Geopolitics & Diplomacy in the 18th century

750 sourced entries, 1700 CE to 1799 CE, oldest first. Also see Geopolitics & Diplomacy across every century or everything else in the 18th century.

1700March 24 – The Treaty of London is signed between France, England and the Dutch Republic.source
1700May – In Rhode Island (American colony), Walter Clarke, three-term former Governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, is elected deputy governor for the second time, serving under his brother-in-law Samuel Cranston.source
1700August 18 (August 7 O.S.) – The Peace of Travendal is concluded between the Swedish Empire, Denmark–Norway and Holstein-Gottorp in Traventhal. On the same day, Augustus II, King of Poland, and Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia, enter the war against Sweden.source
1700December 28 – Laurence Hyde, 1st Earl of Rochester, Lord President of the Council in charge of the Privy Council, is appointed to the additional job of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the highest Crown official in charge of administration of Ireland.source
1700December 30 (December 19, O.S.) – The 4th Parliament of King William III in England is dissolved and new elections are ordered by the King.source
1701January 18 – The electorate of Brandenburg–Prussia becomes the Kingdom of Prussia, as Elector Frederick III is proclaimed King Frederick I. Prussia remains part of the Holy Roman Empire. It consists of Brandenburg, Pomerania and East Prussia. Berlin is the capital.source
1701February 17 (February 6, 1700 O.S.) – The 5th Parliament of William III in England assembles. Future British Prime Minister Robert Walpole enters the House of Commons for the first time and soon makes his name as a spokesman for Whig policy.source
1701April 20th – Mecklenburg-Strelitz is created as a north German duchy.source
1701June 24 – The Act of Settlement 1701 is passed by the Parliament of England, to exclude the Catholic Stuarts from the British monarchy. Under its terms, King William III, childless, will be succeeded by Queen Mary II's sister Princess Anne and her descendants. If Anne should have no descendants, she will be succeeded by Sophia of Hanover and her descendants (hence the Hanoverian Succession in 1714).source
1701July 24 – A French emporium named Fort Ponchartrain is founded along the west side of the Detroit River in North America, and later becomes the site of the city of Detroit.source
1701August 4 – The Great Peace of Montreal is signed, ending 100 years of war between the Iroquois Confederacy and New France, and its Huron and Algonquian allies. Formerly allied with the English, the treaty assures the Iroquois will be neutral, if France and England ever resume hostilities.source
1701November 11 (O.S., November 22 N.S.) – The House of Commons of England is dissolved by King William III and new elections are called for all 531 seats.source
1702The Delaware Colony legislature is separated from that of Pennsylvania.source
1703May 26 – Portugal joins the Grand Alliance.source
1703May 27 (May 16 OS) – The city of Saint Petersburg, Russia is founded, following Peter the Great's reconquest of Ingria from Sweden during the Great Northern War.source
1703June 15 – Rákóczi's War of Independence: Hungarians rebel under Prince Francis II Rákóczi.source
1703September 7 – War of the Spanish Succession: The town of Breisach is retaken for France by Camille d'Hostun, duc de Tallard.source
1703November 30 – Isaac Newton is elected president of the Royal Society of London, a position he will hold until his death in 1727.source
1703December 27 – Portugal and England sign the Methuen Treaty, which gives preference to Portuguese wines imported into England.source
1703December 28 – Ahmed III succeeds the deposed Mustafa II as Ottoman Emperor.source
1704October 24 – A peace treaty is signed between Prince Ferenc Rákóczi of Transylvania, and representatives of the Holy Roman Emperor, Leopold I at Schemnitz (now Banská Štiavnica, Slovakia)source
1704The lower three counties of the Province of Pennsylvania become the colony of Delaware.source
1705March 14 – Queen Anne gives royal assent to the Parliament of England's Alien Act 1705, setting a deadline of December 25, 1705, for Scotland's parliament to authorize negotiations for a Treaty of Union with England to create the Kingdom of Great Britain and threatening that unless Scotland agrees to negotiate terms for union and accepts the Hanoverian succession by December 25, there would be a ban on the import of all Scottish staple products into England and Scots would also lose the privileges of Englishmen under English law – thus endangering rights to any property they held in England.source
1705April 5 – Anne, Queen of England dissolves the English House of Commons that had been elected in 1702, and orders new elections.source
1705May 7 – 1705 English general election: Voting begins for 110 constituencies of the 513-member House of Commons of England (including Wales)source
1705June 6 – Voting ends in the English general election, with the Tories retaining their majority in the House of Commons but losing 38 seats, while the Whigs gain 49 seats. The balance in the 513 seats is 260 for the Tories, 233 for the Whigs, 20 for other candidates.source
1705June 20 – The Pact of Genoa is signed by representatives of England and the Spanish Principality of Catalonia as a military alliance providing for English troops to be stationed in Catalonia as part of the War of Spanish Succession.source
1705July 11 – José de Grimaldo, the Marquis of Grimaldo, becomes the head of government of Spain after being appointed by King Philip V as the Secretary of the Universal Bureau.source
1705July 14 – The newly-elected 2nd Parliament of Queen Anne in England, last to serve before the union with Scotland that produces Great Britain, is opened by the Queen.source
1705September 17 – First Javanese War of Succession: On the island of Java in the Dutch East Indies (modern-day Indonesia), Pakubuwono I becomes the new Sultan of Martaram, capturing Kartosuro and deposing Sultan Amangkurat III.source
1705September 20 – Francis II Rákóczi is proclaimed as the ruler of Hungary by independence activists in Szécsény who are opposed to the rule of the Habsburg successor to Leopold I, the Holy Roman emperor Joseph I.source
1705November 28 – The Treaty of Warsaw is concluded between the Swedish Empire and the faction of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth loyal to Stanisław Leszczyński during the Great Northern War.source
1705November – In Williamsburg, capital of the Colony of Virginia in America, construction of the Capitol Building is completed.source
1705December 21 – The Sophia Naturalization Act is passed by the Parliament of England, which naturalizes Sophia of Hanover (next in succession to the British throne) and the Protestant "issue of her body" as British subjects.source
1706March 27 – Concluding that Emperor Iyasus I of Ethiopia has abdicated by retiring to a monastery, a council of high officials appoint Tekle Haymanot I Emperor of Ethiopia.source
1706March 31 – The last Courts (parliament) of the Principality of Catalonia are finished; their dissolution is presided over by King Philip V of Spain.source
1706July 22 – The Treaty of Union between Scotland and England is agreed upon in London, for ratification by the national legislatures.source
1706October 13 – Augustus II, known as August der Starke (Augustus the Strong), Elector of Saxony, having ruled as King of Poland since 1706, signs the Treaty of Altranstädt (1706), renouncing all claims to the throne to settle his fight with Sweden during the Great Northern War.source
1706November 4 – The Parliament of Scotland votes, 116 to 83, to approve the merger of Scotland with England to form the Kingdom of Great Britain.source
