragon unifies the two monarchies into a single state, centralizing rule of a unified Kingdom of Spain.


date: October 12

text: October 12 – Baron Onslow resigns as Great Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer and is replaced by future Prime Minister Robert Walpole.


date: October 28

text: October 28 – The Treaty of Greifswald is signed between Russia and the Electorate of Hanover, with George I of Great Britain and Hanover agreeing to Russia's annexation of Swedish Ingria and Estonia, and Hanover claiming the Bremen-Verden Swedish duchies of Bremen and Verden.


date: November 15

text: November 15 – The Third Barrier Treaty is signed by Britain, the Holy Roman Empire and the Dutch Republic.


date: November 28

text: November 28 – The application of the Nueva Planta decrees, in Mallorca and the other Balearic Islands (formerly under the Crown of Aragon), bring them under the laws of the Crown of Castile.


text: The ancient right to evaluate royal decrees publicly, before they are given the force of law by the Parlement of Paris, is restored.


date: April 1

text: April 1 – The Battle of Gurdas Nangal begins during the Mughal-Sikh Wars in India, as the Mughal Army begins an eight-month siege of a fortress near Gurdaspur (in what is now the Punjab state), where Sikh General Banda Singh Bahadur and 1,250 of his men have fled. The siege ends on December 7 when the 750 survivors, including Banda Singh, are captured. By June 1716, most of the Sikh prisoners have been tortured, killed and executed, with Banda Singh dying on June 9.


date: April 24

text: April 24 – The Battle of Fehmarn takes place in the Baltic Sea as part of the Great Northern War. Ten warships of Denmark, under the command of Christian Gabel, overwhelm a force of Swedish Navy ships led by Carl Wachtmeister. By the time the battle ends the next day, five Swedish ships and 1,626 crewmen have been captured, and another 353 killed. The Danish navy suffers 65 deaths.


date: May 28

text: May 28 – Rioting begins in England on the birthday of King George I as supporters of the Old Pretender, James of the House of Stuart, begin mass protesting against the rule of the House of Hanover, near London in the towns of Smithfield and Highgate, and the Cheapside financial district in London.


date: June 22

text: June 22 – Tsar Peter the Great of Russia witnesses the attempt of 45 Dutch and English ships to enter the small harbour at Saint Petersburg and decides that additional harbours are necessary for Russia to be able import Western goods.


date: July 20

text: July 20 – Ottoman–Venetian War (1714–18): The fall of Nauplion, the capital of the Venetian "Kingdom of the Morea", seals the fate of the Peloponnese Peninsula, which is soon completely retaken by the Ottomans.


date: September 14

text: September 14 – Less than two weeks after King Louis XIV's death, Daniel Voysin de la Noiraye, France's Secretary of State for War since 1709, steps down at the request of the new regent, the Duke of Orleans.


date: October 2

text: October 2 – During the rebellion in Great Britain by supporters of the Pretender to the Throne, James Stuart, the Jacobites raid the Scottish parish of Burntisland, capture an arsenal of weapons, and begin an occupation of the area on October 9 in the name of Stuart as King James VIII of Scotland.


date: November 13

text: November 13 – Jacobite rising in Scotland – Battle of Sheriffmuir: The forces of the Kingdom of Great Britain, led by John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll, halt the Jacobite advance, although the action is inconclusive.


date: November 14

text: November 14 – Battle of Preston: Government forces defeat the Jacobite incursion, at the conclusion of a five-day siege and action.


date: December 22

text: December 22 – James Edward Stuart rejoins Jacobite rebels in Scotland, but fails to rouse his army.


text: Filippo Juvarra starts rebuilding the church of San Filippo Neri, Turin, in which the roof had collapsed, during the siege of Turin, during the War of the Spanish Succession.


text: October 12 – William Mackintosh of Borlum, leader of the Jacobite rising against Great Britain, lands with 1,500 men in Scotland after crossing the Firth of Forth from France.


date: March 14

text: March 14 – James Stuart, the "Old Pretender" attempting to restore the House of Stuart to control of Great Britain as King James III of England and James VIII of Scotland, meets with Pope Clement XI for the assistance of the Roman Catholic Church in the Jacobite rising.


date: October 11

text: October 11 – William Aislabie resigns as the British East India Company's administrator of Bombay and the company's territories and is replaced at year's end by Charles Boone.


date: August 31

text: August 31 – Old Dock, Liverpool, England, the world's first enclosed commercial wet dock (Thomas Steers, engineer), opens.


text: Karlsruhe Palace is built, resulting in the town of Karlsruhe growing up around it.


