Exploration & Expansion in the 18th century

651 sourced entries, 1700 CE to 1799 CE, oldest first. Also see Exploration & Expansion across every century or everything else in the 18th century.

1700February 27 – The island of New Britain is discovered by William Dampier, in the western Pacific.source
170027 February – The island of New Britain is discovered by William Dampier in the western Pacific.England source
170030 March – second Darien expedition abandoned.Scotland source
170020 November – First boats reach Leeds from the tideway by way of the Aire and Calder Navigation.England source
1700Mission San Xavier del Bac is founded in New Spain near Tucson, as a Spanish Roman Catholic mission. Its location had first been scouted by the Spanish in 1692.source
1700The value of sales of English manufactured products to the Atlantic economy is £3.9 million.source
1700Scottish American settler Isaac Magoon establishes the town of Scotland, Connecticut.Scotland source
17018 September - A group of Welsh Baptists, led by Thomas Griffith, land in Philadelphia on the ship "James and Mary".Wales source
1701The settlement that became Novozybkov was established in 1701 under the name Zybkaia, within the territory administered by the Starodub Cossack regiment.Russia source
1702April 24 – The first two missionaries from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts set sail from England to North America.source
1702June 16 – The English East India Company founds a settlement on Pulo Condore (modern-day Côn Sơn Island) off the coast of southern Vietnam as an entrepôt for ships travelling between India and China.source
1702July 24 – A total eclipse of the sun is visible on a path crossing the northern Pacific Ocean and Central America.source
1702October 28 – Sieur Juchereau, Lieutenant General of Montréal, establishes the first trading post on the Wabash River in order to trade buffalo hides with American Indians. The site of the trading post may be the modern-day location of Vincennes, Indiana.source
1702Zlynka - A small town established in Bryansk Oblast, near the border of Belarus. It primarily consisted of Old Believers, which influenced its architecture and religion. The town's location made it ideal for creating cultural diversity.Russia source
1703September 11 – a privateering expedition comprising the ships St George and Cinque Ports commanded by William Dampier leaves Kinsale for South America.Ireland source
1703Baptist leader Thomas Griffiths and a small group of followers settle at Welsh Tract, Delaware, where they found the Welsh Tract Baptist church.Wales source
1704February 29 – Raid on Deerfield (Queen Anne's War): French Canadians and Native Americans sack Deerfield, Massachusetts, killing over 50 English colonists.source
1705January 31 – The Hester, a British 28-gun sailing ship with a crew of 70, is lost in Persia.source
170526 February – A French Navy fleet of 18 warships, commanded by Admiral Desjean, the Baron de Pointis arrives in the Bay of Gibraltar to aid the French and Spanish attempt to retake Gibraltar from BritainFrance source
1705With the interest paid from daimyō loans, the Konoike buy a tract of ponds and swampland, turn the land into rice paddies, and settle 480 households numbering perhaps 2,880 peasants on the land.source
1705A punitive expedition is led by Sergeyev in Ufa County, demanding 5,000 horses from the Bashkirs. The Bashkirs resist the taxes and authority, sparking the Bashkir rebellion of 1704-1711.Russia source
1706February 6 – The city of Albuquerque, New Mexico, is incorporated by governor Don Francisco Cuervo y Valdes as La Villa de Alburquerque in the Spanish colonial province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México in New Spain. Governor Cuervo sends a report on April 23 to the Spanish Crown and to New Spain's Governor, Francisco Fernández de la Cueva, 10th Duke of Alburquerque announcing that the new villa, consisting of 35 families and having a population of 252 adults, has been named in honor of the Duke.source
1706May 12 – A total eclipse of the Sun takes place and is visible in most of Europe, with a path crossing modern-day Spain, France, Germany, Poland and Russiasource
1706June 9 – Frederick IV of Denmark-Norway sends the first two Protestant missionaries to India, dispatching Lutherans Heinrich Plütcshau and Bartholomeus Ziegenbalg to Denmark-Norway's colony in India, the Dansk Ostindien, based at Tharangambadi ("Tranquebar") in what is now the Tamil Nadu state.source
1706Opening of the Twinings tea shop in London, still open as of the 21st century.England source
1706The first turnpike trust is established by Act of Parliament, which appoints 32 independent local trustees to oversee the maintenance and management of the road between Fonthill in Bedfordshire and Stony Stratford in Buckinghamshire.England source
1706The predecessors of food manufacturers Crosse & Blackwell set up business in London.England source
1706Ellis Pugh, Quaker colonist of Pennsylvania, returns to Wales for a two-year stay.Wales source
170725 April – a large school of whales appears in the Firth of Forth; 35 strand on the sands of Kirkcaldy.Scotland source
1707Edward Lhuyd, Archaeologia Britannica: an Account of the Languages, Histories and Customs of Great Britain, from Travels through Wales, Cornwall, Bas-Bretagne, Ireland and Scotland, vol. 1, GlossographyUnited Kingdom source
1708March 23 – James Francis Edward Stuart, Jacobite pretender to the throne of Great Britain, unsuccessfully tries to land from a French fleet in the Firth of Forth in Scotland.source
170823 March – James Francis Edward Stuart unsuccessfully tries to land at Burntisland on the Firth of Forth with a French fleet.Scotland source
170810 April - Johan Vibe is appointed Vice Steward of Norway.Norway source
1709May 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
1709May – first influx of poor refugee families of German Palatines from the Rhenish Palatinate, mostly Protestants en route to the New World colonies.United Kingdom source
1709September 4–8 – nearly 800 poor Protestant refugee families of German Palatines arrive in Dublin to be settled in Ireland.Ireland source
1709The earliest known cricket match involving county teams played is between Kent and Surrey.United Kingdom source
17091 or 2 February – during his first voyage, Captain Woodes Rogers on the Duke encounters marooned privateer Alexander Selkirk and rescues him after four years living on one of the Juan Fernández Islands, inspiring Defoe's book Robinson Crusoe. After sacking Guayaquil, he and Selkirk will visit the Galapagos Islands.United Kingdom source
1710June – 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.source
1710September 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.source
1710November 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.source
1710Explorer Juan Arias Diaz becomes the first non-Incan visitor to Choquequirao, an Inca site in Peru.source
1710Dry stone dykes (i.e. walls) built in Galloway to enclose land on a large scale.Scotland source
1711April 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.source
17113 April – Clipperton Island in the Pacific is rediscovered by Martin de Chassiron and Michel Du Bocage, who claim it for France and map it.France source
1711August 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.source
1711August 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.source
171122 August – the Quebec Expedition, a British attempt to attack the city of Quebec as part of Queen Anne's War, fails when 8 of its ships are wrecked in the Saint Lawrence River and 850 soldiers drown, one of the worst disasters in British history up to this date.United Kingdom source
1711September 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.source
1711September 14 (approximate date) – Tuscarora natives capture John Lawson, Christoph von Graffenried and their expeditionary party, and bring them to Catechna.source
1711The Houghers began a campaign of agrarian unrest spanning five western counties. This constituted an isolated period, with Ireland not experiencing regular agrarian unrest until the 1760s.Ireland source
1711Newtown Square Friends Meeting House is founded by Welsh immigrants in the Great Valley of Pennsylvania.Wales source
1712March – Cassard expedition sets outFrance source
1712May 15 – Curuguaty in Paraguay is founded by Juan Gregorio de Bazán y Pedraza on the banks of the Curuguaty River.source
1712October - Erasmus Lewis is appointed "provost-marshall-general in the Barbadoes".Wales source
1712The VOC Zuytdorp is wrecked off the coast of Western Australia.source
1712Early 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.source
1713The main radial roads into Edinburgh are turnpiked.Scotland source
1714April 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.source
1714July 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).source
1714Louis 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
1715October 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.source
1715Horse post introduced between Edinburgh and Glasgow.Scotland source
1716Jacques Talbot came to Montreal as a schoolmaster.Canada source
1716The English pirate Edward Teach is given command of a sloop in the Bahamas.United Kingdom source
1717The Casa de Contratación (House of Trade) is set up in Cádiz.source
1717Fort Kaministiquia was founded by French merchants to be the first in a series of forts reaching westward to expand trade and seek a route to the western sea. (Daniel Greysolon Dulhut had built a fort, (Fort Caministigoyan), at the same location on the Kaministiquia River in 1679.)Canada source
1717Planters move from Saint Thomas to Saint John. leading to Denmark claiming the island in 1718.Denmark source
1717Horse post introduced between Glasgow, Edinburgh and points north.Scotland source
1717The ban on free trade with the Khoikhoi is reinstated, after previously being suspended in 1704.South Africa source
1718March 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.source
1718May 7 – The settlement of New Orleans is founded in New France.source
1718May 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.source
1718July–August – the first ships carrying Scotch-Irish emigrants from Ulster to North America arrive in Boston, Massachusetts.Ireland source
1718October 28 – Ashkenazi Jews lease the site for Ballybough Cemetery in Fairview, Dublin, Ireland's first Jewish cemetery.Ireland source
1718Old Calton Burial Ground established on Calton Hill, Edinburgh, by the Society of the Incorporated Trades of Calton.Scotland source
1718Damask linen industry established at Dunfermline by James Blake and at Drumsheugh.Scotland source
1718The Hovering Act makes it illegal for vessels under 50 tons to linger offshore, in an attempt to prevent smuggling.United Kingdom source
17195 February — The Saint-Joseph sets sail from Ostend for Canton.Belgium source
171913 April – A Jacobite force under George Keith reaches Loch Alsh in the Scottish Highlands and disembarks, launching the Jacobite rising of 1719United Kingdom source
171918 June – Stopping Dagenham Breach by Capt. John Perry is completed.United Kingdom source
1719July 11 – Russia's Baltic Sea fleet is first spotted from the Swedish coast, starting the Russian Pillage of 1719–21 as part of the Great Northern War.source
171910 October – British expedition under Lord Cobham captures Vigo during the War of the Quadruple Alliance.United Kingdom source
171927 November — The Saint-Joseph, from Ostend, sets sail from Canton laden with tea, porcelain, silk, and Chinese roots.Belgium source
172015 April – Ralph Allen of Bath is appointed to farm Cross and Bye Posts (i.e. to manage mail not going via London), leading to his reform of the system.United Kingdom source
1720May 25 – The British privateer Speedwell, captained by George Shelvocke, is wrecked off of the coast of Chile on the uninhabited "Robinson Crusoe Island" (Más a Tierra, where Alexander Selkirk was marooned for 5 years). The crew is marooned for 5 months but can build a boat from timbers salvaged from the wreck, and is able to escape the island on October 6.source
1720August 14 – The Spanish Villasur expedition, which set out on June 16 from New Mexico, with the intention of checking French influence on the Great Plains of North America, ends in failure, as it is ambushed by a Pawnee and Otoe force.source
1720The Kangxi Emperor announces that all western businessmen in China can trade only in Guangzhou.source
1720Jonathan Swift begins major composition work on Gulliver's Travels in Ireland.source
1720The Tuscarora people leave North Carolina as a result of European colonization.source
1720To compensate for their loss, the French build a fortress at Louisbourg on the southeast tip of Cape Breton Island.Canada source
1720c. 1720: French forts along the Mississippi River spread northward from New Orleans.Canada source
1720A great storm cuts Rattray, Aberdeenshire, off from the open sea, creating the Loch of Strathbeg.Scotland source
17212 May – Hans Egede departed with three ships from Bergen to Greenland, starting the Danish-Norwegian colonization of Greenland.Norway source