1706December 31 – François Martin, the first Governor General of French India (now part of India's union territory of Puducherry), retires after seven years and is replaced by Pierre Dulivier.source
1707January 16 – The Treaty (or Act) of Union, of the two Kingdoms of Scotland and England, is ratified by the Parliament of Scotland by a vote of 110 to 68.source
1707February 15 – As part of the process of the unification of Scotland and England as Great Britain, Scotland selects 16 members to sit in the House of Lords at the Palace of Westminster.source
1707March 19 – The Act of Union with Scotland is ratified by the Parliament of England; the Parliament of Scotland is adjourned for the last time on May 1, 1707.source
1707May 12 (May 1 Old Style) – The new sovereign state of Great Britain comes into being, as a result of the Acts of Union, which combine the Kingdoms of Scotland and England into a single united Kingdom of Great Britain, and merge the Parliaments of England and Scotland, to form the Parliament of Great Britain.source
1707June 13 – On Francis II Rákóczi's recommendation, and with Count Miklos Bercsényi's support, a meeting of the Hungarian independence activists, held at the village of Ónod declares the deposing of the House of Habsburg (and Joseph I, King of Hungary) from the Hungarian throne.source
1707September 14 – Vincenzo Durazzo is elected to a 2-year term as the new Doge of the Republic of Genoa (including the island of Corsica), succeeding the outgoing Doge, Domenico Maria De Mari.source
1707October 23 – The Parliament of the Kingdom of Great Britain first meets in London.source
1707The English Parliament establishes the first turnpike trusts, which place a length of road under the control of trustees, drawn from local landowners and traders. The trusts borrow capital for road maintenance against the security of tolls, and this arrangement becomes the common method of road maintenance for the next 150 years.source
1708July 1 – Tewoflos becomes Emperor of Ethiopia.source
1709April 13 – The Raudot Ordinance of 1709 becomes law in the French colony of New France, legalizing slavery.source
1709June 28 – A treaty is signed in Dresden to re-establish an alliance between the Kingdoms of Denmark–Norway and the Electorate of Saxony, on behalf of King Frederik IV of Denmark–Norway and Saxony's King Augustus II.source
1709July 27 – Japan's Emperor Higashiyama abdicates after a reign of 23 years that began in 1687, and is succeeded by his son Yoshihito, who is enthroned as the Emperor Nakamikado.source
1709December 25 – From London, ten ships leave for the New York Colony carrying over 4,000 people.source
1710January 1 – In Prussia, Cölln is merged with Alt-Berlin by Frederick I to form Berlin.source
1710February 17 – Mauritius, a Dutch colony since 1638, is abandoned by the Dutch.source
1710April 5 – Pylyp Orlyk, a Cossack of Ukraine, is elected as the Hetman of the Zaporizhian Host and immediately issues the Pacts and Constitutions of Rights and Freedoms of the Zaporizhian Host.source
1710June 8 – The Tuscarora nation sends a petition to the Province of Pennsylvania, protesting the seizure of their lands and enslavement of their people, by citizens of the Province of Carolina.source
1711April 13 – The Treaty of the Lutsk, a secret agreement between the Tsardom of Russia and the Ottoman Protectorate of Moldavia is signed in Lutsk, Poland-Lithuania (modern-day Ukraine).source
1711June 18 – King Louis XIV becomes the longest-reigning monarch in the world, surpassing the previous record of 68 years set by Kʼinich Janaabʼ Pakal in 683. As of 2022, Louis XIV still holds this record.source
1711July 11 – The town of São Paulo, Brazil, is elevated to city status.source
1711July 21 – The Treaty of the Pruth is signed between the Ottoman Empire and Russia, ending the Pruth River Campaign.source
1711December 7 – In the Parliament of Great Britain the Earl of Nottingham successfully proposes a "No Peace Without Spain" amendment.source
1711December 12 – A constitution is approved for the Academy of Sciences of the Institute of Bologna, which had been founded in 1690.source
1712May 19 – Peter the Great moves the capital of Russia from Moscow to Saint Petersburg.source
1712August 1 – The Stamp Act 1712 is passed in the United Kingdom, imposing a tax on publishers, particularly of newspapers.source
1712August 11 – The Peace of Aarau is signed by Catholics and Protestants, ending the Toggenburg War and establishing Protestant dominance in Switzerland, while preserving the rights of Catholics.source
1712After many years of settlement, the Town on Queen Anne's Creek is established as a courthouse for Chowan County, North Carolina. The town is renamed Edenton in 1720, and incorporated in 1722.source
1712John Arbuthnot creates the character of John Bull to represent Britain.source
1713March 27 – First Treaty of Utrecht between Great Britain and Spain: Philip V is accepted by Britain and Austria as king of Spain; Spain cedes Gibraltar and Menorca to Britain.source
1713April 11 – The Second Treaty of Utrecht between Great Britain and France ends the War of the Spanish Succession. France cedes Newfoundland, Acadia, Hudson Bay and St Kitts to Great Britain.source
1713May 1 – As part of the Treaty of Utrecht, the Spanish Crown agrees the Asiento de Negros with Anne, Queen of Great Britain, granting a subsidiary of the British South Sea Company, the Real Asiento de Inglaterra, a 30-year monopoly in the supply of African slaves to colonial Spanish America.source
1713May 6 – The Parliament of Ireland is dissolved by Queen Anne and new elections are set.source
1713June 23 – French residents of Acadia are given one year to declare allegiance to Great Britain, or leave Nova Scotia.source
1713July 9 – The Junta de Braços (parliament) of the Principality of Catalonia votes in favour of staying in the War of the Spanish Succession against Philip V of Spain. Army of Catalonia raised.source
1713July 13 – The Treaty of Portsmouth brings an end to Queen Anne's War.source
1713August 8 – The Parliament of Great Britain, third since the Act of Union, is dissolvedsource
1713August 22 – Voting begins in the 1713 British general election in various constituencies and continues to November 12source
1713October 6 – The Treaty of Schwedt is signed between Russia and Brandenburg-Prussia, with the latter accepting the annexation of Baltic territories and paying Russia expenses in return for the southern part of Pomerania, recently taken from Sweden in the Great Northern War.source
1713November 12 – The 1713 British general election concludes with the conservative Tories winning 358 of the 558 available seats in the House of Commons, and the liberal Whigs having 200.source
1713December 9 – As part of the agreements made at Utrecht to end the War of the Spanish Succession, Great Britain and Spain sign a treaty of commerce and navigation.source
1713December 21 – Victor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy is crowned King of Sicily at Palermo, and his wife Anne Marie is crowned as Queen consort. The coronation follows Spain's recognition of Sicilian independence, effective September 22, as part of the Treaty of Utrecht.source
1713San Basilio de Palenque officially becomes the first free African town in America, being the first independent place in America from Europeans.source
1714March 7 – The Treaty of Rastatt is signed between Austria and France, concluding the War of the Spanish Succession between them. Austria receives the Spanish territories in Italy (the Kingdom of Naples, Duchy of Milan and Kingdom of Sardinia), as well as the Southern Netherlands; and from France, Freiburg and Landau. The Austrian Habsburg Empire reaches its largest territorial extent yet, with Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor succeeding Philip V of Spain, as ruler in the ceded territories.source