text: Filippo Juvarra starts working on the previously postponed construction of the church of Santa Christina in Turin.


text: Coffee is first grown in the French colony of Saint-Domingue.


date: May 3

text: May 3 – A total solar eclipse is seen across southern England, Sweden and Finland (the last total eclipse visible in London for almost 900 years). English astronomer Edmond Halley (who is using the old style Julian calendar date of April 22) records the first observation noted of the phenomenon of "Baily's beads", in which higher elevations on the moon can be observed obscuring portions of the light moments before and after totality.


date: June 29

text: June 29 – Britain's Treason Act 1714 takes effect, providing for forfeiture to the British Crown of property owned by any person convicted of treason in the Kingdom. The Act remains in effect until June 24, 1718.


date: January 13

text: January 13 – A fire in London, described by some as the worst since the Great Fire of London (1666) almost 50 years earlier, starts on Thames Street when fireworks prematurely explode "in the house of Mr. Walker, an oil man"; more than 100 houses are consumed in the blaze, which continues over to Tower Street before it is controlled.


date: July 24

text: July 24 – 1715 Treasure Fleet: A Spanish treasure fleet of 12 ships, under General Don Juan Ubilla, leaves Havana, Cuba for Spain. Seven days later, 11 of them sink in a storm off the coast of Florida (some centuries later, treasure salvage is found from these wrecks).


date: September 6

text: September 6 – The first major Jacobite rising in Scotland against the rule of King George I of Great Britain breaks out. The Earl of Mar raises the standard of James Edward Stuart, and marches on Edinburgh. James, the son of the deposed King James VII, arrives from France.


text: Around this year, a breech loading firearm is made for Philip V of Spain.


date: January 9

text: January 9 – Robert-François Damiens, French domestic servant, executed for the attempted assassination of Louis XV (d. 1757)


date: January 25

text: January 25 – Thomas Walker, distinguished Virginia physician, explorer (d. 1794)


date: February 11

text: February 11 – Margaret Bentinck, Duchess of Portland, British duchess (d. 1785)


date: March 4

text: March 4 – James Waldegrave, 2nd Earl Waldegrave of Great Britain (d. 1763)


date: March 7

text: March 7 – Ephraim Williams, English benefactor of Williams College, soldier in the French and Indian War (d. 1755)


text: March 7 – Ewald Christian von Kleist, German poet and officer (d. 1759)


date: April 20

text: April 20 – James Brudenell, 5th Earl of Cardigan, English noble and politician (d. 1811)


text: June 29 – Pedro Antonio de Cevallos, Spanish military Governor of Buenos Aires between 1757 and 1766 (d. 1778)


date: September 26

text: September 26 – Lord George Graham, Royal Navy officer and MP (d. 1747)


date: October 1

text: October 1 – Richard Jago, English clergyman poet and minor landscape gardener from Warwickshire (d. 1781)


date: October 5

text: October 5 – Victor de Riqueti, marquis de Mirabeau, French economist of the Physiocratic school (d. 1789)


date: November 8

text: November 8 – Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel-Bevern, Crown Princess of Prussia (d. 1797)


date: November 13

text: November 13 – Dorothea Erxleben, first German female physician (d. 1762)


date: December 9

text: December 9 – Joseph Marie Terray, Controller-General of Finances during the reign of Louis XV of France (d. 1778)


date: January 7

text: January 7 – François Fénelon, Archbishop of Cambrai (b. 1651)


text: January 7 – Mary Somerset, Duchess of Beaufort, British botanist (b. 1630)


date: January 29

text: January 29 – Bernard Lamy, French Oratorian mathematician and theologian (b. 1640)


date: February 3

text: February 3 – Gottfried Vopelius, German academic (b. 1645)


date: February 21

text: February 21 – Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore, Colonial governor of Maryland (b. 1637)


date: March 17

text: March 17 – Gilbert Burnet, Scottish Bishop of Salisbury (b. 1643)


date: April 16

text: April 16 – Benedict Calvert, 4th Baron Baltimore, Colonial governor of Maryland (b. 1679)


date: May 8

text: May 8 – Marie Mancini, Italian courtier, third of the five Mancini sisters (b. 1639)


date: May 19

text: May 19 – Charles Montagu, English Chancellor of the Exchequer (b. 1661)


date: May 30

text: May 30 – Roeloff Swartwout, American city founder in New York (b. 1634)


date: June 25

text: June 25 – Jean-Baptiste du Casse, French admiral and buccaneer (b. 1646)


date: October 13

text: October 13 – Nicolas Malebranche, French philosopher (b. 1638)


date: November 24

text: November 24 – Hedwig Eleonora of Holstein-Gottorp, queen consort of King Charles X of Sweden (b. 1636)


date: November

text: November – Mirwais Hotak, Pashtun emir, and founder of the Hotaki Dynasty (b. 1673)


date: January 16

text: January 16 – The application of the Nueva Planta decrees to Catalonia make it subject to the laws of the Crown of Castile, and abolishes the Principality of Catalonia as a political entity, concluding the unification of Spain under Philip V.