1721July 31 – The Spanish expedition led by Coahuila Governor José de Azlor y Virto de Vera, sent to recapture Texas from the French, encounters Neches River the smaller French force of Louis Juchereau de St. Denis, who had led the French expansion westward from the Louisiana territory. Realizing that his forces are badly outnumbered, St. Denis abandons hope of colonizing the east Texas territory and Azlor retakes the area.source
1721A slave trading operation is established in Rio de Lagoa, where the VOC trade about 25 slaves annually.South Africa source
1721The first barrel of blue beads arrives at Delagoa Bay for trade.South Africa source
1721Ivory is withheld until Dutch ships are prepared to leave, as the locals are suspecting a secret bead stash.South Africa source
1721The VOC sends soldiers aboard the Gouda and Zeelandia to occupy Rio de Lagoa, or Delagoa Bay. At this time, the Tembe chiefdom controlled trade.South Africa source
1722November 15 (November 4 O.S.) – Russia's Emperor Peter the Great issues an order establishing the Caspian Flotilla during its war against Persia to gain complete control of the landlocked Caspian Sea.source
1722November 1722: Peter I establish the Caspian FlotillaRussia source
1722A small group of Bohemian Brethren (the "Hidden Seed") from northern Moravia are allowed to settle in a new village, Herrnhut, on the Berthelsdorf estate of the pietist Count Nicolaus Zinzendorf in Upper Lusatia (Saxony), forming the Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine, seed of the Moravian Church's renewal.source
17237 May – The town of Arendal was given market town privileges.Norway source
1723The town of Risør was given market town privileges.Norway source
1724January 18 – The Dutch East India Company cargo ship Fortuyn, on its maiden voyage, departs from the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa after a layover of 16 days following its arrival from the Netherlands. With a crew of 225 commanded by Pieter Westrik, the ship departs for Batavia in the Dutch East Indies and is never seen again.source
1725October 23 – Russia dispatches 1,500 troops and 120 civilians to Russia's border with China, on a mission to survey the boundaries in order to make a treaty with the Chinese Empire. Serbian adventurer Sava Vladislavich leads a group of cartographers to prepare maps in advance of traveling on to Beijing.source
1725Claude-Thomas Dupuy was appointed intendant of New France.Canada source
1725Peter the Great sends Vitus Bering to explore the North Pacific.Canada source
17251725-1729 - First Arctic expedition of Vitas Bering.Canada source
1725Poet James Thomson moves to London.Scotland source
1725Young sailor Erik Persson Ångerman is abducted and enslaved by corsairs in Algiers on May 10th. His wife appeals to King Frederick I to gather money to buy his freedom. The king grants her request.Sweden source
1726January 27 – On its maiden voyage, the Dutch East India Company frigate Aagtekerke departs from the Dutch Cape Colony on the second leg of its journey to the Dutch East Indies across the Indian Ocean and is never seen again. Aagtekerke carried a crew of 200 men.source
1726December 24 – The settlement of Montevideo is founded by the Spaniards in the Viceroyalty of Peru.source
1726Thomas-Jacques Taschereau arrived in New France (Canada) as a private secretary to the Intendant of New France, Claude-Thomas Dupuy.Canada source
1726John Dyer - Grongar Hill (included in Richard Savage’s Miscellaneous Poems and Translations by Several Hands)Wales source
1727January 6 – Martin Spanberg and two other members of the First Kamchatka expedition arrive in Okhotsk, after a journey from Saint Petersburg of almost two years. After the end of winter, the 63-member group, commanded by Vitus Bering, proceeds to the Kamchatka River, to prepare for exploration of the Arctic.source
1727July 23 – Seventeen Ursuline Sisters from France land in New Orleans, in the Louisiana territory of New France, after a journey that began on February 22. They later create the orphanage which is the predecessor of Catholic Charities and the Ursuline Academy, the oldest Catholic school in the United States.source
17271727–1800 – Lt. Col. Francisco de Mello Palheta smuggles coffee seeds to Brazil in a bouquet, starting a coffee empire.source
1727The Irish are permitted to trade in Youghal as corn is scarce; there are riots against its export to other parts.Ireland source
1728April 30 – The 82 survivors of the wreckage of the Dutch East India Company frigate Zeewijk arrive in the new ship that they had built, Sloepie, at their original destination of Batavia in the Dutch East Indies (now Jakarta in Indonesia).source
1728July 14 – The First Kamchatka Expedition, led by Vitus Bering and his crew sail northward on the ship Archangel Gabriel from the Kamchatka Peninsula, through the Bering Strait, and round Cape Dezhnev.source
172814 July – Vitus Bering begins his first exploration aboard the ship Gabriel and sailed northward from the Kamchatka Peninsula and through the strait that now bears his name.Denmark source
1728August 16 – Because of advancing Arctic ice, the First Kamchatka Expedition turns around after Vitus Bering concludes (inaccurately) that it had reached the easternmost point of Russia and Asia, and fails to spot the coast of Alaska because of the weather.source
1728September 15 – Persian physician Mohammad Mehdi ibn Ali Naqi completes Zad al-musafirin, his treatise for travelers to Persia on preservation of their health. He notes the date as a postscript in his manual.source
1728Vitus Bering sails through the Bering Strait.Canada source
1728First larch trees in Scotland planted at Dunkeld.Scotland source
1728Main Street North Wales, Pennsylvania, originally an old Indian trail, is laid out as the "Great Road".Wales source
1729The third oldest settlement in Mississippi, Port Gibson, is founded by French settlers.source
1730February 28 – Vitus Bering returns to the Russian capital of Saint Petersburg after completing the First Kamchatka expedition.source
1730June 27 – French explorer Alphonse de Pontevez, commanding the frigate Le Lys, claims an Indian Ocean atoll for France and names it after himself as the Alphonse Atoll. The next day, he claims and names the St. François Atoll.source
173026 October – Cron Printz Christian departs from Copenhagen, bound for Canton. It is the first Danish expedition to China. She arrives back in Copenhagen on 27 June 1732.Denmark source
17301730s: The Mississauga drive the Seneca Iroquois south of Lake Erie.Canada source
1730Edward Lovett Pearce succeeds Thomas Burgh as Surveyor General of Ireland.Ireland source
1730Lebanon cedar tree introduced to Scotland.Scotland source
1730Joseph Harris - A Treatise on NavigationWales source
1731May 10 – The Pacific Fleet of the Russian Navy is established by order of the Empress Anna of Russia, who directs Grigory Skornyakov-Pisarev to assume command over the new fleet and to develop Okhotsk as a major port.source
173110 May - Pacific Fleet is established as part of the Imperial Russian NavyRussia source
17311731-43: The La Verendrye family organize expeditions beyond Lake Winnipeg and direct fur trade toward the east.Canada source
1732February 9 – The Swedish East India Company begins its profitable first expedition to China, departing Gothenburg on the ship Friedericus Rex Sueciae under the command of Colin Campbell.source
1732March 3 – English Captain Charles Gough rediscovers Gough Island in the South Atlantic.source
17323 March – Captain Charles Gough rediscovers Gough Island in the South Atlantic.United Kingdom source
1732April 12 – King Christian VI of Denmark-Norway signs the charter for the new Danish Asia Company (Dansk Asiatisk Kompagni), granting it a 40-year monopoly on Denmark-Norway's trade in Asia, leading to the creation of Danish India and cities of Trankebar (now Tharangambadi in Tamil Nadu), Frederiknagore (now Serampore in West Bengal) and the Frederiksøerne Islands (now the Nicobar Islands).source
173212 May to 10 October - Carl Linnaeus performs the Expedition to Lapland.Sweden source
173227 June – Cron Printz Christian arrives back in Copenhagen from the first Danish expedition to Canton with a valuable cargo of tea, silk and other Chinese products.Denmark source
1732August 21 – Mikhail Gvozdev in the Sviatoi Gavriil makes the first known crossing of the Bering Strait, from Cape Dezhnev to Cape Prince of Wales in Alaska, marking the first time that Europeans have reached the northwest coast of North America.source
1732October 16 – Russia approves the second Kamchatka expedition of Danish-born Russian cartographer Vitus Bering, and the Admiralty orders him to sail east and try to claim uncharted lands in North America.source
1732The Trek Boers settle along the Olifants River.South Africa source
1733February 12 – British colonist James Oglethorpe founds Savannah, Georgia.source
173312 February – British colonist James Oglethorpe founds Savannah, Georgia.United Kingdom source
1733March 21 – The Molasses Act is passed by British House of Commons, which reinforces the negative opinions of the British by American colonists. The Act then goes to the House of Lords, which consents to it on May 4 and it receives royal assent on May 17.source
1733Vitus Bering's second expedition, with George Wilhelm Steller aboard, the first naturalist to visit Alaska.Canada source
1734January 8 – Salzburgers, Lutherans who were expelled by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Salzburg, Austria, in October 1731, set sail for the British Colony of Georgia in America.source
1734March 12 – Salzburgers arrive at the mouth of the Savannah River in the British Colony of Georgia.source
1734March – In a report to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, missionary Griffith Hughes claims to have travelled over 1,100 miles in the Pennsylvania region in the course of his preaching.Wales source
1734June 30 – War of the Polish Succession: Russian troops take Gdańsk (German: Danzig), which had been besieged since February 1734, after the failure of a French expedition to relieve the city.source
1734Carl Linnaeus conduct his trip to Dalarna.Sweden source
1734Simon Thomas – Athrawiaethau DifinyddawlWales source
1735October 14 – John Wesley and his brother Charles set sail from England for Savannah in the Province of Georgia in British America; on the voyage they first encounter members of the Moravian Church.source
173514 October – John Wesley and his brother Charles set sail from England for Savannah in the Province of Georgia in British America; on the voyage they first encounter members of the Moravian Church.United Kingdom source
1735The Danish-Norwegian Grain Monopoly was introduced, a trade policy that banned the import of foreign grain into Denmark and southern and eastern Norway, the monopoly lasted until 1788.Norway source
173610 January – emigrants from the Scottish Highlands arrive in North America on the Prince of Wales to establish the defensive town of Darien, Georgia, originally called New Inverness, among them being Lachlan McGillivray, Lachlan McIntosh and other members of the Clan Mackintosh.Scotland source
17362 May - A scientific expedition consisting of Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, Alexis Claude Clairault, Pierre Charles Lemonnier, Charles Étienne Louis Camus and Anders Celsius, departs from Dunkerque and travels to Tornedalen: they arrive in Stockholm on 21 May and depart for Lappland on 6 June.Sweden source
1736June 19 – A French Academy of Sciences expedition, led by Pierre Louis Maupertuis, with Anders Celsius, begins work on measuring a meridian arc in Torne Valley, Finland.source
1736June 19 – French Academy of Sciences expedition led by Pierre Louis Maupertuis, with Anders Celsius, begins work on measuring a meridian arc in Torne Valley of Finland.France source
1736November 13 – Word of the discovery of silver, south of what is now the U.S.-Mexican border, reaches Sonora Governor Juan Bautista Anza and soon leads to prospectors coming to Nogales to find more silver. Late in October, a Yaqui Indian prospector, Antonio Siraumea, had discovered large slabs of silver ("Las planchas de plata"), and at the Estancia Arizona, a ranch owned by Captain Bernardo de Urrea. The region, and later the U.S. territory, and state of Arizona are named for Urrea's ranch.source
1737April – The "New Cut" is excavated, in the Dee Estuary, to improve access to Chester. It diverts the river's course to the Welsh side of the estuary, but fails to prevent further silting up of the river.Wales source
1737August 15 – The Portuguese frigate Nossa Senhora da Boa Viagem arrives at Maldonado (now in Uruguay) as Captain Duarte Pereira brings the news that the Spanish–Portuguese War ended by an agreement signed on March 16.source
1737September 20 – Runner Edward Marshall completes his journey in the Walking Purchase, forcing the cession of 1,200,000 acres of Lenape-Delaware tribal land to the Province of Pennsylvania.source