1714April 11 – France signs five separate treaties— with Great Britain, the Netherlands, Portugal, Prussia and Savoy— to end hostilities in the War of the Spanish Succession following the negotiations of the Peace of Utrecht.source
1714June 26 – Spain and the Netherlands sign a peace treaty to end hostilities between those two nations in the War of the Spanish Succession.source
1714September 18 – George I, the new King of Great Britain and Ireland, arrives in Britain for the first time in his life, after having departed Hannover and sailing from the Netherlands.source
1714October 24 – Four Dutch investors, led by brothers Nicolaas and Hendrik van Hoorn, purchase the South American colony of Berbice from French mercenary Jacques Cassard, who had captured the colony from the Van Peere family. A century later, in 1815, the land is ceded to Great Britain and later merged with neighboring colonies to form what is now Guyana.source
1714November 30 – King Philip V of Spain issues a decree reorganizing the Spanish government to create four ministries, with the Secretary of State being the chief minister, predecessor to the office of Prime Minister of Spain. José de Grimaldo becomes the first person to have the chief ministry.source
1715January 22 – Voting begins for the British House of Commons and continues for the next 46 days in different constituencies on different days.source
1715February 11 – Tuscarora War: The Tuscarora and their allies sign a peace treaty with the Province of North Carolina, and agree to move to a reservation near Lake Mattamuskeet, effectively ending the Tuscarora War. Large numbers of Tuscarora subsequently move to New York.source
1715March 9 – Voting for the British House of Commons concludes, with the liberal Whig Party winning 341 of the 558 seats, and reducing the conservative Tory Party share to 217 seats. Spencer Compton, the Earl of Wilmington, becomes the Speaker of the House of Commons.source
1715March 27 – Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, flees from Great Britain to France. His part in secret negotiations with France, leading to the Treaty of Utrecht, has cast suspicion on him in the eyes of the Whig government of Britain. He becomes secretary of state to the Pretender, James Edward Stuart.source
1715June 9 – King Philip, ruler of the Crown of Castile and the Crown of Aragon unifies the two monarchies into a single state, centralizing rule of a unified Kingdom of Spain.source
1715October 12 – Baron Onslow resigns as Great Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer and is replaced by future Prime Minister Robert Walpole.source
1715October 28 – The Treaty of Greifswald is signed between Russia and the Electorate of Hanover, with George I of Great Britain and Hanover agreeing to Russia's annexation of Swedish Ingria and Estonia, and Hanover claiming the Bremen-Verden Swedish duchies of Bremen and Verden.source
1715November 15 – The Third Barrier Treaty is signed by Britain, the Holy Roman Empire and the Dutch Republic.source
1715November 28 – The application of the Nueva Planta decrees, in Mallorca and the other Balearic Islands (formerly under the Crown of Aragon), bring them under the laws of the Crown of Castile.source
1715The ancient right to evaluate royal decrees publicly, before they are given the force of law by the Parlement of Paris, is restored.source
1716January 16 – The application of the Nueva Planta decrees to Catalonia make it subject to the laws of the Crown of Castile, and abolishes the Principality of Catalonia as a political entity, concluding the unification of Spain under Philip V.source
1716June 25 – With the Holy Roman Empire having been ceded the "Southern Netherlands" (modern Belgium) from Spain, Prince Eugene of Savoy arrives in Brussels as the first Governor-General of the Austrian Netherlands. Eugene soon returns home and leaves administration of the area to a dictatorial Hercule-Louis Turinetti.source
1716July 5 – Prince Ernest Augustus is created Duke of York and Albany, in the peerage of Great Britain.source
1716November 1 – Two new laws go into effect in the Highlands of Scotland to prevent a threat to Britain's ruling House of Hanover by the Jacobites who supported the restoration of the House of Stuart. The Disarming Act requires government authorisation to carry swords and firearms, and the amendments to the Treason Act 1714 permit trials for treason to take place in any court in England, regardless of where the crime was committed.source
1717January 4 (December 24, 1716 Old Style) – The kingdoms of Great Britain, France and the Dutch Republic sign the Triple Alliance, in an attempt to maintain the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), Britain having signed a preliminary alliance with France on November 28 (November 17) 1716.source
1717May 27 – Spain creates the Viceroyalty of New Granada in South America from the northern section of the Viceroyalty of Peru. The viceroyalty, with a capital at Bogotá, later declares independence and splits up into what become the nations of Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela.source
1717Murshid Quli Khan declares himself the first Nawab of the Bengal Subah. The Nawabs of Bengal will effectively function as near-sovereign rulers of Bengal while being nominally loyal to the Mughal Empire.source
1718April 4 – Great Britain, France and the Dutch Republic agree on the phasing out of the authority of the House of Medici over the semi-independent Grand Duchy of Tuscany by declaring that Gian Gastone de' Medici will be the last of the Medici family to rule the Italian duchy and that Spain's House of Borbón will eventually control the Tuscan monarchy. Don Carlos of Spain, the two-year old son of King Philip V, is designated as the eventual heir, despite the objections of the 75-year old Grand Duke, Cosimo III de' Medici.source
1718June 16 – The Treaty of Baden is signed, ending the Toggenburg War.source
1718July 21 – The Treaty of Passarowitz, ending the Austro-Turkish War, is signed.source
1718October 31 – The Mughal Emperor of India, Farrukhsiyar, restores the titles and responsibilities of his chief adviser, Mir Jumla III, almost three years after dismissing him.source
1718December 17 – The Holy Roman Empire, Kingdom of Great Britain and Dutch Republic join the Kingdom of France in formally declaring war on Spain, launching the War of the Quadruple Alliance.source
1719February 3 (January 23 Old Style) – The Riksdag of the Estates (the parliament of Sweden) recognizes Ulrika Eleonora's claim to the Swedish throne, after she has agreed to sign a new Swedish constitution. Thus, she is recognized as queen regnant of Sweden.source
1719February 21 – The Riksdag of the Estates in Sweden adopts the Instrument of Government (1719), a constitution which (with slight amendment in 1720) introduces the "Age of Liberty" in the country; it includes limited women's suffrage.source
1719October 28 – Sweden and Denmark-Norway sign an armistice, halting combat in the Great Northern War between them, with final terms agreed to in the Treaty of Frederiksborg on July 3, 1720.source
1719November 9 – Treaties of Stockholm (Great Northern War): In a treaty with Hanover, Sweden cedes the Duchies of Bremen and Verden (in northern Germany) to Hanover.source
1720January 21 – Treaties of Stockholm (Great Northern War): Sweden and Prussia sign a treaty by which part of Swedish Pomerania, including the town of Stettin, is ceded to Prussia.source
1720February 17 – The Treaty of The Hague is signed between Spain, Britain, France, Austria and the Dutch Republic, ending the War of the Quadruple Alliance with effect from May 20.source
1720March 11 (February 29 Old Style) – Queen Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden resigns, to let her husband Frederick I take over as king of Sweden. She had desired a joint rule, in a similar manner to William III and Mary II in Britain, but as the Riksdag of the Estates (Sweden's parliament) refuses this, she abdicates in her husband's favour instead.source