text: June 25 – With the Holy Roman Empire having been ceded the "Southern Netherlands" (modern Belgium) from Spain, Prince Eugene of Savoy arrives in Brussels as the first Governor-General of the Austrian Netherlands. Eugene soon returns home and leaves administration of the area to a dictatorial Hercule-Louis Turinetti.


date: July 5

text: July 5 – Prince Ernest Augustus is created Duke of York and Albany, in the peerage of Great Britain.


date: November 1

text: November 1 – Two new laws go into effect in the Highlands of Scotland to prevent a threat to Britain's ruling House of Hanover by the Jacobites who supported the restoration of the House of Stuart. The Disarming Act requires government authorisation to carry swords and firearms, and the amendments to the Treason Act 1714 permit trials for treason to take place in any court in England, regardless of where the crime was committed.


date: January 27

text: January 27 – The Tugaloo massacre changes the course of the Yamasee War, allying the Cherokee nation with the British province of South Carolina against the Creek Indian nation.


date: January 28

text: January 28 – The town of Crieff, Scotland, is burned to the ground by Jacobites returning from the Battle of Sheriffmuir.


date: March 8

text: March 8 – King Charles XII of Sweden leads an invasion of Norway, crossing the border at Basmo, near the modern-day town of Marker.


date: March 10

text: March 10 – Simon Fraser, a former Scottish rebel who had helped end the Siege of Inverness during the first Jacobite rising, is given a pardon by King George I of Great Britain.


date: April 13

text: April 13 – Austria, ruled by King Charles VI, renews its alliance with the Republic of Venice, leading the Ottoman Empire, ruled by Ahmed III, to declare war.


date: May 26

text: May 26 – Two regular companies of field artillery, each 100 men strong, are raised at Woolwich, by Royal Warrant of King George I of Great Britain.


date: June 9

text: June 9 – In India, 600 imprisoned members of the failed Sikh Khalsa rebellion against the Mughal Empire are executed on orders of the Emperor Farrukhsiyar. Banda Singh Bahadur, leader of the rebellion, is brutally tortured and mutilated before being killed.


date: July 8

text: July 8–August 21 – Seventh Ottoman–Venetian War: The Ottoman Empire unsuccessfully lays siege to Corfu, the last bastion of the Republic of Venice in the Greek islands.


text: July 8 – The Battle of Dynekilen: The Swedish fleet is defeated by a Danish–Norwegian fleet.


date: August 3

text: August 3 – Natchez, one of the oldest towns on the Mississippi River, is founded by French civilians at the site of Fort Rosalie.


date: August 4

text: August 4 – George Seton, 5th Earl of Winton, under sentence of death for his part in the Jacobite rising of 1715, escapes from the Tower of London and flees into exile on the continent.


date: August 5

text: August 5 – Battle of Petrovaradin: 83,300 Austrian troops of Prince Eugene of Savoy defeat 150,000 Ottoman Turks under Silahdar Damat Ali Pasha (who is killed).


date: October 12

text: October 12 – During the war between the Habsburg Empire ruling Austria and the Ottoman Empire ruling Turkey, the six week siege of the fortified city of Temeşvar ends with it being surrendered by the Turks to the Austrians. Under a flag of truce, the Turks are permitted to depart but have to leave behind their artillery as they give up their claim to Hungary. Austro-Hungarian rule lasts until World War One, and in 1919, the city of Timișoara becomes part of the Kingdom of Romania.


date: March 18

text: March 18 – Italian Jesuit missionary Ippolito Desideri arrives in Lhasa to become one of the first Europeans to attempt to bring Christianity to Buddhist Tibet.


date: March 23

text: March 23 – Jeremias III becomes the new Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, leader of the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church.


date: August 24

text: August 24 – Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, returns from Italy.


date: May 20

text: May 20 – John Law founds the Banque Générale Privée in Paris.


date: March 6

text: March 6 – At night, an aurora borealis is seen throughout Europe, from Ireland to Italy.


date: May 28

text: May 28 – John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, suffers a paralytic stroke.