1737Georg Schmidt, a Moravian missionary, receives permission from the VOC to establish a mission for landless Khoikhoi.South Africa source
1737Welsh settlers establish their first settlement in the vicinity of Marlboro County, South Carolina, called Welsh Neck.Wales source
1738July 10 – Thomas Pellow of Cornwall finally escapes captivity, 23 years after having been captured by Barbary pirates and held as a slave in Morocco. He arrives in British territory when the ship he is on sails into Gibraltar Bay on July 21, and later recounts his story in the book The Adventures of Thomas Pellow, of Penryn, Mariner: Three and Twenty Years in Captivity Among the Moors.source
173810 July – Thomas Pellow of Cornwall finally escapes captivity, 23 years after having been captured by Barbary pirates and held as a slave in Morocco. He arrives in British territory when the ship he is on sails into Gibraltar Bay on 21 July, and later recounts his story in the book The Adventures of Thomas Pellow, of Penryn, Mariner: Three and Twenty Years in Captivity Among the Moors.United Kingdom source
1738October 22 – The excavation of Herculaneum, a Roman city buried by Vesuvius in AD 79, begins near the Italian city of Resina on orders from King Charles III of Spain to his engineer, Rocque Joaquin de Alcubierre.source
1738China's Qing government announces that all western businessmen have to use the Cohong in Guangzhou to trade.source
1738Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de La Vérendrye travelled southwest from Fort La Reine to the area of the Missouri River in what is now North Dakota.Canada source
1739January 1 – Bouvet Island is discovered by French explorer Jean-Baptiste Charles Bouvet de Lozier, in the South Atlantic Ocean.source
173926 September – "Address of the Roman Catholics of Ireland" to George II of Great Britain requesting longer leases.Ireland source
1739Joseph La France begins to explore between Lake Superior and Hudson Bay.Canada source
17401740s: The Mandan Indians west of the Great Lakes begin to trade in horses descended from those brought to Texas by the Spanish. Itinerant Assiniboine Indians bring them from Mandan settlements to their own territories southwest of Lake Winnipeg.Canada source
1740A Dublin–Belfast stage coach service runs.Ireland source
1740Zachariah Williams - The Mariners Compass CompletedWales source
1741May 4 – Vitus Bering sets out from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky to map the coasts of Siberia and Alaska.source
174115 May - Carl Linnaeus travel to Öland.Sweden source
1741July 15 – Alexei Chirikov sights land in Southeast Alaska, and sends some men aboard his ship ashore in a longboat, making them the first Europeans to visit Alaska.source
1741December 7 – Aleksei Chirikov of Russia presents the first written description of the northwest coast of North America.source
1741The lives of early Alaskans remained basically unchanged for thousands of years, until Russian sailors, led by Danish-born Russian explorer Vitus Bering, sighted Alaska's mainland in 1741.Canada source
1741Vitus Bering, in service of Russia, reaches Alaska; Russians soon trade with natives for sea otter pelts.Canada source
1741The Russians were soon followed by British, Spanish, and American adventurers. But it was the Russians who stayed to trade for the pelts of sea otters and other fur-bearing animals, interjecting their own culture and staking a strong claim on Alaska. Once the fur trade declined, however, the Russians lost interest in this beautiful though largely unexplored land.Canada source
1741Fort Bourbon established near present-day Grand Rapids, Manitoba.Canada source
1741Alexei Chirikof, with Bering expedition, sights land on July 15; the Europeans had found Alaska.Canada source
1741The guild membership requirement for innkeepers are dropped. This makes the profession considerably more accessible for women and makes it one of the most common for women.Sweden source
1741Lewis Morris resumes his survey of Welsh ports on behalf of the Navy Office.Wales source
1742August 27 – George Anson, captain of HMS Centurion, arrives with his seriously ill crew at the island of Tinian (now U.S. territory as one of the Northern Mariana Islands) and saves his mission.source
174227 August – George Anson, captain of HMS Centurion, arrives with his seriously ill crew at the island of Tinian (in the Northern Mariana Islands).United Kingdom source
1742Morgan John Lewis – Sail, Dibenion, a Rheolau'r SocietiesWales source
1743January 1 – The Verendrye brothers, probably Louis-Joseph and François de La Vérendrye, become the first white people to see the Rocky Mountains from the eastern side (the Spanish conquistadors had seen the Rockies from the west side).source
1743January 12 – The Verendryes, and two members of the Mandan Indian tribe, reach the foot of the mountains, near the site of what is now Helena, Montana.source
1743April 2 – The Verendrye brothers bury a tablet claiming the Great Plains of North America for King Louis XV of France. A schoolgirl in Pierre, South Dakota, unearths the tablet 170 years later on February 16, 1913.source
1743April 9 – The Verendrye brothers make the first contact since 1722 between Europeans and the Sioux Indians, whom they refer to as Les Gens de la Fleche Collee ("the people of the sheathed arrow").source
1743May 10 – In New France, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville ends his final term (multiple times over 43 years) as Governor of colonial French Louisiana, which he helped colonize; he is succeeded by the Marquis de Vaudreuil (for the next 10 years) and returns to France.source
174310 May – In New France, Governor Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville ends his final term (multiple times over 43 years) as Governor of colonial French Louisiana, which he helped colonize; he is succeeded by the Marquis de Vaudreuil (for the next 10 years) and returns to France.France source
1743December 3 – Ecuadorian scientist Pedro Vicente Maldonado departs from Brazil in order to purchase the most state-of-the-art equipment for the French Geodesic Missionsource
1743Concentrated hunting of sea otter by Russia begins.Canada source
1743Father Claude-Godefroy Coquart joins La Vérendrye at Fort La Reine becoming the first recorded missionary in present-day Manitoba and the first to travel beyond Lake of the Woods.Canada source
1743Dr Christopher Packe produces the first geological map of south-east England.United Kingdom source
1743Griffith Hughes returns from his travels in America and Barbados, and presents a hitherto unknown substance, asbestos, to the Royal Society.Wales source
1744October 25 – Spanish explorers Antonio de Ulloa and Jorge Juan y Santacilla complete their mission of exploration and depart from the Peruvian seaport of Callao for a return to Spain.source
1745April 4 (March 24, old style) – Under the command of British Army General William Pepperrell, the first 4,300 American colonists in the New England Army depart Boston to liberate the French North American colony of Nova Scotia. The flotilla of 80 military transports and 18 armed escorts is scattered by a storm, but the first troops disembark at Canso, Nova Scotia, on April 15 and begin training while waiting for the arrival of the Royal Navy squadron commanded by Admiral Peter Warren.source
17459 July (20 July NS) – Jacobite rising: The Du Teillay, carrying the Young Pretender Charles Edward Stuart from France to Scotland, and her escort L'Elisabeth engage with HMS Lion in the English Channel.United Kingdom source
174523 July – Jacobite rising: Charles Stuart lands on Eriskay in the Hebrides in Scotland.United Kingdom source
174627 June – Charles Edward Stuart flees to the Isle of Skye from Benbecula disguised as Flora MacDonald's maid.Scotland source
174627 June – Charles Edward Stuart escapes to the Isle of Skye with the aid of Flora MacDonald.United Kingdom source
1746August 30: Duc d'Anville Expedition, led by a French aristocrat, arrives at Chebucto (now Halifax Harbour) with 13,000 men in 70 ships. His orders from the King of France: Expel the British from Nova Scotia, then burn Boston and sack New England. Disease and dissension within the command structure defeats d'Anville's force, which despite its formidable strength has no discernible effect on the course of events in North America.Canada source
1746William Cookworthy discovers kaolin in Cornwall.United Kingdom source
17478 May – Veteran sails from Liverpool with 149 Jacobite prisoners (including 15 women) on board to be settled as indentured slaves in the West Indies. On 28 June, the French privateer Diamant captures the ship and frees the slaves.Scotland source
1747June 24–October 14 – The English ships Dobbs galley and California, under Captains William Moore and Francis Smith, explore Hudson Bay, discovering there is no Northwest Passage by this route.source
1747August 24 – Seyyid Abdullah Pasha, the Turkish Governor of Cyprus, becomes the new Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire and serves until 1750.source
1747December 7 – Benjamin Franklin forms the Pennsylvania Associators, the first militia in the colony of Pennsylvania, which had no standing militia because of its foundation by pacifistic Quakers.source
17479–14 August – John Wesley pays his first visit to Ireland.Ireland source
1747William Roy's military survey of Scotland begins.Scotland source
1747Liverpool becomes the busiest slave trading port in Britain, overtaking Bristol.United Kingdom source
1747James Relly reports on his missionary tour to Bristol, Bath, Gloucestershire, and Birmingham.Wales source
1748February 7 – The San Gabriel mission project begins with the founding of the first Roman Catholic missions further northward in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, in what is now central Texas. On orders of the Viceroy, Juan Francisco de Güemes, Friar Mariano Marti establish the San Francisco Xavier mission at a location on the San Gabriel River in what is now Milam County. The mission, located northeast of the future site of Austin, Texas, is attacked by 60 Apache Indians on May 2, and San Xavier is abandoned after a few years.source
1749July 9 – The British naval fort at Halifax is founded on mainland Nova Scotia as a defense against the New France Fortress of Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island, less than 100 mi away.source
17499 July – British settlement of Halifax, Nova Scotia is founded.United Kingdom source
1749August 3 – French explorer Pierre Joseph Céloron de Blainville, commissioned by New France to explore the Ohio Territory claimed by both France and Britain, buries the first of six engraved lead markers claiming the land for King Louis XV. The first plate is buried on the banks of the Allegheny River, near a rock with petroglyphs, in what is now Venango County, Pennsylvania.source
1749August 15 – Four Russian sailors— Aleksei Inkov, Khrisanf Inkov, Stepan Sharapov and Fedor Verigin— are rescued after having been marooned on the Arctic Ocean island of Edgeøya for more than six years. They are the only survivors of a crew of 14 whose koch had been blown off course in May 1743 and then broken up by ice. The four are returned home on September 28.source
1749August 19 – At a ceremony in San Antonio, Texas (then a part of the New Spain province of Nuevo Santander), four Apache chiefs and Spanish colonial officials and missionaries literally "bury the hatchet", placing weapons of war into a pit and covering it as a symbol that the Apaches and the Spaniards will fight no further war against each other.source
1749August–September – Charles Wesley makes his second visit to Ireland.Ireland source
1749October 19 – Two months after Pierre Céloron begins his inspection of the Ohio territory on behalf of France, Christopher Gist starts his survey of the lands along the right bank of the Ohio River on behalf of the British grant to the Ohio Company.source
1749December 7 – Father Junípero Serra begins his missionary work in the New World, 100 days after departing on a voyage from Spain and a day after his arrival at Veracruz in Mexico. During the period from 1769 to 1782, Serra will be the founder of nine missions in the Province of Las Californias, including the sites around which future California cities will be built, including Mission Basilica San Diego de Alcalá in 1769 and Mission San Francisco de Asís in 1776.source
1749French agricultural settlement established in what would become Windsor, Ontario.Canada source
1749A stagecoach service opens between Edinburgh and Glasgow.Scotland source
1750February 15 – After Spain and Portugal agree that the Uruguay River will be the boundary line between the two kingdoms' territory in South America, the Spanish Governor orders the Jesuits to vacate seven Indian missions along the river (San Angel, San Nicolas, San Luis, San Lorenzo, San Miguel, San Juan and San Borja).source