1720April 4 – The Riksdag of the Estates elects Frederick I new King of Sweden.source
1720May 2 – The Riksdag of the Estates in Sweden adopts the Instrument of Government (1720), an amendment of the 1719 constitution continuing the "Age of Liberty" in the country.source
1720May 20 – The Treaty of The Hague, signed between Spain and the Quadruple Alliance (Britain, France, the Netherlands and Austria) on February 17, goes into effect. Spain renounces its claims to the Italian possessions of the French throne, and Austria and the Duchy of Savoy trade Sicily for Sardinia.source
1720June 11 – The British Parliament approves the Bubble Act (officially the Royal Exchange and London Assurance Corporation Act 1719), prohibiting the formation of joint-stock companies without prior approval by royal charter.source
1720July 14 (July 3 O.S.) – The Treaty of Frederiksborg is signed between Denmark–Norway and Sweden, restoring the occupied portion of Swedish Pomerania to Sweden and ending the Great Northern War.source
1721April 4 – Robert Walpole becomes the first Prime Minister of Great Britain (although this is more a term of disparagement at this time).source
1721September 10 (August 23 Old Style) – The Treaty of Nystad is signed, ending the Great Northern War.source
1721October 22 – The Kelantan Sultanate is established at Kelantan Darul Naim (modern-day Kelantan Darul Naim, Malaysia).source
1722February 21 – Nasir-ud-Din Muḥammad Shah, the Grand Mogul of north India's Mughal Empire, names Nizam-ul-Mulk as his Grand Vizier. Three years later, the Nizam will rebel against the Grand Mogul and create his own independent nation as the Nizam of Hyderabad, reigning as Asaf Jah.source
1722May 5 – Pennsylvania colony enacts a statute, requiring all persons importing any person previously convicted of sodomy, to pay £5 for each such incoming person.source
1722May 9 – The 1722 British general election (began March 19) closes with Prime Minister Robert Walpole's Whig Party increasing its majority in the House of Commons of Great Britain, capturing 48 additional seats from the Tory Party and having a 389 to 169 advantage.source
1722Peter the Great of Russia creates the Table of Ranks.source
1722Johann Sebastian Bach composes The Well-Tempered Clavier.source
1722Edenton is incorporated as the county seat of Chowan County, North Carolina. The governor and assembly of North Carolina move to Edenton, making it the de facto capital of North Carolina until 1746, when the government is moved to New Bern.source
1723February 15 – King Louis XV of France attains his majority on his 13th birthday, bringing an end to the regency of his cousin Philippe II, Duke of Orléans.source
1723September 1 – The Treaty of Saint Petersburg is signed in Russia, ending the Russo-Persian War (1722–1723).source
1723November 23 – The Province of Carolina charters New Bern as Newbern (the town later becomes the capital of North Carolina until Raleigh is founded).source
1724January 15 – King Philip V of Spain abdicates the throne in favour of his 16-year-old son Louis I.source
1724June 23 – The Treaty of Constantinople is signed, partitioning Persia between the Ottoman Empire and Russia.source
1724July 31 – The Hyderabad State is created in India, as Mughal Emperor Muhammad Shah rewards his associate Mir Qamar-ud-din Khan. Qamar-ud-din becomes the first Nizam of Hyderabad. The princely state exists for more than 220 years, coming to an end after India's independence from Britain.source
1724September 4 – José de Grimaldo, who had been Prime Minister for Spain's King Philip V until the latter's abdication in January, resumes office with the return of King Philip.source
1724December 7 – By order of the Nizam, Hyderabad is made the permanent capital of the Indian princely state of the same name. It becomes capital of the Indian states of Telangana and Andhra Pradeshsource
1724December 14 – The Viceroyalty of Zhili (modern-day Hebei province) is recreated in the Chinese Empire by the Emperor Yongzheng for the first time in 55 years, with Li Weijun as the first Viceory. Zhili exists as a viceroyalty until the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1912.source
1724The Austrian Netherlands agree to the Pragmatic Sanction.source
1725January 15 – James Macrae, a former captain of a freighter for the British East India Company, is hired by the Company to administer the Madras Presidency (at this time, the "Presidency of Fort St. George"), and begins major reforms. The area administered is most of Southern India, including what is now the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, parts the states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Telangana, Odisha and the union territory of Lakshadweep.source
1725January 25 – The Spanish corsair Amaro Pargo receives the title of Hidalgo (nobleman).source
1725April 30 – Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor and King Philip V of Spain sign the Treaty of Vienna.source
1725July 8 – Mattheus de Haan becomes the new Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies (modern-day Indonesia), governing until his death on June 1, 1729 in Batavia (modern Jakarta).source
1725September 16 – The Treaty of Hanover is signed between Great Britain, France and Prussia.source
1725November 5 – The fourth and final treaty of the 1725 Peace of Vienna is signed to create an alliance between Austria and Spain.source
1725December 12 – Johan Willem Ripperda of the Netherlands, the former Dutch Ambassador to Spain, arrives in Madrid and claims that King Philip V has appointed him as the new Prime Minister. The bluff is successful and he is granted authority by the King's advisers, but after four months, he is forced to resign.source
1725December 15 – A treaty is signed by chiefs of four member tribes of the Wabanaki Confederacy (the Abenaki, Pequawket, Mi'kmaq, Maliseet) and representatives of three British provinces in North America (Massachusetts Bay, New Hampshire and Nova Scotia) and their allies, the Mohawk nation, bringing an end to Dummer's War, named for acting Massachusetts Bay Governor William Dummer.source
1726January 26 – The First Treaty of Vienna is signed between Austria, the Holy Roman Empire and Spain, creating the Austro-Spanish Alliance in advance of a war against Great Britain.source
1726February 8 – The Supreme Privy Council is established in Russia.source
1726March 31 – France's first ambassador to Russia, Jacques de Campredon, leaves after four years of trying to negotiate a Franco-Russian alliance with Catherine I and a failed attempt to arrange a marriage between King Louis XV and Catherine's daughter Elizabeth.source
1726May 1 – Voltaire begins his exile in England.source
1726September 14 – The Nanfan Treaty of July 19, 1701 between the Iroquois Confederacy and the British Province of New York, is amended by both parties.source
1726October 1 – Juan Bautista de Orendáin y Azpilicueta is appointed again as Secretary of the Universal Bureau (Secretario del Despacho), the equivalent of the Prime Minister of Spain, after the retirement of José de Grimaldo.source
1726October 5 – Grigore II Ghica becomes the Prince of Moldavia for the first time after Mihai Racoviță steps aside.source
1726Muhammad bin Saud becomes head of the House of Saud.source
1727February 20 – German composer George Frideric Handel becomes a British subject.source
1727May 17 – Peter II of Russia was made Emperor of Russia, eleven years of age.source
1727August 14 – Elections for the House of Commons begin in Great Britain and continue until October 17.source
1727October 17 – With voting for the British House of Commons concluding, the Whigs, led by Sir Robert Walpole, increase their supermajority, winning 415 of the 558 seats. The Tories share of Commons decreases from 169 to 128.source