text: Tsar Peter the Great of Russia studies with the physician Herman Boerhaave, at Leiden University.


date: February 24

text: February 24 – Jacobite leaders James Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Derwentwater and William Gordon, 6th Viscount of Kenmure are executed in London.


date: September 15

text: September 15 – "Maria", an African slave of the Dutch West India Company on the Caribbean island of Curaçao, murders the plantation overseer, Christiaan Muller, then leads a rebellion, killing Muller's family and much of the white staff on the company's plantation. The uprising is suppressed after 10 days, and Maria is executed by burning at the stake on November 9.


text: English pirate Edward Teach (Blackbeard) is given command of a sloop in the Bahamas.


date: December 4

text: December 4 – Fifty people are killed, and 150 houses burned, when a fire breaks out in Wapping, London. The blaze comes two days after a fire at the Spring Gardens at St. James's, London, which destroyed the French Chapel there and which was put out by several rescuers, including the future King George II.


date: February 3

text: February 3 – The 1716 Algiers earthquake sequence begins with a 7.0 mainshock that causes severe damage and kills 20,000 in Algeria.


date: February 10

text: February 10 – James Edward Stuart flees from Scotland to France with a handful of supporters, following the failure of the Jacobite rising of 1715.


date: December 12

text: December 12 – Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend, is demoted from his office as Secretary of State for the Northern Department in the British government, and replaced by James Stanhope, 1st Earl Stanhope. This is a move towards the Whig Split of 1717.


text: The Kangxi Dictionary is published, laying the foundation of most references to Han characters studied in the future.


date: January 4

text: January 4 – Aaron Burr Sr., President of Princeton University (d. 1757)

source_section: Births › January


date: January 15

text: January 15 – Philip Livingston, American politician (d. 1778)


date: January 20

text: January 20 – Jean-Jacques Barthélemy, French writer and numismatist (d. 1795)


date: January 26

text: January 26 – George Germain, 1st Viscount Sackville, British Army general (d. 1785)


date: January 30

text: January 30 – Carl Fredrik Adelcrantz, Swedish architect and civil servant (d. 1796)


date: February 4

text: February 4 – José Solís Folch de Cardona, Spanish colonial governor (d. 1770)

source_section: Births › February


date: April 5

text: April 5 – Jeremiah Theus, American artist (d. 1774)

source_section: Births › April


date: June 27

text: June 27 – Louise Diane d'Orléans, last child of Philippe II, Duke of Orléans (d. 1736)

source_section: Births › June


date: August 30

text: August 30 – Capability Brown, English landscape architect (d. 1783)

source_section: Births › August


date: October 6

text: October 6 – George Montagu-Dunk, 2nd Earl of Halifax, British statesman (d. 1771)

source_section: Births › September


date: October 16

text: October 16 – Lord Augustus FitzRoy, Royal Navy officer during the War of the Austrian Succession (d. 1741)


date: November 26

text: November 26 – Elizabeth Percy, Duchess of Northumberland, British duchess; Lady of the Bedchamber (d. 1776)

source_section: Births › November


date: December 26

text: December 26 – Jean François de Saint-Lambert, French poet, philosopher and military officer (d. 1803)

source_section: Births › December


text: December 26 – Thomas Gray, English poet, historian (d. 1771)


text: January 30 – Marie Casimire Louise de La Grange d'Arquien, French-born Polish consort to King John III Sobieski (b. 1641)

source_section: Deaths › January


date: February 19

text: February 19 – Dorothe Engelbretsdotter, Norway's first professional female author (b. 1634)

source_section: Deaths › February


date: April 14

text: April 14 – Arthur Herbert, 1st Earl of Torrington, British admiral (b. c. 1648)

source_section: Deaths › April


date: April 26

text: April 26 – John Somers, 1st Baron Somers, Lord Chancellor of England (b. 1651)


date: April 28

text: April 28 – Saint Louis de Montfort, author, True Devotion to Mary (b. 1673)


date: June 9

text: June 9 – Banda Bahadur, Sikh military commander (executed) (b. 1670)

source_section: Deaths › June


date: June 19

text: June 19 – The new Tokugawa Shogun of Japan, Tokugawa Yoshimune, assumes control of the monarchy's military after the illness and death of the six-year-old Ietsugu, last of the male descendants of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Yoshimune's ascendancy begins Year 1 of the Kyōhō Era, which continues until Year 21 in 1736.

source_section: Events › April–June


date: September 26

text: September 26 – Alexei Petrovich, Tsarevich of Russia, eldest son of the Tsar Peter the Great and heir to the throne, flees from Saint Petersburg with his mistress, Efrosinya Fedorova, along with her brother and three servants. After spending more than a year in Austria, he returns to Russia where he is arrested and dies in prison in 1718.