1750April 13 – Dr. Thomas Walker and five other men (Ambrose Powell, Colby Chew, William Tomlinson, Henry Lawless and John Hughes) cross through the Cumberland Gap, a mountain pass through the Appalachian Mountains, to become the first white people to venture into territories that had been inhabited exclusively by various Native American tribes. On April 17, Walker's party continues through what is now Kentucky and locates the Cumberland River, which Walker names in honor of Prince William, Duke of Cumberland.source
1750June 20: Eggert Ólafsson and Bjarni Pálsson are recorded as the first people to climb of Hekla.Iceland source
1750July 9 – Traveller Jonas Hanway leaves St. Petersburg to return home, via Germany and the Netherlands. Later the same year, Hanway reputedly becomes the first Englishman to use an umbrella (a French fashion).source
1750The King of Dahomey has income of 250,000 pounds from the overseas export of enslaved people.source
1750Hidatsa villages, site of ancient trading fair, now with both French and Hudson's Bay representatives present each summer.Canada source
17501750s: Hudson's Bay Company Saskatchewan River region, reached by trade drummers sent out with goods to tempt the Indians to York.Canada source
1750The oldest written account of Selma, a legendary sea serpent in Lake Seljord.Norway source
1750Approximate date – Alexander Stephen begins shipbuilding at Burghead on the Moray Firth, origin of Alexander Stephen and Sons.Scotland source
175124 April – John Wesley arrives at Musselburgh, his destination on his first mission to Scotland.Scotland source
1751Fort La Jonquière was established in 1751 by Jacques Legardeur de Saint-Pierre on the Saskatchewan River (probably in the Nipawin, Sask. area).Canada source
1751First turnpike act for Scotland, for improvement of the road from Edinburgh to South Queensferry.Scotland source
1751Hönsgummans visa by Olaus Petri CareliusSweden source
1751A British settlement is founded in Georgetown in North America.United Kingdom source
17521 May – commissioners for the promotion of inland navigation in Ireland are incorporated.Ireland source
1752August 21 – A group of Scottish Presbyterians who had fled to America from Scotland held the first Covenanter communion in the 13 American colonies, meeting in New Kingstown, Pennsylvania.source
1752August 25 – The first group of the United Brethren church, commonly called the Moravians, leaves Bethlehem, Pennsylvania on a mission to find 100,000 acres of land on which to build "Villages of the Lord" for German emigres to settle upon in America; after a 450 mile journey, they arrive in Edenton, North Carolina on September 10 and eventually purchase the Wachovia Tract, a set of lands in the western North Carolina colony.source
1752November 22 – "Father Le Loutre's War", the war between the British Canadian colonists of Nova Scotia and the indigenous Mi'kmaq (Micmac) tribe halts temporarily when a peace treaty is signed between the warring parties at Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia. Governor Hopson, accompanied by former Governor Cornwallis, signs on behalf of the British and Chief Kopit (Jean-Baptiste Cope), the Sakamaw of the Mi'kmaq, signs on behalf of his people.source
1752Rev. Richard Pococke makes an extended tour of Ireland.Ireland source
1752Howell Harris founds the Teulu Trefeca ("The Trefeca family")Wales source
1752A turnpike road opens between Wrexham and Shrewsbury.Wales source
1753September 18 – Britain's Board of Trade sends a directive to the colonial and provincial governors of Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania ordering them to send delegates to a summit meeting with the Iroquois Confederacy. The message instructs the governors that King George II has ordered "a Sum of Money to be issued for Presents to the Six Nations of Indians" and ordering New York's Governor George Clinton "to hold an Interview with them for delivering these Presents, for burying the Hatchet, and for renewing the Covenant Chain with them."source
1753A trading post, to be later known as Fort de la Corne was built just below the junction of the two branches of the Saskatchewan.Canada source
1753The merchant Thomas Fearnley migrated from Hull in England to Frederikshald, establishing the Fearnley family in Norway.Norway source
1753Isaac Wilkinson of Cumbria takes out a lease on the Bersham furnace at Wrexham, and settles at Plas Grono.Wales source
1754September 11 – Anthony Henday, an English explorer, becomes the first white man to reach the Canadian Rockies, after climbing a ridge above the Red Deer River near what is now Innisfail, Alberta.source
1754October 24 – China's Qianlong Emperor reverses a longstanding policy that barred Chinese subjects from ever returning to China if they remained out of the country for more than three years.source
1754Hudson's Bay Company Anthony Hendry travels to upper South Saskatchewan River, to Ft. La Jonquiere region with presents and trade goods.Canada source
1754Anthony Henday travels west from Hudson Bay onto Plains, meets natives on horseback and sees Rocky Mountains.Canada source
1754Founding of the town Nizhnyaya Tura in the Sverdlovsk OblastRussia source
1755May 17 – Spanish missionary Tomas Sanchez and three families establish a settlement on the north side of the Rio Grande in New Spain. Sanchez names it Villa de Laredo. The new settlement is the northernmost part of the colony of Nuevo Santander, founded by José de Escandón, 1st Count of Sierra Gorda, which now comprises parts of the Mexican state of Tamaulipas and the U.S. state of Texas. The portion of Villa de Laredo north of the river later becomes Laredo, Texas; the remaining portion south of the river is later renamed Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas.source
1755May 19 – General Braddock hosts Iroquois leaders Scaroyady, Kaghswaghtaniunt and Silver Heels at Fort Cumberland, the British Army base in the colony of Maryland. The three chiefs pledge their alliance with the British in advance of Braddock's expedition into the Ohio Country.source
1755July 9 – French and Indian War – Braddock Expedition: British troops and colonial militiamen are ambushed and suffer a devastating defeat inflicted by French and Indian forces. During the battle, British General Edward Braddock is mortally wounded. Colonel George Washington survives.source
17559 July – French and Indian War: Braddock Expedition – British troops and colonial militiamen are ambushed and suffer a devastating defeat inflicted by French and Indian forces. During the battle, British General Edward Braddock is mortally wounded. Colonel George Washington survives.United Kingdom source
1755The Commissioners of Inland Navigation order commencement of work on making the River Shannon navigable.Ireland source
1755Work on William Roy's survey of Scotland concludes.Scotland source
1756Hugh Hughes – Cywydd Galarnadd am ynys Minorca...Wales source
1757February 22 – King Frederick V of Denmark issues an order to create a Lutheran mission for African slaves at the Danish West Indies (the modern-day United States Virgin Islands) at St. Croix.source
1757April 17 – The Spanish mission of Mission Santa Cruz de San Sabá is founded by Spanish missionary families on the banks of the San Saba River near modern-day Menard, Texas. Less than two years later, the European settlement is destroyed by the native Comanche Indians who lives in the area.source
1757October 4 – Bearing British flags, two French privateers sail up the Gambia River and attempt to capture the British fort on James Island, but their ruse is discovered the next day before they can stage their attack. The two ships are captured by the Royal Navy after retreatingsource
1757Robert Wood publishes The ruins of Balbec, otherwise Heliopolis in Coelosyria in English and French, making the ancient city of Baalbek, Syria known to the West.source
1757Bjarni Pálsson and Eggert Ólafsson complete a research trip around Iceland.Iceland source
1757Robert Adam surveys the ruins of Diocletian's Palace at Spalato in Dalmatia.Scotland source
1758February 22 – A fleet of 158 British Royal Navy warships, under the command of Admiral Edward Boscawen, departs from Plymouth toward North America in an effort to conquer the French Canadian territories of New France. Many of the sailors die of nutritional deficiencies along the way, including the scurvy that kills 26 of the crew of HMS Pembroke, captained by future world explorer James Cook on his first long voyage.source
1758The French build the first European settlement in what becomes Erie County, New York, at the mouth of Buffalo Creek.source
1758Copenhagen based trading company Hörmangarafélagið ceases operations after handling trade to Iceland since 1743.Iceland source
1758The agriculturalist Richard Geoghegan reclaims a large tract of land from the sea at Ballyconneely in County Galway.Ireland source
1759September 14 – Carrington Bowles publishes A Journey Through Europe, a board game designed by John Jefferys, the earliest board game whose designer's name is known.source
175914 September – "A Journey Through Europe; or, A Play of Geography", the earliest British board game sold.United Kingdom source
1759September–October – Benjamin Franklin visits Scotland.Scotland source
1759The town of Egedesminde (modern Aasiaat) is founded in Greenland.source
1759Tuesday May 22 - A British fleet approaches Quebec.Canada source
1759The settlement of Aasiaat is founded as Egedesminde in Greenland.Denmark source
175987th Regiment of Foot (Keith's Highlanders) raised at Perth and sent to Germany.Scotland source
1760April 10 – France's Minister of the Navy Nicolas René Berryer finally receives permission to send ships to assist French forces at Quebec, and a fleet of six ships under the command of Captain François Chenard de la Giraudais of the French frigate Machault departs Bordeaux, albeit too late to prevent the loss of New France to the British.source
1760May 17 – Captain Giraudais's French fleet reaches the Gaspé Peninsula of northeast Quebec and captures seven British merchant ships, but Giraudais learns that the British have already preceded him up the St. Lawrence River and diverts to Chaleur Bay at Newfoundland.source
1760June 4 – Expulsion of the Acadians: New England planters arrive to claim land in Nova Scotia taken from the Acadians.source
1760June–October – James Macpherson is sponsored to make his first tour of the Higlands and Islands to seek out traditional Gaelic poetry, following his publication in Edinburgh of Fragments of Ancient Poetry collected in the Highlands of Scotland.Scotland source
1760Edinburgh City Chambers is opened as the Royal Exchange, to a design by John Adam.Scotland source
17614 January – The Danish Arabia Expedition departs from Copenhagen.Denmark source
1761Matthew Boulton's Soho Manufactory opens in the midlands of England.source
1761Hvalbakur began appearing on maps in 1761Iceland source
1761Bruntsfield Links Golfing Society formed on the outskirts of Edinburgh.Scotland source
1762February – 12 sperm whales strand on the east coast of England.United Kingdom source
1762March 5 – A Royal Navy fleet with 16,000 men departs Britain from Spithead and sets sail toward Cuba in order to seize strategic Spanish Empire possessions in the Americas.source
176220 March – a French privateer takes six ships off Youghal.Ireland source
1762June 8 – Cherokee Indian war chief Ostenaco and his two aides, Standing Turkey (Cunneshote) and Pouting Pigeon, are received by King George III. They had arrived three days earlier at Plymouth on the British frigate Epreuvre as guests of the Timberlake Expedition of Henry Timberlake, to discuss terms of peace with the British government.source
1762Tassinari et Chatel, Lyon silk weavers, establishedFrance source
176326 June – stagecoach service between Glasgow and Greenock initiated.Scotland source
176321–29 May – John Wesley travels in Scotland.Scotland source
1764February 15 – The settlement of St. Louis is established.source
1764March 15 – The day after his return to Paris from a nine-year mission, French explorer and scholar Anquetil Du Perron presents a complete copy of the Zoroastrian sacred text, the Zend Avesta, to the Bibliothèque Royale in Paris, along with several other traditional texts. In 1771, he publishes the first European translation of the Zend Avesta.source
176415 March – The day after his return to Paris from a nine-year mission, French explorer and scholar Anquetil Du Perron presents a complete copy of the Zoroastrian sacred text, the Zend Avesta, to the Bibliothèque Royale.France source
1764March 20 – After the British victory in the French and Indian War, the first post-war British expedition to explore the newly acquired territories east of the Mississippi River comes under attack by Tunica warriors. The 340 British Army men, under the command of Major Arthur Loftus, were at a spot south of Natchez, Mississippi and were forced to flee in their boats back toward the port of New Orleans while under fire from an unknown number of Tunicas firing from both banks.source
1764March 23 – Following lobbying by George Johnstone, the Governor of British West Florida, Britain's Lords of Trade vote to recommend the northern boundary for the new province to run from the confluence of the Yazoo River and the Mississippi (at modern-day Vicksburg, Mississippi) to the Chattahoochee River (at modern-day Phenix City, Alabama), and the Privy Council soon approves, bringing about 38,000 sq mi under the West Florida's jurisdiction.source