1727November 21 – The Netherlands signs the Treaty of Seville.source
1727The first Amish move to North America.source
1728June 14 – The Congress of Soissons opens at the French town of Soissons to negotiate a treaty between Great Britain and Spain. The treaty, which is concluded on November 9, 1729, recognizes the Spanish royal family's rule of parts of Italy, and Britain's possession of Gibraltar and Menorca.source
1728June 25 – The Treaty of Kyakhta is signed at the border city of Kyakhta, between Russia and China, by representatives of the Tsar Peter II, and the Emperor Yongzheng.source
1728July 18 – After a reign of only four months, Abdalmalik is deposed as Sultan of Morocco by his half-brother Ahmad ad Dahabi, whom he had deposed on March 13. Abdalmalik is later captured and executed on March 2, 1729.source
1728September 18 – John Deane, a colonial administrator of Britain's British East India Company, returns to Calcutta (Kolkata) after an absence of more than two years, and takes office at Fort William to return to administering the Bengal Presidency, an area now covering the Indian state of West Bengal and the nation of Bangladesh.source
1728December 25 – William Burnet, the British Governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay since July 19, is appointed by King George II to be the Governor of the Province of New Hampshire as well, governing both future U.S. states simultaneously until September 7. Up until July, Burnet had been Governor of both New York and New Jersey since 1720.source
1728Late Summer – Voltaire ends his exile in England.source
1729February 14 – King Philip V of Spain issues a royal cedula, directing an effort to offer incentives to families from the Canary Islands for settlements in New Spain north of the Rio Grande in the modern-day U.S. state of Texas (→ Canarian Americans).source
1729February 24 (February 13 O.S.) – In the city of Resht in Persia, Russian and Afghani leaders sign a peace treaty, with General Vasily Levashev for Russia and Muhammad Saidal Khan for Afghanistan.source
1729April 26 – For the first time in its history, the British House of Commons is adjourned for lack of a quorum. On January 5, 1640, it had first fixed the number of members necessary — 40 — for parliamentary business to be transacted.source
1729May 17 – Caroline, Queen Consort becomes the first person to rule Great Britain as regent under the Regency Acts, beginning service as the acting monarch when her husband King George II departs Britain for Germany, where he is the Elector of Hanover. Caroline rules until George's return in October.source
1729July 25 – Seven of the original eight Lords Proprietor of the Province of Carolina sell their shares back to the British crown. The 1710 division of the Province is made permanent and the area is reorganized into the Royal Colonies of North Carolina and South Carolina.source
1729July 30 – Baltimore, Maryland is founded.source
1729November 9 – The Treaty of Seville is signed between Great Britain, France, Spain and the Dutch Republic.source
1730May 15 – Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend, retires from his role in the government of Great Britain, leaving Robert Walpole as sole and undisputed leader of the Cabinet (i.e., prime minister). In the new Walpole ministry, Sir William Strickland, 4th Baronet, becomes Secretary at War, and Henry Pelham is Paymaster of the Forces; Spencer Compton, 1st Earl of Wilmington briefly becomes Lord Privy Seal.source
1730September 17 – Mahmud I (d. 1754) succeeds Ahmed III (ruled since 1703) as Ottoman Emperor.source
1731March 16 – The Treaty of Vienna is signed between the Holy Roman Empire, Great Britain, the Dutch Republic and Spain.source
1731August 15 – King Frederick William I of Prussia forgives his 19-year-old son, Prince Frederick, who has been confined since November to the town of Küstrin (now Kostrzyn nad Odrą in Poland) for his 1730 attempt to desert from the Prussian Army. Nine years later, having been politically rehabilitated, Prince Frederick succeeds his father as King and is later remembered as "Frederick the Great".source
1731Royal Colony of North Carolina Governor George Burrington asks the North Carolina General Assembly to pass an act establishing a town on the Cape Fear River, in what is seen as a political move to shift the power away from the powerful Cape Fear plantation class. The town is laid out in 1733, and incorporated as Wilmington in 1740.source
1732January 21 – Russia and Persia sign the Treaty of Riascha at Resht. Based on the terms of the agreement, Russia will no longer establish claims over Persian territories.source
1732February 25 – John Stackhouse is appointed by the British East India Company as the new President of the Bengal Presidency and serves for seven years.source
1732March 19 – Chamaraja Wodeyar VII becomes the new Maharaja of the Kingdom of Mysore in Southern India, now the state of Karnataka and parts of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.source
1732March 30 – MPs John Birch and Denis Bond are expelled from the House of Commons of Great Britain after using their positions on the Commission for Forfeited Lands to make fraudulent sales.source
1732May 10 – Representatives of the heirs of William Penn and of Lord Baltimore, the respective owners of most of the land in the Province of Pennsylvania and the Province of Maryland set out the boundary between the two future U.S. states after a survey determines that Philadelphia is located on the Maryland side of the border. The dispute eventually leads to a lawsuit and the eventual survey by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon to determine the Mason–Dixon line.source
1732May 13 – Rebels in Corsica agree to allow the Republic of Genoa to resume its administration of the island in return for amnesty and promised reforms.source
1732May 28 – Dirck van Cloon becomes the new Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia).source
1732June 9 – James Oglethorpe is granted a royal charter for the colony of Georgia.source
1732September 13 – The Treaty of the Three Black Eagles or the Treaty of Berlin, a secret treaty between the Austrian Empire, the Russian Empire and Prussia against the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.source
1732December 5 – 139 members of the Parlement of Paris, exiled by order of King Louis XV, secure their recall.source
1733April 6 – Royal Colony of North Carolina Commissioners John Watson, Joshua Grainger, Michael Higgins and James Wimble begin selling lots for the town of New Carthage (which is later renamed and is now Wilmington, North Carolina), on the east side of the Cape Fear River.source
1733May 1 – The canton system is first introduced in Prussia.source
1733May 17 – The Molasses Act receives royal assent and begins to go into effect on June 24.source
1733May 29 – The right of Canadians to keep Indian slaves is upheld at Quebec.source
1733June 15 – The Danish West India Company buys the island of Saint Croix from France for 750,000 livres.source
1733July 30 – The first Freemasons lodge, the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, opens in what will become the United States of America.source
1733August 19 – In Warsaw as Stanislas Leszczynski appears to be on the verge of being elected King of Poland, Russia, Austria and Saxony sign Löwenwolde's Treaty (named for Russian diplomat Karl Gustav von Löwenwolde), pledging to go to war to place Frederick Augustus, son of the late King Augustus II, on the throne.source
1733September 12 – Stanislas Leszczynski, who had been King of Poland from 1704 to 1709 until being driven from the throne by King Augustus II, is returned to office by the vote of the Sejm. Russia and Austria protest the election, since King Stanislaus is backed by France and Sweden.source