source_section: Events › July–September


date: October 10

text: October 10 – Anton Egon, Prince of Fürstenberg-Heiligenberg, Governor of the Electorate of Saxony (b. 1656)

source_section: Deaths › October


date: October 17

text: October 17 – Anne Hamilton, 3rd Duchess of Hamilton, Scottish peeress (b. 1631)


date: October 28

text: October 28 – Stephen Fox, English politician (b. 1627)


date: November 2

text: November 2 – Engelbert Kaempfer, German traveler, physician (b. 1651)

source_section: Deaths › November


date: November 14

text: November 14 – Gottfried Leibniz, German philosopher, scientist, and mathematician (b. 1646)


date: December 14

text: December 14 – William Trumbull, English diplomat and politician (b. 1639)

source_section: Deaths › December


date: January 4

text: January 4 (December 24, 1716 Old Style) – The kingdoms of Great Britain, France and the Dutch Republic sign the Triple Alliance, in an attempt to maintain the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), Britain having signed a preliminary alliance with France on November 28 (November 17) 1716.

source_section: Events › January–March


date: May 27

text: May 27 – Spain creates the Viceroyalty of New Granada in South America from the northern section of the Viceroyalty of Peru. The viceroyalty, with a capital at Bogotá, later declares independence and splits up into what become the nations of Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela.


text: Murshid Quli Khan declares himself the first Nawab of the Bengal Subah. The Nawabs of Bengal will effectively function as near-sovereign rulers of Bengal while being nominally loyal to the Mughal Empire.

source_section: Events › Date unknown


date: February 1

text: February 1 – The Silent Sejm, in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, marks the beginning of the Russian Empire's increasing influence and control over the Commonwealth.


date: August 17

text: August 17 – The month-long Siege of Belgrade ends, with Prince Eugene of Savoy's Austrian troops capturing the city from the Ottoman Empire.


date: August 22

text: August 22 – Spanish troops arrive on the island of Sardinia, at this time a part of the Holy Roman Empire, beginning the conquest of the island, completed by October 30.


date: September 5

text: September 5 – King George I of Great Britain issues the "Proclamation for Suppressing of Pirates in the West Indies", an offer of amnesty to pirates, declaring that any pirates who surrender themselves to the government of Britain or one of its overseas territories, on or before September 5, 1718, "shall have Our Gracious Pardon of and for his or their Piracy or Piracies" committed before January 5, 1718. The amnesty is later extended to July 1, 1719.


date: October 30

text: October 30 – The Spanish conquest of Sardinia, at this time part of the Holy Roman Empire, is finished two months after Spanish forces had landed on the island on August 22, as the last Sardinian outpost, Castelsardo, surrenders.

source_section: Events › October–December


text: The Charleville musket enters service in France.


text: The 1717 Omani invasion of Bahrain removes the control of Persia over the Arabian kingdom of Bahrain.


text: The Tatar invasions in Transylvania devastate many towns, including Cavnic, Sighet and Dej.


text: The Casa de Contratación (House of Trade) is set up in Cádiz.


date: February 6

text: February 6 – Following the treaty between France and Britain, the Pretender James Stuart leaves France, and seeks refuge with Pope Clement XI.


date: March 31

text: March 31 – Benjamin Hoadly, Bishop of Bangor, brings the Bangorian Controversy within the Church of England into the open by delivering a sermon to, and supposedly at the request of, King George I of Great Britain, on The Nature of the Kingdom of Christ with the text "My kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36), concluding there is no Biblical justification for church government.


text: Maharaja Pamheiba of Manipur is converted to Hinduism by Shantidas Goswami, and decrees it to be the official religion of his state.


text: Thomas Fairchild, a nurseryman at Hoxton in the East End of London, becomes the first person to produce a successful scientific plant hybrid, Dianthus Caryophyllus barbatus, known as Fairchild's Mule.


date: October 9

text: October 9 – King Philip V of Spain orders the closure of all universities in Catalonia, including the historic Estudi General de Lleida.


text: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, wife of the British ambassador to Istanbul, has her son inoculated.


date: January 1

text: January 1 – Count Carl Gyllenborg, the Swedish ambassador to Great Britain, was arrested in London for a plot to assist the Pretender to the British throne, James Francis Edward Stuart.


date: October 18

text: October 18 – Trial begins in Boston for six pirates who had survived the April 26 wreck of Samuel Bellamy's ships Whydah and the Mary Anne. Five of them (John Brown, Hendrick Quintor, Thomas Baker, Peter Cornelius Hoof and John Shuan) are convicted on October 22 of piracy and robbery and hanged on November 15.