176421 June – Humphrey Edwards, physician, begins a voyage round the world as physician on HMS Tamar.Wales source
1764July 11 – Conditional repatriation of the Acadians in Canada, French colonists who took up arms against the British during the war, is approved by order of King George III on advice of the Privy Council. The Council offers settlement to any Acadians willing to take an oath of allegiance to the British Crown and that those living in New Brunswick are to "be allowed to settle in Nova Scotia, but that they should be dispersed in small numbers in various localities."source
1764Almenna Handelsfélagið took over the trade monopoly in Iceland.Iceland source
1764The turnip is first cultivated in Scotland as a field crop, by Dawson of Frogden (Roxburghshire).Scotland source
1764New Byth established as a planned village in Aberdeenshire by the local laird.Scotland source
1764Gabriel Powell – Survey of GowerWales source
1764David Powell – Sail yr Athrawiaeth GatholicWales source
1765February 8 – Isaac Barré, a member of the British House of Commons for Wycombe and a veteran of the French and Indian War in the British American colonies, coins the term "Sons of Liberty" in a rebuttal to Charles Townshend's derisive description of the American colonists during the introduction of the proposed Stamp Act. Barré notes that "They fled from your tyranny to a then uncultivated and unhospitable country... And yet, actuated by the principles of true English liberty, they met all these hardships with pleasure, compared with those they suffered in their own country, from the hands of those who should have been their friends." American colonists adopt the term for their own organization after reading the accounts of Barré's speech.source
1765February 14 – Spain's five-member "special junta", appointed by Prime Minister Jerónimo Grimaldi, delivers its report regarding "ways to address the backwardness of Spain's commerce with its colonies and with foreign nations". The report provides detailed orders to be delivered to José de Gálvez, the visitador general in charge of New Spain.source
1765April 5 – After completing the portion of the Mason–Dixon line marking the semi-circular boundary between Pennsylvania and Delaware, English surveyors Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon begin the two-and-a-half-year process of plotting out the 230-mile boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland along the latitude of 39°43′20″ N.source
1765The first chocolate factory in the Thirteen Colonies is established by Dr. James Baker at Dorchester, Massachusetts.source
1765It is believed that the first true restaurant opens in Paris, where a tavern-keeper named Boulanger sells cooked dishes at an all-night place on the Rue Bailleul.source
1765Sculptor Christopher Hewetson settles in Rome.Ireland source
1765The town of Langesund was founded.Norway source
1765Settlement at Grantown-on-Spey planned.Scotland source
1765Taylors & Lloyds Bank established in Birmingham.United Kingdom source
1766September 23 – John Penn, the Colonial Governor of Pennsylvania and one of the four Penn family owners of the Pennsylvania land grant, issues a proclamation forbidding British American colonist residents from building settlements on lands in the west "not yet purchased of the Nations" of the Iroquois Indians.source
1766Orupgaard is sold to Christian Hincheldey.Denmark source
1766Gjedsergaard is sold to Frederik Holck-Winterfeldt-Denmark source
1766October 4 – The kingdom of France formally cedes its rights to the Malouines Islands to Spain. On March 24, Spain renames the islands the Malvinas, and in 1833, the United Kingdom re-colonises the recently abandoned territory and renames it the Falkland Islands.source
17668 October - Sophia Magdalena of Denmark arrives in Sweden.Sweden source
1767June 17 – British Royal Navy Captain Samuel Wallis becomes the first European to visit the island of Tahiti in the Pacific Ocean, during HMS Dolphins second circumnavigation; he also sights Mehetia.source
1767July 3 – Pitcairn Island in the Pacific Ocean is sighted from HMS Swallow, by 15-year-old Midshipman Robert Pitcairn, on a British Royal Navy expeditionary voyage commanded by Philip Carteret, the first definite European sighting.source
17673 July – Pitcairn Island in the Pacific Ocean is sighted from HMS Swallow (1766) by 15-year-old Midshipman Robert Pitcairn on a Royal Navy expeditionary voyage commanded by Philip Carteret, the first definite European sighting.United Kingdom source
176729 August - John Wesley begins a two-week evangelical tour of South Wales.Wales source
1767September 29 – The Spanish Empire's Governorate of the Río de la Plata and Governorate of Paraguay begin the process of expulsion of the 456 members of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) from southern South America, placing them on five ships bound for Spain.source
1767November 1 – Scottish-born American merchant and shipowner Andrew Sprowle of Portsmouth, Virginia, establishes the Gosport Shipyard on the western shore of the Elizabeth River in the Virginia Colony, on the site of what will eventually become the Norfolk Naval Shipyard.source
1767Carsten Niebuhr returns to Copenhagen as the only surviving member of the Danish Arabia expedition.Denmark source
17682 March - Rowland Pugh, a local miner, discovers the "Great Lode" of copper on Parys Mountain and is rewarded with a bottle of whisky and a rent-free house for his lifetime.Wales source
1768April 5 – The New York Chamber of Commerce, first of its kind in the American colonies, is founded by 20 New York merchants at Bolton and Sigel's Tavern at 54 Pearl Street in New York City. Former New York City mayor John Cruger Jr. is elected the Chamber's first president.source
1768July 1–3 – Louis Antoine de Bougainville, on his circumnavigation westbound, sails through the Bougainville Strait and along the north shore of Bougainville Island in the Solomons.source
1768August 26 – James Cook departs from Plymouth aboard HMS Endeavour on his first voyage of discovery.source
176826 August – James Cook departs from Plymouth aboard HMS Endeavour on his first voyage of discovery.United Kingdom source
1768New Smyrna, Florida, the largest attempt at colonization by the British in the New World, is founded by Dr. Andrew Turnbull.source
1768David Dale begins his own business importing linen yarn from the Dutch Republic to Glasgow.Scotland source
1769March 16 – Louis Antoine de Bougainville returns to Saint-Malo, following a three-year circumnavigation of the world with the ships Boudeuse and Étoile, with the loss of only seven out of 330 men; among the members of the expedition is Jeanne Baré, the first woman known to have circumnavigated the globe. She returns to France some time after Bougainville and his ships.source
176916 March – Louis Antoine de Bougainville returns to Saint-Malo, following a three-year circumnavigation of the world with the ships Boudeuse and Étoile, with the loss of only seven out of 330 men; among the members of the expedition is Jeanne Baré, the first woman known to have circumnavigated the globe (she returns to France some time after Bougainville and his ships).France source
1769April 13 – James Cook arrives in Tahiti, on the ship HM Bark Endeavour, preparing for the 1769 Transit of Venus observed from Tahiti on June 3. After the voyage, the data is found to be inaccurate in determining the distance between the Sun and Earth.source
176913 April – first voyage of James Cook: James Cook arrives in Tahiti on the ship HM Bark Endeavour, preparing to observe the transit of the planet Venus, which takes place on 3 June. After the voyage, the data is found to be inaccurate in determining the distance between the Sun and Earth.United Kingdom source
1769May 14 – Charles III of Spain sends Spanish missionaries, who found California missions in San Diego, Santa Barbara, San Francisco and Monterey, and begin the settlement of California.source
1769June 7 – Frontiersman Daniel Boone first begins to explore modern-day Kentucky.source
1769July 17 – Welsh naturalist Thomas Pennant, having left Chester on 26 June, travels from Bamburgh to Dunbar to begin his tour of Scotland.Scotland source
1769July 20 – Recently appointed as the Governor of Spanish Louisiana, Irish-born soldier of fortune Alejandro O'Reilly sails into the French fort of La Balize with 21 Spanish ships, along with 2,056 soldiers, cannons and ammunition, and informs French Louisiana Governor Charles Philippe Aubry of his royal commission to take Louisiana on behalf of the King of Spain.source
1769Sømarke and the northern part of Klinteskoven (now Liselund) were sold to Mathias Schmidt.Denmark source
1769Rstate No. 4 (Nordfeld) is sold tp local farmers for 41,650 rigsdaler.Denmark source
1769October 1 – James Cook names White Island, off the coast of New Zealand.source
1769October 7 – James Cook lands in New Zealand, at Poverty Bay.source
17697 October – James Cook reaches New Zealand.United Kingdom source
1769October 9 – In the first encounter between the Māori people and Europeans (at the future site of Gisborne, New Zealand), one Maori is shot and killed after he steals a sword from one of the officers of the Cook expedition. Several more Māori are killed in fighting the next day.source
1769November 1 – A party of the expedition of Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portola becomes the first Europeans to reach San Francisco Bay. Sergeant Jose Francisco de Ortega and his group accidentally discover the area while searching for Drakes Bay in Alta California.source
1769The American colonies begin their westward expansion, settling Tennessee.Canada source
1769Thomas Pennant employs Moses Griffith to illustrate his books of tours.Wales source
1770February 14 – Scottish explorer James Bruce arrives at Gondar, capital of Abyssinia (modern-day Ethiopia) and is received by the Emperor Tekle Haymanot II and Ras Mikael Sehul.source
1770March 26 – First voyage of James Cook: English explorer Captain James Cook and his crew aboard HMS Endeavour complete the circumnavigation of New Zealand.source
177026 March – It is reported that it is possible to walk across the ice from Helsingør to Scania.Denmark source
1770April 12 – The Townshend Acts are repealed by Britain's Parliament by the efforts of Prime Minister Frederick North, with the exception of the increased duties on imported tea. The American colonists, in turn, stop their embargo on British imports.source
1770April 18 (April 19 by Cook's log) 18:00 – First voyage of James Cook: English explorer Captain James Cook and his crew become the first recorded Europeans to encounter the eastern coastline of the Australian continent. Land is sighted at Point Hicks, and named after Lieutenant Hicks who first observes landform at 6am.source
177018 April (19 April by Cook's log) – first voyage of James Cook: English explorer Captain James Cook and his crew aboard HMS Endeavour become the first recorded Europeans to encounter the eastern coastline of the Australian continent.United Kingdom source
1770April 29 – First voyage of James Cook: Captain Cook drops anchor on HMS Endeavour in a wide bay, about 16 km (10 mi) south of the present city of Sydney, Australia. Because the young botanist on board the ship, Joseph Banks, discovers 30,000 specimens of plant life in the area, 1,600 of them unknown to European science, Cook names the place Botany Bay on May 7.source
17702 May – A Royal Danish Navy fleet bound for Algiers departs from Copenhagen to bomb the city in response to the recurrent pirate attacks in the Mediterranean Sea.Denmark source
177010 June – first voyage of James Cook: Captain Cook discovers the Great Barrier Reef when HMS Endeavour runs aground on it.United Kingdom source
1770June 11 – First voyage of James Cook: HMS Endeavour grounds on the Great Barrier Reef.source
1770August 22 (August 23 by Cook's log) – First voyage of James Cook: Captain Cook determines that New Holland (Australia) is not contiguous with New Guinea, and claims the whole of its eastern coast for Great Britain, later naming it all New South Wales.source
177014 November – Scottish explorer James Bruce is shown the source of the Blue Nile in Ethiopia.Scotland source
1770December – Samuel Hearne departs on his third voyage of discovery.Canada source
1770c. September – Johann Gottfried Herder meets Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in Strasbourg.source
1770Montgomery's Entail Act remedies the system of short leases on agricultural properties.Scotland source
1771July 12 – The first voyage of James Cook around the world ends as HMS Endeavour returns to England after almost three years.source
177112 July – first voyage of James Cook (begun 1768): HMS Endeavour anchors in The Downs, and Captain Cook goes ashore at Deal, Kent, following his global circumnavigation.United Kingdom source