1733September 26 – The Treaty of Turin is signed in Turin as a secret agreement between King Louis XV of France and King Charles Emmanuel III of Sardinia.source
1733November 23 – The 1733 slave insurrection on St. John begins: Slaves from Akwamu rebel against their owners in the Danish West Indies.source
1733December 19 – Unsuccessful in capturing Baghdad from the Ottoman Empire, Persia's ruler Nader Shah signs the Treaty of Baghdad with the Ottoman Governor, Ahmad Khan Pasha, with the Turks and the Iranians agreeing to restore the boundary between the two empires to the lines before the 1732 Ottoman invasion of Iran.source
1734February 16 – The Ostend Company, established in 1722 in the Austrian Netherlands (modern-day Belgium) to compete for trade in the West Indies (the Caribbean islands) and the East Indies (south and southeast Asia), ceases business as part of the agreement by Austria in the Second Treaty of Vienna.source
1734May 27 – French and Swiss troops suppress the slave insurrection in the Danish West Indies on the island of Saint John (part of the modern-day U.S. Virgin Islands) after six months and restore control of the plantations to the Danish owners.source
1734June 6 – With the conclusion of the British general election (voting having begun in some constituencies on April 22), the Whigs, led by Prime Minister Robert Walpole, lose 85 seats but retain their majority.source
1734September 28 – Abdu'llah bin Ismail as-Samin is deposed after a 15-year reign as Sultan of Morocco.source
1734November 5 – The Dzików Confederation is created in Poland.source
1734Creation of the Kanem–Bornu Empire after Kanem is taken over by the Sultan of Bornu.source
1735March 10 – The Russian Empire and Persia sign the Treaty of Ganja, with Russia ceding territories in the Caucasus mountains to Persia, and the two rivals forming a defensive alliance against the Ottoman Empire.source
1735April 13 – Emperor Sakuramachi accedes to the throne of Japan.source
1735September 22 – Sir Robert Walpole, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, becomes the first British premier to move into London's 10 Downing Street.source
1735October 18 – In China, Qianlong succeeds his father, Yongzheng, as Emperor and begins a 60-year-long reign within the Qing dynasty.source
1736January 23 – The Civil Code of 1734 is passed in Sweden.source
1736January 26 – Stanisław Leszczyński abdicates the throne of Poland, ending his second reign.source
1736April 14 – German adventurer Theodor Stephan Freiherr von Neuhoff is crowned King Theodore of Corsica, 25 days after his arrival on Corsica on March 20. His reign ends on November 5 when he flees the island.source
1736November 5 – King Theodore of Corsica flees the island after a reign of seven months and the kingdom reverts to Genoese control.source
1736Neustrelitz becomes the capital of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.source
1737January 5 – Spain and the Holy Roman Empire sign instruments of cession at Pontremoli in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in Italy, with the Empire receiving control of Tuscany and the Grand Duchy of Parma and Piacenza, in return for Don Carlos of Spain being recognized as King of Naples and King of Sicily.source
1737January 9 – The Empires of Austria and Russia enter into a secret military alliance that leads to Austria's disastrous entry into the Russo-Turkish War.source
1737January 18 – In Manila, a peace treaty is signed between Spain's Governor-General of the Philippines, Fernándo Valdés y Tamon, and the Sultan Azim ud-Din I of Sulu, recognizing Azim's authority over the islands of the Sulu Archipelago.source
1737February 20 – France's Foreign Minister, Germain Louis Chauvelin, is dismissed by King Louis XV's Chief Minister, Cardinal André-Hercule de Fleurysource
1737December – John Wesley leaves Savannah, Georgia, and returns to England.source
1738November 18 – The Treaty of Vienna is ratified, ending the War of the Polish Succession. Under the terms of the treaty, Stanisław Leszczyński receives Lorraine in exchange for renouncing the Polish throne.source
1738Rémy Martin is granted exclusive permission by King Louis XV to plant new vineyards, for impressing him with the quality of his cognac.source
1739July 12 – The British East India Company signs a treaty with the Maratha Empire to gain the right of free trade within the territory.source
1739August 20 – The Viceroyalty of New Granada, incorporating modern-day Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela is re-established by the royal cedula of King Philip V of Spain, 16 years after it had been dissolved, and adds the territory of Panama as well.source
1739September 18 – The Treaty of Belgrade brings the Austro-Russian–Turkish War (1735–39) to an end.source
1739October 3 – The Treaty of Niš is signed.source
1739Ecuador, part of Real Audiencia of Quito, becomes a part of New Granada, instead of Peru.source
1740March 16 – King Edward of the Miskito Indians signs a treaty making his kingdom, located on the coast of modern-day Nicaragua, a protectorate of Great Britain.source
1740June 1 – Plantation Act 1740 or Naturalization Act 1740 of the Parliament of Great Britain comes into effect providing for Protestant alien immigrants (including Huguenots, and also Jews) residing in the American colonies for 7 years to receive British nationality.source
1741January 13 – Lanesborough, Massachusetts is created as a township.source
1741February 13 – Sir Robert Walpole, the prime minister of Great Britain, popularizes the term "the balance of power" in a speech in Parliament.source
1741June 11 – 1741 British general election, begun on April 30, concludes with Prime Minister Robert Walpole's Whigs retaining their majority in the House of Commons but losing 44 seats to candidates who have defected to the new Patriot Whigs to oppose his policies.source
1741October 12 – George II, as Elector of Hanover, signs the Neustadt Protocol with France, but fails to inform his British government until after his return from Germany.source
1741December 7 – War of the Austrian Succession: Charles Albert of Bavaria has himself proclaimed King of Bohemia.source
1742January 9 – Robert Walpole is made Earl of Orford, and resigns as First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, effectively ending his period as Prime Minister of Great Britain. On his formally relinquishing office five days later, he will have served 20 years and 314 days as Prime Minister, the longest single term ever, and also longer than the accumulated terms of any other British Prime Minister.source
1742January 28? – The House of Commons of Great Britain votes on the alleged rigging of the Chippenham by-election. It becomes a motion of no confidence, which leads to the resignation of Robert Walpole.source
1742February 16 – Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington, becomes Prime Minister of Great Britain.source
1742March 15 – Denmark-Norway concludes a treaty of friendship with France, a day after the expiration of its 1739 treaty with Great Britain.source
1742March 15 – The Verendrye brothers take possession of South Dakota in the name of the King of France.source
1742October 5 – Pennsylvania's Colonial Governor George Thomas bars citizens from settling in Lancaster County, or west of the Blue Mountains.source
1742October 5 – Pedro Cebrian y Agustin, Count of Fuenclara, arrives at Veracruz to become the new Spanish Viceroy of New Spain.source
1742The Afghan tribes unite as a monarchy.source
1743January 8 – King Augustus III of Poland, acting in his capacity as Elector of Saxony, signs an agreement with Austria, pledging help in war in return for part of Silesia to be conveyed to Saxony.source
1743January 23 – With mediation by France, Sweden and Russia begin peace negotiations at Åbo (Turku) to end the Russo-Swedish War. By August 17, Sweden cedes all of its claims to southern Finland.source