date: November 28

text: November 28 – Pirates led by Edward "Blackbeard" Teach and Benjamin Hornigold capture the French slave transport Concorde near island of Saint Vincent the West Indies. Blackbeard renames the vessel Queen Anne's Revenge, adds to its armaments, and makes it his flagship. Hornigold soon accepts a British amnesty for all pirates, and Blackbeard teams up with Stede Bonnet and begins plundering ships approaching North American ports.


text: François-Marie Arouet is sentenced to imprisonment in the Bastille for eleven months, because of a satirical verse against the Régent of France and his infamous daughter Marie Louise Élisabeth d'Orléans, who is hiding an illegitimate pregnancy and soon to give birth; Arouet will emerge with the pseudonym Voltaire and the completed text of his first play, Œdipe.


date: April 26

text: April 26 – The Whydah Gally, flagship of English pirate Samuel Bellamy, is wrecked in a storm off Wellfleet, Massachusetts. The Whydah sinks with a reputed tons of treasure on board, and all but two of her crew are lost, including Bellamy.


date: February 26

text: February 26–March 6 – What becomes the northeastern United States is paralyzed by a series of blizzards that bury the region.


date: September 29

text: September 29 – Guatemala earthquake: A 7.4 magnitude earthquake strikes Antigua Guatemala, destroying much of the city, and making authorities consider moving the capital of Guatemala to a different location.


date: December 24

text: December 24–25 – Christmas flood: A disastrous flood hits the North Sea coast, between the Netherlands and Denmark; thousands die or lose their houses.


text: Most recent rupture of New Zealand's Alpine Fault, with an earthquake estimated to have had a magnitude between 7.8 and 8.1.


date: March 2

text: March 2 – Dancer John Weaver performs in the first ballet in Britain, shown at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, The Loves of Mars and Venus.


date: June 24

text: June 24 – The Premier Grand Lodge of England, the Modern and first Free-Masonic Grand Lodge (which merges with the Ancient Grand Lodge of England in 1813 to form the United Grand Lodge of England), is founded in London.


date: July 17

text: July 17 – Water Music by George Frederick Handel is first performed, on a Thames barge in London.


date: September 21

text: September 21 – The first known Druid revival ceremony is held by John Toland at Primrose Hill, in London, at the Autumnal Equinox, to found the Mother Grove, what will later become the Ancient Order of Druids.


date: October 16

text: October 16 – Antonio Vivaldi's opera Tieteberga is performed for the first time, premiering at the Teatro San Moisè in Venice


date: December 9

text: December 9 (November 29, O.S.) - King George I of Great Britain banishes his son and daughter-in-law, George, Prince of Wales and Caroline of Ansbach, from the royal household after the Prince threatens the King's personal assistant, the Duke of Newcastle, the royal Lord Chamberlain. The altercation takes place at the baptismal ceremony for the Prince's newborn son, George William.


date: January 5

text: January 5 – William Barrington, 2nd Viscount Barrington, English statesman (d. 1793)

source_section: Births


date: January 18

text: January 18 – Jean-François-Marie de Surville, French trader and navigator (d. 1770)


date: January 29

text: January 29 – Jeffery Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst, British soldier and conqueror of Quebec (d. 1797)


date: February 2

text: February 2 – Ernst Gideon Freiherr von Laudon, Austrian field marshal (d. 1790)


date: August 15

text: August 15 – John Metcalf, "Blind Jack of Knaresborough", English roadbuilder (d. 1810)


date: September 24

text: September 24 – Horace Walpole, English art historian, man of letters, antiquarian and politician (d. 1797)


date: September 28

text: September 28 – William Nassau de Zuylestein, 4th Earl of Rochford, British diplomat and statesman (d. 1781)


date: October 5

text: October 5 – Marie-Anne de Mailly-Nesle duchess de Châteauroux, French mistress of King Louis XV (d. 1744)


date: October 13

text: October 13 – John Armstrong, American civil engineer, major general in the Revolutionary War (d. 1795)


date: October

text: October – James Paine, English architect (d. 1789)


date: November 16

text: November 16 – Jean le Rond d'Alembert, French mathematician and encyclopædist (d. 1783)


text: December 9 – Johann Joachim Winckelmann, German classical scholar and archaeologist (d. 1768)


date: December 25

text: December 25 – George Augustus Eliott, 1st Baron Heathfield, British army officer (d. 1790)