1771September 8 – In California, Fathers Pedro Cambon and Angel Somera found Mission Vieja, later called, Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, in what becomes San Gabriel, California.source
1771December 31 – Men, women and children of the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes begin a 23-day encampment at Mobile, part of the British colony of West Florida, at the invitation of British Southern Indian superintendent John Stuart, as their leaders negotiate a treaty.source
1771Lieutenant Governor Michael Francklin of Nova Scotia travels to northern England to seek immigrants to replace those displaced by the Acadian expulsion.Canada source
1771Captain James Cook completes his first voyage around the world.Canada source
1771Reindeer were first brought to Iceland from Finnmark in Norway.Iceland source
1772February 12 – Breton-French explorer Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen-Trémarec discovers the uninhabited Kerguelen Islands in the Southern Indian Ocean.source
177212 February – Breton-French explorer Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen-Trémarec discovers the uninhabited Kerguelen Islands in the Southern Ocean.France source
1772March 20 – Pedro Fages, the Spanish Governor of Alta California, and Juan Crespí, a Catholic priest, set off from the capital at Monterey with a party of 12 soldiers and begin the first European exploration of the lands around San Francisco Bay.source
1772April–June – the brig Alexander collects emigrants from the west of Scotland (the "Glenaladale settlers") and carries them to Prince Edward Island.Scotland source
1772July 13 – The second voyage of James Cook departs from Plymouth on Captain Cook's new ship, HMS Resolution and the companion ship HMS Adventure in an attempt to prove the existence of an uncharted continent even further south than New Zealand.source
177213 July – navigator James Cook sets out from Plymouth on HMS Resolution for a second Pacific voyage.United Kingdom source
1772October 28 – Basque-Spanish explorer Domingo de Bonechea, in the Aguila, sights Tauere atoll, which he names San Simon y Judas.source
1772December 14 – Second voyage of James Cook: The crew of HMS Resolution finds that the ice floes encountered on their journey south are a source of fresh water, a "discovery... of utmost importance to the success of the voyage."source
1772HBC Mathey Cocking, to Blackfeet country west of Eagle Hills.Canada source
1772James Cook and George Vancouver explore the northwest coast of America.Canada source
1772English naturalist Joseph Banks travelled around Iceland.Iceland source
1772Summer – Welsh naturalist Thomas Pennant makes a second tour of Scotland.Scotland source
1772Jinny Jenks - Tour through WalesWales source
1773January 17 – Second voyage of James Cook: Captain Cook in HMS Resolution (1771) becomes the first European explorer to cross the Antarctic Circle.source
177317 January – second voyage of James Cook: Captain Cook in HMS Resolution becomes the first European explorer to cross the Antarctic Circle.United Kingdom source
1773March 9–19 – Second voyage of James Cook: Tobias Furneaux in HMS Adventure explores the coast of Van Diemen's Land.source
17737 April or 24 May – Freemasonry in France: The 200 masonic lodges are reorganized within the Grand Orient de France in a vast relational system hierarchized by affiliation.France source
1773June 4 – 1773 Phipps expedition towards the North Pole sets out from Britain.source
17734 June – 1773 Phipps expedition towards the North Pole sets out from the Nore.United Kingdom source
1773August 11 – Second voyage of James Cook in the Tuamotus: Captain Cook discovers Tekokota, which he names Doubtful Island.source
1773August 12 – Second voyage of James Cook in the Tuamotus: Captain Cook discovers Marutea Nord, which he names Furneaux Island.source
1773November 10 – Four ships – the Dartmouth, the Eleanor, the Beaver and the William – depart Britain for America, carrying the first Indian tea to be subject to the newly enacted taxes. The William is lost in a storm; the Dartmouth is the first ship to reach Boston, docking on November 28.source
1773December 16 – Boston Tea Party: A group of American colonists, dressed as Mohawk Indians, steal aboard ships of the East India Company and dump their cargo of tea into Boston Harbor, in protest against British tax policies.source
177316 December – a group of American colonists, dressed as Mohawk Indians, steal aboard ships of the East India Company and dump their cargo of tea into Boston Harbor in a protest against British tax policies that became known as the Boston Tea Party.United Kingdom source
1773Montreal Ft. La Traite, on Churchill River, by Frobisher to cut into HBC's trade.Canada source
1773Mid-July – the emigrant ship Hector sets out from Scotland carrying emigrants mainly escaping the Highland Clearances around Loch Broom for Pictou, Nova Scotia, where they arrive on 15 September.Scotland source
1774May 19 – Shakers Ann Lee and eight followers sail from Liverpool, England for colonial America.source
177419 May – Shakers Ann Lee and eight followers sail from Liverpool for colonial America.United Kingdom source
1774June 2 – Intolerable Acts: A new Quartering Act, requiring American colonists to provide better housing for British soldiers upon demand, is passed.source
17742 June – Intolerable Acts: The Quartering Act, requiring American colonists to let British soldiers into their homes, is re-enacted.United Kingdom source
1774June 16–17 – English explorer James Cook becomes the first European to sight (and name) Palmerston Island in the South Pacific Ocean.source
1774September 4 – English explorer James Cook becomes the first European to sight (and name) the island of New Caledonia in Melanesia.source
1774Iselingen, Rosenfeldt, Snertinge and Avnø (32,000 rigsdaler) were sold to Reinhard Iselin.Denmark source
1774Øbjerggaard are sold for 30,050 rigsdaler to Niels Ruberg-.Denmark source
1774October 10 – English explorer James Cook becomes the first European to sight (and name) Norfolk Island in the Pacific Ocean, uninhabited at this date.source
1774October 21 – The word Liberty is first displayed on a flag raised by colonists in Taunton, Massachusetts, in defiance of British rule in Colonial America.source
1774November 27 – Spanish Navy Captain Domingo de Bonechea arrives at Tahiti in the ship Aguila and tries unsuccessfully to claim it for Spain and to convert the Tahitians to the Roman Catholic faith.source
1774Juan Perez ordered by Spain to explore west coast; discovers Prince of Wales Island, Dixon Sound.Canada source
1774Tårnborg was sold to Dyrehovedgård.Denmark source
1774Frederikslund was sold to Hans Larsen Fogh.Denmark source
1774The second Danish trade monopoly in Iceland begins.Iceland source
1775June 12 – Action by citizens of Machias, Maine, in capturing British ships recognises the existence of a United States Merchant Marine.source
1775June 12 – The British forces offer a pardon to all colonists who lay down their arms.source
177512 June – American Revolution: British forces offer a pardon to all colonists who would lay down their arms.United Kingdom source
1775July 30 – Second voyage of James Cook: HMS Resolution anchors off the south coast of England, Captain Cook having completed the first eastbound global circumnavigation.source
177530 July – second voyage of James Cook: HMS Resolution anchors at Spithead, Captain Cook having completed the first eastabout global circumnavigation.United Kingdom source
1775October 25 – On Benedict Arnold's expedition to Quebec from New England, his force begins crossing the height of land between Maine and Canada for the descent to the St. Lawrence River.Canada source
1775Probable date – Jeanne Baret returns to France, becoming the first woman to complete a circumnavigation of the globe.source
1775Village of Tomintoul laid out by Alexander Gordon, 4th Duke of Gordon.Scotland source
1775Marstrand is made the only free port in Sweden.Sweden source
1775Nicholas Owen (attr.) - History of the Island of AngleseaWales source
1776March – Restrictions on the grain trade in Sweden are lifted.source
1776March - The restrictions of the Swedish Cereal trade is lifted.Sweden source
17762 May - The restrictions of the selling of Brännvin is lifted.Sweden source
1776June 17 – Lt. José Joaquín Moraga leads a band of colonists from Monterey Presidio, landing on June 29 and, with Father Francisco Palóu, constructing the Mission San Francisco de Asís ("Mission Dolores") of the new Presidio of San Francisco, the oldest surviving building in the modern-day city.source
1776June–July – Claude-François-Dorothée, marquis de Jouffroy d'Abbans, demonstrates his steamboat Palmipède on the Doubs (river).France source
1776July 12 – Captain James Cook sets off from Plymouth, England, in HMS Resolution on his third voyage, to the Pacific Ocean and Arctic, which will be fatal to him.source
177612 July – Captain James Cook sets off from Plymouth in HMS Resolution on his third voyage, to the Pacific Ocean and Arctic, which will be fatal to him.United Kingdom source
1776July 29 – Domínguez–Escalante expedition: Francisco Silvestre Vélez de Escalante, Francisco Atanasio Domínguez and eight other Spaniards set out from Santa Fe on an 1800-mile (2900 km) trek through the American Southwest. They are the first Europeans to explore the vast region between the Rockies and the Sierras.source
1776July 29 – Francisco Silvestre Vélez de Escalante, Francisco Atanasio Domínguez, and eight other Spaniards set out from Santa Fe on the Domínguez–Escalante expedition, an eighteen-hundred mile trek through the American Southwest. They are the first Europeans to explore the vast region between the Rockies and the Sierras.United States source
1776October 13 – On Lake Champlain, Arnold runs part of his fleet ashore, to avoid capture.Canada source
1776October 17 – The Rutherford Light Horse expedition begins.United States source
1776Evan Evans (Ieuan Fardd) – Casgliad o BregethauWales source
17771 March - David Samwell, at sea between New Zealand and Tahiti with Captain Cook, writes a pennillion.Wales source
1777March 29–30 – Third voyage of James Cook: English explorer Captain Cook discovers Mangaia and Atiu in the Cook Islands.source
1777July 4 – Near Fort Ticonderoga, General Burgoyne offers condonement if colonists lay down their arms.Canada source
1777December 24 – Third voyage of James Cook: English explorer Captain Cook locates Kiritimati (Christmas Island).source
177724 December – Kiritimati (Christmas Island) visited by James Cook.United Kingdom source
1777Francis Towne and John White go on a painting tour of North Wales.Wales source
1778January 18 – Third voyage of James Cook: Captain James Cook, with ships HMS Resolution and HMS Discovery, first views Oʻahu then Kauaʻi in the Hawaiian Islands of the Pacific Ocean, which he names the Sandwich Islands.source
1778January 18 – The third Pacific expedition of Capt. James Cook, with ships HMS Resolution and HMS Discovery, first view O'ahu then Kaua'i in the Hawaiian Islands, which he names the Sandwich Islands.United States source
177818 January – the third Pacific expedition of James Cook, with ships HMS Resolution and HMS Discovery, first views Oahu then Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands, which he names the "Sandwich Islands".United Kingdom source
1778March 6–October 24 – Captain Cook explores and maps the Pacific Northwest coast of North America, from Cape Foulweather (Oregon) to the Bering Strait.source
1778April – the Ladies of Llangollen run away from Ireland to set up a rural household together.Ireland source
1778August 26 – Triglav, at 2,864 m above sea level the highest peak of Slovenia, is ascended for the first time by four men: Luka Korošec, Matevž Kos, Štefan Rožič, and Lovrenc Willomitzer, on Sigmund Zois' initiative.source
1778November 26 – In the Hawaiian Islands, Captain James Cook becomes the first European to land on Maui.source
1778November 26 – In the Hawaiian Islands, Capt. James Cook becomes the first European to land on Maui.United States source
177826 November – in the Hawaiian Islands, James Cook becomes the first European to sight Maui.United Kingdom source
1778The first settlement is made in the area of modern-day Louisville, Kentucky, by 13 families under Colonel George Rogers Clark.source
1778After landing at Nootka Sound in August, former British naval captain John Meares arrives from Macao (sailing under the Portuguese flag) with 70 Chinese carpenters. He supervises the building of another ship and housing at Nootka Sound as the post becomes the centre of the pelt and fur trades in the Pacific Northwest.Canada source
1778Charles Vallancey surveys West Cork.Ireland source
1778Joachim van Plettenberg departs on an expedition to explore remote areas, encountering Khoikhoi after ten days. He erects a 2m slate beacon at a bay, renaming it Plettenberg Bay.South Africa source
1779February 12 – Lieutenant Colonel Francisco Bouligny arrives with Malagueño colonists at Bayou Teche, to establish the city of New Iberia, Louisiana.source
17793 June – Armada of 1779: Fleet sets sail from France.United Kingdom source