1743July 28 – France and the Allies of Britain conclude a treaty to provide care for each other's wounded.source
1743July 31 – At a summit in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the British colonies of Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania conclude a treaty with the Six Nations, conceding that the member tribes are entitled to the territory west of the Appalachian mountains and north of the Ohio River.source
1743August 18 (August 7 Old Style) – Russia and Sweden sign the Treaty of Åbo.source
1743August 27 – Henry Pelham becomes Prime Minister of Great Britain.source
1743September 13 – The Treaty of Worms is signed between Great Britain, Austria and Sardinia.source
1744May 22 – The Union of Germany is proclaimed in Frankfurt Frederick II of Prussia, as articles of union are signed between Prussia, Hesse-Kassel and the Rhineland Palatinate.source
1744October 25 – The Massachusetts General Court, colonial legislature for the Massachusetts Bay Province, approves an incentive for the killing of enemy Indians, authorizing the payment of 100 Massachusetts pounds for the scalping of a Mi'kmaq or Maliseet Indian, and 50 for the scalps of women or children.source
1744December 18 – Queen Maria Theresa of Austria issues a proclamation to rid Bohemia of its Jewish residents, with the Jews to leave Prague over the next two weeks, and then to depart from Bohemia entirely in 1745.source
1745January 8 – The Quadruple Alliance treaty is signed at Warsaw by Great Britain, Austria, the Dutch Republic and the Duchy of Saxony.source
1745April 22 – Having recently turned 18, Bavaria's ruler Maximilian III Joseph agrees to sign the Treaty of Füssen with Austria, withdrawing Bavaria from further participation in the War of the Austrian Succession, and agreeing to support Austria's candidate for the next Holy Roman Emperor.source
1745December 25 – The Treaty of Dresden gives Prussia full possession of Silesia.source
1746Gabriel Johnston, British Governor of the Province of North Carolina, moves to New Bern, the province's largest. New Bern replaces Edenton as the capital of North Carolina until Raleigh is established in 1792.source
1747June 9 – Emperor Momozono ascends to the throne of Japan, succeeding Emperor Sakuramachi.source
1747July 23 – Ahmad Shah Durrani establishes the Durrani Empire after being elected by Pashtun chieftains in a jirga at Naderabad, laying the foundation for modern Afghanistan.source
1747August 15 – Great Britain, Russia and the Dutch Republic sign the Convention of Saint Petersburg (1747).source
1747December 27 – The Parliament of Great Britain amends its Naturalisation Act 1740 to extend recognition to all non-Anglican Protestant denominations in its colonies.source
1748April 24 – A congress assembles at Aix-la-Chapelle (now Aachen), with the intent to conclude the War of the Austrian Succession. The treaty is signed on October 18.source
1748June 1 – José de Escandón is designated by the Viceroy of New Spain as the first Royal Governor of Nuevo Santander. The area covered by the Viceroyalty's new province is now part of the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, and the part of the U.S. state of Texas south of the Guadalupe River (including San Antonio and Corpus Christi).source
1748October 18 – War of the Austrian Succession: The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle is signed to end the war. Great Britain obtains Madras, in India, from France, in exchange for the fortress of Louisbourg in Canada.source
1748December 4 – Austria and Spain sign a second treaty to settle the War of the Austrian Succession, and Austria agrees to remove its troops from Modena and Genoa.source
1748Louis XV breaks his promise to eliminate the income tax, after the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle ends the war. The Parlement of Paris protests, so he reduces the tax to 5%.source
1749January 3 – Benning Wentworth issues the first of the New Hampshire Grants, leading to the establishment of Vermont.source
1749May 19 – King George II of Great Britain grants the Ohio Company 200000 acre (312½ square miles or 810 km 2 ) of land north of the Ohio River, encompassing most of the modern U.S. state of Ohio and part of West Virginia. The grant is conditioned on the Company being able to attract 100 European families every year, for seven years, to move to the area occupied by Indian tribes, and to build a fort to protect themsource
1749August 2 – Irish-born trader George Croghan, unaware of the recent British grant of land in the Ohio River valley to the Ohio Company, purchases 200,000 acres of much of the same land from the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, dealing directly with "the three most important Iroquois chiefs resident in that area, in return for an immense quantity of Indian goods." The deal takes place at the Iroquois capital of Onondaga, near present-day Syracuse, New York.source
1749September 5 – A delegation of 33 members of the Catawba Indian nation and 73 from the Cherokee nation arrive in Charleston, South Carolina, to discuss a peace treaty with South Carolina's provincial governor, James Glen.source
1749October 16 – At Falmouth, a part of the British Province of Massachusetts Bay that would later be the site of Portland, Maine, a peace treaty is signed between representatives of Massachusetts Bay and 19 sagamores and tribal chiefs of the Wabanaki Confederacy (encompassing the Penobscot, Kennebec, Odanak and Wôlinak tribes of the Abenaki Indians), temporarily settling territorial disputes in Maine during King George's War.source
1749The land reform of the Great Partition begins in Sweden, and continues until the 19th century.source
1750January 13 – The Treaty of Madrid between Spain and Portugal authorizes a larger Brazil than had the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494, which originally established the boundaries of the Portuguese and Spanish territories in South America.source
1750April 14 – A group of enslaved West African, bound for the Americas, successfully overpowers the crew of the British slaver ship Snow Ann, imprisons the survivors, and then navigates the vessel back to Cape Lopez in Gabon. Upon regaining their freedom, the rebels leave the survivors on the Gabonese coast.source
1750June 24 – Parliament passes Britain's Iron Act, designed to restrict American manufactured goods by prohibiting additional ironworking businesses from producing finished goods. At the same time, import taxes on raw iron from America are lifted in order to give British manufacturers additional material for production. By 1775, the North American colonies have surpassed England and Wales in iron production and have become the world's third largest producer of iron.source
1750July 31 – José I takes over the throne of Portugal from his deceased father, João V. King José Manuel appoints the Marquis of Pombal as his Chief Minister, who then strips the Inquisition of its power.source
1750August 8 – In advance of the Province of Georgia changing in status from a corporate-owned American settlement to a British colony, Royal Assent is given to an act that lifts the province's ban on slavery; effective January 1, "it shall and may be lawful to import or bring Black Slaves or Negroes in to the Province of Georgia of America and to keep and to use the same therein".source
1750October 5 – Treaty of Madrid: Spain and Great Britain sign a treaty temporarily eliminating their hostility over their colonies in North and South America. In addition to both sides dropping their claims for damages against each other, Spain agrees to pay the South Sea Company £100,000 for damage claims.source