date: December 29

text: December 29 – Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes, French statesman and diplomat (d. 1787)


date: January 13

text: January 13 – Maria Sibylla Merian, German-born Swiss naturalist and scientific illustrator, who studied plants and insects and made detailed paintings of them (b. 1647)

source_section: Deaths


date: February 21

text: February 21 – Jan Dobrogost Krasiński, Polish nobleman (szlachcic) (b. 1639)


date: February 23

text: February 23 – Magnus Stenbock, Swedish military officer (b. 1664)


date: March 8

text: March 8 – Abraham Darby I, English ironmaster, first of that name of three generations of a Quaker family that was key to the development of the Industrial Revolution (b. 1678)


date: April 26

text: April 26 – Samuel Bellamy English-born pirate (b. 1689)


date: June 9

text: June 9 – Jeanne Guyon, French mystic (b. 1648)


date: July 1

text: July 1 – Princess Anna Sophie of Denmark, daughter of King Frederick III of Denmark (b. 1647)


date: August 10

text: August 10 – Nicolaes Witsen, Mayor of Amsterdam, Netherlands (b. 1641)


date: August 16

text: August 16 – William Blathwayt, English civil servant and politician (b. 1649)


date: August

text: August – William Cochrane, Scottish MP in the Parliament of Great Britain


date: October 26

text: October 26 – Catherine Sedley, Countess of Dorchester, English mistress of James II of England (b. 1657)


text: October – Philippe Pastour de Costebelle, French naval officer and Governor of Newfoundland (b. 1661)


date: December 5

text: December 5 – Richard Onslow, 1st Baron Onslow, English politician (b. 1654)


text: December 25 – Robert Shirley, 1st Earl Ferrers, English peer and courtier (b. 1650)


date: April 4

text: April 4 – Great Britain, France and the Dutch Republic agree on the phasing out of the authority of the House of Medici over the semi-independent Grand Duchy of Tuscany by declaring that Gian Gastone de' Medici will be the last of the Medici family to rule the Italian duchy and that Spain's House of Borbón will eventually control the Tuscan monarchy. Don Carlos of Spain, the two-year old son of King Philip V, is designated as the eventual heir, despite the objections of the 75-year old Grand Duke, Cosimo III de' Medici.

source_section: Events › April – June


date: June 16

text: June 16 – The Treaty of Baden is signed, ending the Toggenburg War.


date: July 21

text: July 21 – The Treaty of Passarowitz, ending the Austro-Turkish War, is signed.


date: October 31

text: October 31 – The Mughal Emperor of India, Farrukhsiyar, restores the titles and responsibilities of his chief adviser, Mir Jumla III, almost three years after dismissing him.

source_section: Events › October –December


date: December 17

text: December 17 – The Holy Roman Empire, Kingdom of Great Britain and Dutch Republic join the Kingdom of France in formally declaring war on Spain, launching the War of the Quadruple Alliance.


date: January 7

text: January 7 – In India, Sufi rebel leader Shah Inayat Shaheed from Sindh who had led attacks against the Mughal Empire, is beheaded days after being tricked into meeting with the Mughals to discuss peace.

source_section: Events › January – March


date: February 14

text: February 14 – The reign of Victor Amadeus over the principality of Anhalt-Bernburg (within the modern-day state of Saxony-Anhalt in northeastern Germany) ends after 61 years and 7 months. He had ascended the throne on September 22, 1656. He is succeeded by his son Karl Frederick.


date: June 3

text: June 3 – Pirates Blackbeard and Stede Bonnet accidentally run aground in the ship Queen Anne's Revenge after sailing into Topsail Inlet in the British colony of North Carolina. Learning of the royal pardon available to all pirates who surrender before September 5, Teach negotiates a settlement with Colonial Governor Charles Eden for a pardon for himself, Bonnet and the rest of his crew in return for the Governor receiving some of the pirates' plunder.


date: August 11

text: August 11 – Battle of Cape Passaro: a Spanish fleet is defeated by the British Royal Navy under Admiral George Byng, off Capo Passero, Sicily, a prelude to the War of the Quadruple Alliance.


date: September 10

text: September 10 – In France, Armande Félice de La Porte Mazarin and the Vicomtesse de Polignac, both mistresses of the Duc de Richelieu, fight a duel with pistols at the Bois de Boulogne near Paris. Lady Mazarin, who had initiated the duel, is wounded in the shoulder and both survive. Richelieu, though impressed by the willingness of the ladies to fight over his affections, comments Je ne sacrifierai pas un de mes cheveux, ni à l’une, ni à l’autre ("I will not sacrifice anything, not to one, nor to the other.")