1779June 18 – American Revolutionary War: In response to Iroquois and Loyalist attacks, the U.S. launches the Sullivan Expedition with the aim of destroying enemy Iroquois settlements in what is now central New York.United States source
1779June–September - Armada of 1779France source
1779July 24 – American Revolutionary War – American forces, led by Commodore Dudley Saltonstall, launch the Penobscot Expedition in what is now Castine, Maine, resulting in the worst naval defeat in U.S. history, until surpassed by the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.source
1779July 24 – American Revolutionary War: American forces led by Commodore Dudley Saltonstall launch the Penobscot Expedition in what is now Castine, Maine, resulting in the worst naval defeat in U.S. military history until Pearl Harbor.United States source
177924 July – American Revolutionary War: the Penobscot Expedition ends in defeat for the Americans.United Kingdom source
1779September 14–15 – American Revolutionary War – Little Beard's Town, a loyalist stronghold, is burnt by the Sullivan Expedition.source
177931 December – Affair of Fielding and Bylandt, a brief naval engagement with the Dutch off the Isle of Wight.United Kingdom source
1779Armed Volunteers demonstrate in Dublin for free trade between Ireland and England. This demand for amendment of the Navigation Acts is quickly granted by the British government.Ireland source
177914–18 August; 31 August–3 September – Armada of 1779 in the English Channel, but no fleet action with the Royal Navy takes place.United Kingdom source
1780March 17 – American Revolutionary War: The British San Juan Expedition sails from Jamaica under the command of Captains John Polson and Horatio Nelson to attack the Captaincy General of Guatemala (modern-day Nicaragua) in New Spain.source
178017 March – American Revolutionary War: the British San Juan Expedition sails from Jamaica under the command of Captains John Polson and Horatio Nelson to attack the Captaincy General of Guatemala (modern-day Nicaragua) in New Spain.United Kingdom source
1780May 13 – Cumberland Compact signed by American settlers in the Cumberland Valley of Tennessee.United States source
1780July 11 – French soldiers arrive in Newport, Rhode Island to reinforce the colonists, in the American Revolutionary War.source
1780July 11 – Expédition Particulière: French soldiers arrive in Newport, Rhode Island to reinforce colonists in the American Revolutionary War.United States source
1780November 30 – American Revolutionary War: The British San Juan Expedition is forced to withdraw.source
178030 November – American Revolutionary War: The San Juan Expedition is forced to withdraw.United Kingdom source
1780Jose Gabriel Kunturkanki, businessman and landowner, proclaims himself Inca Túpac Amaru II.source
1780Western countries pay 16,000,000 ounces of silver for Chinese goods.source
1780The mysterious disappearance of The Reynistadur Brothers, two young brothers from Reynistaður in Skagafjörður who perished along with three of their companions in Kjölur at the beginning of the winter.Iceland source
1780The Ladies of Llangollen settle at Plas Newydd.Wales source
1781April – Ira Allen is sent to Canada to arrange an exchange of prisoners.Canada source
1782February 18 – Fourth Anglo-Dutch War: Shirley's Gold Coast expedition lands at Elmina on the Dutch Gold Coast. The British expedition fails to take the fort here but over the next several weeks seizes, with minimal resistance, four small Dutch forts.source
1782May 25–June 12 – American Revolutionary War: Crawford expeditionUnited States source
178225 May–12 June – American Revolutionary War – Crawford expedition.United Kingdom source
1782Montreal Upper Yellowstone, on old Indian trail along east slope of the mountains, challenging Spanish trade goods.Canada source
1782Arrival of a French fleet under Admiral Suffren.India source
1782Muslin first woven in Scotland by James Monteith at Anderston.Scotland source
1782David Davis (Castellhywel) settles in Castellhywel.Wales source
1782Thomas Pennant - Journey to Snowdon, volume 1Wales source
1783June - Gustav III has plans to conquer the Danish province of Norway, and meet with Catherine the Great in Finland in an unsuccessful attempt to persuade her to end the Russian-Danish alliance.Sweden source
1783August 10 – The British East India Company packet ship Antelope (1781) is wrecked off Ulong Island in the Palau (Pelew) group, resulting in the first sustained European contact with those islands.source
178327 September - Gustav III begun his trip to Italy and France.Sweden source
1783Loyalists from New York settle Great Abaco in the Bahamas.source
1783The city of Sevastopol is founded on the Crimean Peninsula of the Russian Empire, by Rear Admiral Thomas MacKenzie.source
1783Pennsylvania Germans begin moving into southwestern Ontario.Canada source
1783The border between Canada and the U.S. is accepted from the Atlantic Ocean to Lake of the Woods.Canada source
1783Welsh emigrant Evan Williams founds a whiskey distillery in Bardstown, Kentucky, United States, which will still be operating in the 21st century.Wales source
17842 August – the first mail coach runs between Bristol and London.United Kingdom source
1784September 22 – Russia establishes their first colony in Kodiak, Alaska.United States source
1784North West Company built up Grand portage as a general summer rendezvous for all companies and free traders, drawing furs from as far as Oregon and the Arctic Circle.Canada source
1784David Thompson began his apprenticeship on Hudson Bay.Canada source
1784The Buchanites are expelled from Irvine, going on to establish a celibate community at New Cample near Closeburn, Dumfriesshire.Scotland source
1785August 1 – The fleet of French explorer Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse leaves Paris for the circumnavigation of the globe.source
1785North West Company strengthened far west trade through such forts as Athabasca and English River.Canada source
1785Billings Expedition authorized to search for the Northeast PassageRussia source
1785Great Gostiny Dvor shopping arcade opened in Saint PetersburgRussia source
1786June 25 – Gavriil Pribylov discovers St. George Island of the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea.source
1786August 8 – Mont Blanc is climbed for the first time, by Michel-Gabriel Paccard and Jacques Balmat.source
1786September–December – Goethe undertakes his Italian Journey (published in 1817).source
1786October 23 – The settlement of Östersund is established in Sweden.source
1786Winter 1786/87 – English captain George Dixon becomes the first European to visit the Hawaiian island of Molokaʻi.source
1786New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland allowed to import goods from the United States.Canada source
1786The Danish–Icelandic Trade Monopoly ends.Denmark source
1786The trade with Iceland is opened to all Danish and Norwegian traders.Norway source
1786New Lanark established in South Lanarkshire by David Dale, as a model cotton milling community.Scotland source
1786New Lanark established in South Lanarkshire, Scotland, by David Dale, as a model cotton milling community.United Kingdom source
1786The United States pays protection money to the Sultan of Morocco to ensure the safety of American merchantmen in the Mediterranean Sea from Barbary pirates.United States source
1787May 13 – Captain Arthur Phillip leaves Portsmouth, England, with the 11 ships of the First Fleet, carrying around 700 convicts and at least 300 crew and guards to establish a penal colony in Australia.source
1787July – Principal Triangulation of Great Britain begun under the direction of General William Roy from Hounslow Heath; in the autumn it is extended to France.United Kingdom source
1787December 23 – Captain William Bligh sets sail from England for Tahiti, on HMS Bounty.source
178723 December – Captain William Bligh sets sail from Spithead for Tahiti on HMS Bounty.United Kingdom source
1787Crimean journey of Catherine the GreatRussia source
1787Patrick Miller of Dalswinton demonstrates his design of manually-propelled paddleboat on the Firth of Forth.Scotland source
1788January 18 – The leading ship (armed tender HMS Supply) in Captain Arthur Phillip's First Fleet arrives at Botany Bay, to colonise Australia.source
178818 January – Captain Arthur Phillip arrives in Botany Bay with the lead ship of the First Fleet, HMS Supply.Australia source
178818 January – Captain Arthur Phillip's ship arrives at Botany Bay.United Kingdom source
1788January 24 – The La Perouse expedition in the Astrolabe and Boussole arrives off Botany Bay, just as Captain Arthur Phillip is attempting to move his colony from there to Sydney Cove in Port Jackson.source
1788January 26 – Eleven ships of the First Fleet from Botany Bay, led by Captain Arthur Phillip, land at Sydney Cove (which will become Sydney), Australia, where he determines to establish the British prison colony of New South Wales, the first permanent European settlement on the continent.source
178826 January – eleven ships of First Fleet from Botany Bay led by Arthur Phillip land in what would become Sydney, Australia. Britain establishes the prison colony of New South Wales, the first permanent European settlement on the continent.United Kingdom source
178814 February – HMS Supply leaves Sydney Cove to establish a settlement on Norfolk Island.Australia source
1788February 17 – The uninhabited Lord Howe Island is discovered by the brig HMS Supply, commanded by Lieutenant Ball, who is on his way from Botany Bay to Norfolk Island with convicts to start a penal settlement there. They arrive at Norfolk Island on March 6.source
178817 February – the uninhabited Lord Howe Island is discovered by the brig HMS Supply, commanded by Lieutenant Ball, who is on his way from Botany Bay to Norfolk Island with convicts to start a penal settlement there.United Kingdom source
178818 February – Lord Howe Island is discovered by Lieutenant Henry Lidgbird Ball on HMS Supply.Australia source
1788March 10 – The La Perouse expedition leaves Sydney Cove for New Caledonia, never to be seen again.source
1788April 7 – American pioneers establish the town of Marietta (in modern-day Ohio), the first permanent American settlement outside the original Thirteen Colonies.source
1788June 17 – English captains Thomas Gilbert and John Marshall, returning from Botany Bay, become the first Europeans to encounter the Gilbert Islands in the Pacific Ocean. They also chart islands in "Lord Mulgrove's range", later known as the Marshall Islands.source
178814 October – William Symington demonstrates a paddle steamer on Dalswinton Loch near Dumfries.Scotland source
1788Lowland Licence Act restricts exports of Scottish gin to England, effectively requiring a one-year pause in the trade.Scotland source
178912 June – Phillip leads an expedition to Broken Bay (departed from Sydney on the 6th), and discovers the Hawkesbury River.Australia source
178927 June – Captain Watkin Tench and party discover the Nepean RiverAustralia source
1789July 10 – Alexander Mackenzie reaches the Mackenzie River Delta.source
178910 July – Scottish explorer Alexander Mackenzie reaches the Mackenzie River delta in North America.Scotland source
1789Peggy of Castletown, Isle of Man, the world's oldest surviving private yacht, is built.source
1789The first version of a graphic description of a slave ship (the Brookes) is issued on behalf of the English Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade.source
1789David Thompson learns surveying from Philip Turnor.Canada source
1789Alexander Mackenzie journeys to the Beaufort Sea, following what would later be named the Mackenzie River.Canada source
17891789–93 – Alexander Mackenzie of Canada, seeking northern river route to the Pacific, travels to the Arctic Ocean; on second journey he crosses continent by land, making contact with many tribes.Canada source
1789Charles Dibdin introduces the nautical song Tom Bowling in his London entertainment The Oddities.United Kingdom source
1790January 30 – The first boat specialized as a rescue lifeboat is tested on the River Tyne in England.source
1790March – Norwegian merchants meet Gustaf Mauritz Armfelt, as representative of King Gustav III of Sweden, to discuss military hjelp from Sweden to end the Danish-Norwegian union, at Eda, Sweden.Norway source
179017 April – In order to replenish the supplies lost with the Sirius, Phillip sends the colony's only remaining ship (HMS Supply) to Batavia.Australia source
1790April–May – Josiah Wedgwood shows off his first reproductions of the Portland Vase.United Kingdom source
17903 June – The Lady Juliana arrives in Port Jackson – the first ship to land on Australian soil since the First Fleet. Much to the colonists' despair, she contains no fresh supplies, only more convicts.Australia source
179018 October – HMS Supply returns from Batavia with more supplies.Australia source
1790December 10 – The Hawkesbury and Nepean Wars begin in New South Wales, Australia, as a result of deterioration in relations and increasing colonization.source
1790British Captain George Vancouver begins his three-year survey of northwest coast of North America .Canada source
1791March 2 – A mechanical semaphore line for rapid long-distance communication is demonstrated by Claude Chappe in Paris.source
1791March – Philip Gidley King returns to Norfolk Island from Britain and resumes command from Robert Ross.Australia source
1791April 29–May 8 – The first American ships reach Japan, brigantine Lady Washington captained by John Kendrick of Boston, and the brig Grace.source
179121 June – foundation of the Ordnance Survey to undertake official mapping.United Kingdom source
179118 August – Richard Bowen enters and names Jervis Bay aboard the Atlantic.Australia source
17911791–95 – British Captain George Vancouver explores Northwest Coast exhaustively with two ships, but finds no Northwest Passage.Canada source
1791George Vancouver leaves England to explore the west coast; Alejandro Malaspina also explores the northwest coast for Spain.Canada source
1791Jens Holmboe starts organized settling to the uninhabited Målselvdalen, from the Gudbrand Valley and Østerdalen.Norway source
1791Pale of Settlement establishedRussia source
1791Agriculturalist Sir John Sinclair imports ewes of Cheviot sheep from the Northumberland/Scottish Borders to Caithness and Sutherland where they will form the basis of the North Country Cheviot breed.Scotland source
179223 April – The French d'Entrecasteaux expedition, consisting of frigates Recherche and Espérance, land at Recherche Bay, Tasmania to rewater and rest.Australia source
1792May 11 – Robert Gray's Columbia River expedition: Captain Robert Gray, on the Columbia Rediviva, becomes the first white man to discover the mouth of the Columbia River.source
1792May 11 – Robert Gray's Columbia River expedition: Captain Robert Gray becomes the first explorer to enter the Columbia River.United States source
179216 May – Denmark declares transatlantic slave trade illegal after 1803 (though slavery continues until 1848)Denmark source
179228 May – d'Entrecasteaux expedition leaves Tasmania and sails into the Pacific to search for La Pérouse.Australia source
1792September – Macartney Embassy: George Macartney, 1st Earl Macartney, sails from Portsmouth in HMS Lion as the first official envoy from Great Britain to China.source
1792October 29 – Mount Hood (Oregon) is named after British Admiral Lord Hood by Lt. William Broughton of the Vancouver Expedition, who spots the mountain near the mouth of the Willamette River.source
1792December – d'Entrecasteaux expedition makes land near Cape Leeuwin and explores south coast of Western Australia.Australia source
1792James Johnstone establishes that Vancouver Island is an island.source
1792Many Black Loyalists in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia migrate to Sierra Leone in West Africa, mainly because the promises of land in Canada were not kept by the British.Canada source
1792Captain George Vancouver begins his explorations of the British Columbia Coast.Canada source
1792The trading and shipping company Salve Kallevig & Søn was founded in Arendal.Norway source
1793February 11 – French expedition to Sardinia (Expédition de Sardaigne): A French fleet under admiral Laurent Truguet debarks troops near Cagliari in Sardinia.source
179311 February – French expedition to Sardinia (Expédition de Sardaigne): A French fleet under admiral Laurent Truguet debarks troops near Cagliari in Sardinia.France source
1793February 22 – French expedition to Sardinia: A small French and Corsican force briefly occupies the small Sardinian island of La Maddalena, then withdraws to Corsica. 23-year-old lieutenant Napoleon Buonaparte is second-in-command.source
179328 February – d'Entrecasteaux expedition leaves Tasmania towards the Friendly Islands, continuing the search for La Pérouse.Australia source
1793May 25 – French expedition to Sardinia: The last French troops occupying the small Sardinian island of San Pietro surrender to a Spanish fleet.source
1793May – Bennelong and Yemmerrawanne become the first Aboriginal Australians to visit Britain when they land at Falmouth, Cornwall, with Arthur Phillip.Australia source
1793May – Bennelong and Yemmerrawanne become the first Aboriginal Australians to visit Britain, landing at Falmouth, Cornwall, with Arthur Phillip.United Kingdom source
1793July 20 – Scottish explorer Alexander Mackenzie's 1792–1793 Peace River expedition to the Pacific Ocean reaches its goal at Bella Coola, British Columbia, making him the first known person to complete a transcontinental crossing of northern North America.source
179320 July – Stornoway-born explorer Alexander Mackenzie's 1792–1793 Peace River expedition to the Pacific Ocean reaches its goal at Bella Coola, British Columbia, making him the first known person to complete a transcontinental crossing of northern North America.Scotland source
1793The Al Bu Falah move to Abu Dhabi.source
1793HBC Brandon House established on the Assiniboine River, outpost for trade south and southwest to Missouri and Yellowstone.Canada source
1793David Thompson surveys Muskrat Country west of Hudson Bay.Canada source
1793A group of Quakers from Nantucket Island settle at Milford Haven, where they attempt to set up a whaling industry.Wales source
1794February 8 – Wreck of the Ten Sail on Grand Cayman.source
179411 June – Friderich Christian Hager receives a commission as governor of the Danish Gold Coast.Denmark source
1794August 11 – Sveinn Pálsson and two of his companions climb Öræfajökull glacier for the first time.Iceland source
179420 August – A third attempt to cross the Blue Mountains is made, this time led by Henry Hacking; they return on 27th – unsuccessful.Australia source
179415 October – Catholic seminarians forced to leave the English College, Douai, settle at Crook Hall, County Durham.United Kingdom source
1794November – Richard Lovell Edgeworth demonstrates a semaphore line from Donaghadee across the Irish Sea to Portpatrick in Scotland.Ireland source
1794November – Irish inventor Richard Lovell Edgeworth demonstrates a semaphore line from Donaghadee across the Irish Sea to Portpatrick.Scotland source
1794The first road between Sydney and Paramatta is clearedAustralia source
1794Nickajack Expedition, conflict between White frontiersmen and the Chickamauga CherokeeUnited States source
1795July - Ezekiel Hughes, Edward Bebb and others leave Llanbryn-mair on foot, bound for Philadelphia.Wales source
17957 September – HMS Reliance arrives in Sydney. Among the ship's passengers and crew are the Aboriginal Bennelong returning from a visit to England, the surgeon and explorer George Bass, and midshipman Matthew Flinders.Australia source
1795December 28 – Construction of Yonge Street, formerly recognized as the longest street in the world, begins in York, Upper Canada (modern-day Toronto).source
1795Daniel McGinnis discovers the supposed Money Pit on Oak Island, Nova Scotia. (according to one story)source
1795The town of Louisburgh, County Mayo, is established by Lord Altamount of Westport to house Catholic refugees fleeing sectarian conflict in the north of Ireland.Ireland source
1795Society of the United Irishmen members including Theobald Wolfe Tone and Henry Joy McCracken meet at Cavehill to the north of Belfast.Ireland source
1795The Universal British Directory includes the first-ever entry for Merthyr Tydfil.Wales source
1796May 10 – Persian Expedition of 1796: Russian troops storm Derbent.source
1796June 21 – Scottish explorer Mungo Park becomes the first European to reach the Niger River.source
179621 June – Scottish explorer Mungo Park becomes the first European to reach the Niger River.Scotland source
179621 June – explorer Mungo Park becomes the first European to reach the Niger River.United Kingdom source
1796June – George Bass makes an unsuccessful attempt to cross the Blue Mountains. Coal is discovered near Port Stephens.Australia source
1796July 14 – The de Portolá Expedition sets out from San Diego (modern-day San Diego, California) to find the Port of Monterey (modern-day Monterey, California).United States source
1796July 22 – Surveyors of the Connecticut Land Company name an area in Ohio "Cleveland" after Gen. Moses Cleaveland, the superintendent of the surveying party.United States source
179622 December – French fleet, with Wolfe Tone on board, arrives in Bantry Bay, but is unable to land due to contrary winds.Ireland source
1796New Russia trading post established in what is modernly Yakutat, AlaskaRussia source
1796Charles Heath - The Excursion Down the WyeWales source
17979 February – Sydney Cove wrecked off Tasmania. Some of the crew manage to reach Sydney more than 600 km away, leading to the rescue of other members of the crew.Australia source
1797March 5 – Protestant missionaries from the London Missionary Society land in Tahiti, from the Duff (celebrated as Missionary Day in French Polynesia).source
179726 June – HMS Reliance arrives in Sydney from the Cape of Good Hope, carrying stores ordered by Governor John Hunter and 26 merino sheep purchased by Captain Henry Waterhouse and Lieutenant William Kent. Wool pioneer John Macarthur would then acquire his first Merino sheep from them.Australia source
17971 August – Following advice from the master of the Sydney Cove who observed currents and tides while wrecked on Preservation Island, Governor Hunter writes to Joseph Banks that it seems certain that the yet-to-be-discovered Bass Strait exists.Australia source
179721 August: Sveinn Pálsson climbs Hekla for the second time.Iceland source
17973 December – George Bass sets out from Sydney in a whaleboat with six oarsmen to explore south along the coast. He discovers the Kiama Blowhole (6 December) and the Shoalhaven River (7 December), he also visits Jervis Bay, and named Twofold Bay on 19 December, Wilson's Promontory (2 January 1798) and Western Port (5 January). He returns to Sydney two months later, having greatly increased the settlers' knowledge of the geography of Australia.Australia source
179826 January – The koala and lyrebird are observed by John Price on an expedition led by John Wilson.Australia source
179825 February – John Hunter names Bass Strait in honour of George Bass.Australia source
1798May 9 – Napoleon sets off for Toulon, sailing aboard Vice-Admiral Brueys's flagship L'Orient; his squadron is part of a larger fleet of over 300 vessels, carrying almost 37,000 troops.source
179814 May – HMS Nautilus arrives in Sydney, carrying missionaries from the London Missionary Society .Australia source
1798June/August - Clogwyn Du'r Arddu is climbed by Peter Bailey Williams and William Bingley, botanists looking for alpine plants on Snowdon.Wales source
1798July 7 – In the action of USS Delaware vs La Croyable, the newly-formed United States Navy makes its first capture.source
17987 October – George Bass and Matthew Flinders leave Sydney to explore Van Diemen's Land on the Norfolk.Australia source
1798November 8 – British whaler John Fearn becomes the first European to land on Nauru.source
1798November 28 – Trade between the United States and modern-day Uruguay begins when John Leamy's frigate John arrives in Montevideo.source
179810 December – HMS Colossus, returning from the French Revolutionary Wars, runs aground off Samson, Isles of Scilly. There is only one casualty but antiquities being shipped to England by Sir William Hamilton are lost.United Kingdom source
1798David Thompson travels to Mandan villages and charts headwaters of Mississippi River.Canada source
1798The first recorded excavations at Stonehenge – among the first serious work in archaeology anywhere – are made by William Cunnington and Sir Richard Colt Hoare.United Kingdom source
17997 January – Bass and Flinders complete their circumnavigation of Van Diemen's Land in sloop Norfolk.Australia source
17998 July – Matthew Flinders leaves Port Jackson to explore the East coast in sloop Norfolk; he surveys Moreton Bay between the 15th and 31st and charts Hervey Bay on 2 August. He returns to Sydney on 20 August.Australia source
1799July 15 – In the Egyptian port city of Rosetta, French Captain Pierre Bouchard finds the Rosetta Stone.source
1799July/August – Iolo Morganwg travels to North Wales to collect material for the Myvyrian Archaiology.Wales source
1799Conrad John Reed, 12, finds what he describes as a "heavy yellow rock" along Little Meadow Creek in Cabarrus County, North Carolina, and makes it a doorstop in his home. Conrad's father John Reed learns that the rock is actually gold in 1802, initiating the first gold rush in the United States.source
1799George Vancouver's Journeys to the North Pacific Ocean published in LondonCanada source
1799Alexander Baranov establishes Russian post known today as Old Sitka; trade charter grants exclusive trading rights to the Russian American Company.Canada source
1799Italian and Swiss expedition of 1799Russia source
179915–19 August – A combined French and Spanish fleet stands off the south west coast of England.United Kingdom source
1799Baptist leader and colonist Morgan John Rhys moves to Somerset County, Pennsylvania.Wales source