date: September 27

text: September 27 – The Battle of Cape Fear River begins as pirate Stede Bonnet and his crew on the Royal James are confronted in North Carolina by Colonel William Rhett and the ships Henry and Sea Nymph.


date: September

text: September – In Tibet, forces of the Tibetan Dzungar Khanate destroys an advancing expedition of the Chinese Imperial Army, under the command of General Erentei, in the Battle of the Salween River.


date: November 11

text: November 11 – Lightning strikes the powder magazine at the Old Fortress, Corfu, causing an explosion that kills a large number of people on the island.


date: November 22

text: November 22 – Citing violations of the amnesty agreement with Blackbeard, Virginia Governor Alexander Spotswood sends a Royal Navy contingent to North Carolina, where they battle Blackbeard and his crew in Ocracoke Inlet. Blackbeard is killed in action, after receiving five musketball wounds and twenty sword lacerations.


date: December 11

text: December 11 (November 30 Old Style) – King Charles XII of Sweden is killed at the Siege of Fredriksten in the Great Northern War, the last European monarch to die on a battlefield. His death ends the first era of absolute monarchy in Sweden. Five days later, when the news reaches Stockholm, his sister Princess Ulrika Eleonora proclaims herself Queen regnant of Sweden.


text: Islamization of Sudan: The Funj warrior aristocracy deposes the reigning mek and places one of their own ranks on the throne of Sennar.


date: March 13

text: March 13 – Daniel Overbeek becomes the new Dutch Governor of Ceylon (the modern-day nation of Sri Lanka), arriving after a 10-month sea voyage from the Netherlands.


date: May 7

text: May 7 – The settlement of New Orleans is founded in New France.


date: May 22

text: May 22 – Sailing the Queen Anne's Revenge English pirate Edward Teach, known as Blackbeard, leads 400 sailors in four ships, and blockades the port of Charleston, South Carolina for an entire week, plundering all arriving ships. After their departure, Queen Anne's Revenge and Adventure are both lost at Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina; a week later. Blackbeard allows Stede Bonnet to command the Revenge (which is renamed the Royal James) once again. Bonnet rescues 25 sailors abandoned by Blackbeard on a sandbar and continues his life of piracy.


date: January 17

text: January 17 – Jeremias III reclaims his role as the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, chief leader within the Eastern Orthodox Church, 16 days after the Metropolitan Cyril IV of Pruoza had engineered an election to become the Patriarch.


date: March 20

text: March 20 – The Privy Council of the United Kingdom is reorganized, forming the Second Stanhope–Sunderland ministry. Secretary of State for the Northern Department Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl of Sunderland succeeds James Stanhope as the new First Lord of the Treasury, and Stanhope takes Sunderland's job.


date: May 1

text: May 1 – San Antonio in what later becomes Texas is founded by Father Antonio de San Buenaventura y Olivares with the construction of the initial Mission San Antonio de Valero.


text: Coffee is grown in Surinam (Dutch colony).


text: The white potato reaches New England from England.


date: March 18

text: March 18 – Edward Wortley Montagu, the four-year-old son of the British Ambassador to Turkey, becomes the first British person to be inoculated with the smallpox vaccine, administered by Dr. Charles Maitland at the request of Edward's mother, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.


date: October 3

text: October 3 – Stede Bonnet and his crew are captured near the mouth of the Cape Fear River and taken to Charleston, South Carolina, where they are tried for piracy. All but four are found guilty and sentenced to death (with 22 hanged on November 8), but Bonnet escapes from prison on October 24.


date: December 10

text: December 10 – Pirate Stede Bonnet is hanged at Charleston, after being recaptured.


date: December 4

text: December 4 – Fifty people are killed, and 150 houses burned, when a fire breaks out in Wapping, London. The blaze comes two days after a fire at the Spring Gardens at St. James's, London, which destroyed the French Chapel there and which was put out by several rescuers, including the future King George II.


date: June 19

text: June 19 – A 7.5 earthquake shakes Tongwei County in China, killing 73,000 people.


date: March 12

text: March 12 – Anton Florian becomes the new Prince of Liechtenstein, succeeding Joseph Wenzel


date: July 25

text: July 25 – At the behest of Tsar Peter the Great, the construction of Kadriorg Palace, dedicated to his wife Catherine, began in Tallinn.


date: November 18

text: November 18 – Voltaire's first play, Oedipus, premières at the Comédie-Française in Paris. This is his first use of the pseudonym.


date: January 7

text: January 7 – Israel Putnam, American Revolutionary War general (d. 1790)