1750December 25 – Prussia and Russia break off diplomatic relations after the Russians refuse to stop assisting the Electorate of Saxony. Five years later, the two Empires fight the Seven Years' War.source
1750Galley slavery is abolished in Europe.source
1751January 1 – As the Province of Georgia undergoes the transition from a trustee-operated territory to a Crown colony, the prohibition against slavery is lifted by the Trustees for the Establishment of the Colony of Georgia in America. At the time, the Black population of Georgia is approximately 400 people, who had been kept in slavery in violation of the law. By 1790, the enslaved population of Georgia increases to over 29,000 and to 462,000 by 1860.source
1751June 14 – The colony of South Carolina reverses a 10-year-old law that had imposed a tax of 100 pounds sterling on the purchase of imported African slaves, and reduces the tax to £10. The move effectively restores the slave trade to the colony.source
1751October 22 – William V, Prince of Orange, the three-year-old son of the late William IV, becomes the last Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic. During his minority, his mother, Princess Anne, acts as regent until her death in 1759. Upon becoming of age in 1766, he will have a corrupt reign as the Republic's head of state until the office is abolished on February 23, 1785.source
1751November 29 – The Cherokee nation signs a treaty with British colonial authorities at the close of the two-week Charlestown Conference in Charleston, South Carolina, with Governor James Glen signing an agreement with Cherokee war chiefs led by the "Old Skiagunsta" of Keowee, the Raven of Hiwasee, Old Caesar of Chatuga and Kittagusta of Joree.source
1752January 1 – The British Empire (except Scotland, which had changed New Year's Day to January 1 in 1600) adopts today as the first day of the year as part of adoption of the Gregorian calendar, which is completed in September: today is the first day of the New Year under the terms of last year's Calendar Act of the British Parliament.source
1752February 29 – Alaungpaya, a village chief in Upper Burma, founds the Konbaung Dynasty; by the time of his death 8 years later, he will have unified the whole country.source
1752April 6 – Spanish Governor Tomás Vélez Cachupín of Santa Fe de Nuevo México, a province that now comprises most of the American state of New Mexico, begins the first peace negotiations with the indigenous Comanche tribe after inviting tribal representatives to his home in Taos. As a sign of good faith, he unconditionally releases the four Comanche prisoners of war held at Taos. One of the released Comanches reports to his father, Chief Guanacante, about the hospitality extended to him during his imprisonment, and more meetings take place in July and in the autumn.source
1752June 13 – The Treaty of Logstown is signed by representatives of the Iroquois Confederation, Lenape and Shawnee leaders, and commissioners from Virginia, headed by Joshua Fry. Christopher Gist and William Trent represent the Ohio Company. The treaty grants control over lands south and east of the Ohio River to the English, along with permission to build a fort on the site of what is now Pittsburgh.source
1752August 3 – Edward Cornwallis, the British Governor of Nova Scotia, is recalled to Britain after being unsuccessful in pressuring Nova Scotia's Acadian population to take an oath of allegiance to the Crown or to face expulsion. His replacement, Peregrine Hopson, is more lenient with the Acadians but is reassigned less than two years later.source
1752November 8 – British Governor Hopson of Nova Scotia and French Governor General of New France, the Marquis Duquesne, agree to a free exchange of deserters from each other's armies in Canada, with the understanding that neither side will execute a deserter once returned.source
1753April 16 – The Jewish Naturalisation Act 1753 is passed by Britain's House of Lords, permitting Jewish immigrants to England to become naturalized citizens "without receiving the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper". The bill, introduced by George Montagu-Dunk, 2nd Earl of Halifax, passes the House of Commons on May 22.source
1753May 22 – The Jewish Naturalisation Act 1753 passes the House of Commons and later receives royal assent from King George II.source
1753June 6 – The Parliament of Great Britain passes Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act "for the Better Preventing of Clandestine Marriage" in England and Wales. King George II adjourns Parliament the next day; the act comes into effect on March 25, 1754.source
1753July 7 – The Parliament of Great Britain's Jewish Naturalization Act receives royal assent, allowing naturalization to Jews; it is repealed in 1754.source
1753August 7 – The Unity of Brethren, a branch of the Moravian Church, receives a grant the Wachovia Tract, 99985 acre km2 of land (approximately 157 square miles), in western North Carolina, for the benefit of German-speaking immigrants to America. The area now includes Winston-Salem, North Carolina.source
1753August 21 – After receiving a series of warnings about incursions into land claimed by the Crown Colony of Virginia (from the colony's Lieutenant Governor, Robert Dinwiddie), the cabinet of British Prime Minister Henry Pelham votes to send a warning to Britain's colonial governors "to prevent, by Force, These and any such attempts" to encroach on their lands "that may be made by the French, or by the Indians in the French interest." Britain's Secretary of State for the Southern Department, the Earl of Holderness, sends the circular order on August 28.source
1753November 24 – José Alfonso Pizarro completes more than four years as the Spanish Viceroy of New Granada (which comprises modern-day Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador) and is succeeded by José Solís Folch de Cardona.source
1754June 19 – The Albany Congress of seven northern colonies proposes an American Union.source
1754August 17 – Pennsylvania becomes the first of the British colonies to address Benjamin Franklin's Albany Plan for an inter-colonial union. With Franklin absent from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania's House of Representatives votes against to not consider the Plan at all, and to not refer it to the next legislative session for debate.source
1754November 28 – Denmark establishes the Renteskirverkontor, an office within the Chamber of Finance, to oversee the colonial affairs of the Danish West Indies (Dansk Vestindien). Peder Mariager, who had been a minor official of the Danish West Indies Company, becomes the first administrator. The colony, consisting of the islands of Saint Thomas, Saint John and Saint Croix later is purchased by the United States from Denmark and is now the U.S. Virgin Islands.source
1754December 26 – Massachusetts becomes the third colony (after Pennsylvania and Connecticut) to reject the Albany Plan for an inter-colonial union, voting 48 to 31 to postpone consideration of the union question indefinitely.source
1754Surveyor William Churton lays out what will become the seat of Orange County, North Carolina. The town is named Corbin Town for Francis Corbin, a member of the North Carolina governor's council. Corbin Town is renamed Childsburgh in 1759, and finally Hillsborough in 1766.source
1755February 13 – Treaty of Giyanti: The kingdom of Mataram on Java is divided in two, creating the sultanate of Yogyakarta and the sunanate of Surakarta.source
1755March 22 – Britain's House of Commons votes in favor of £1,000,000 of appropriations to expand the British Army and Royal Navy operations in North America.source
1755August 10 – The Expulsion of the Acadians begins, with the Bay of Fundy Campaign.source
1755October 11 – In west Africa, officials of the Dutch West India Company sign a peace agreement with officials of the Ashanti Empire at Elmina. In return for an annual tribute in gold, the Ashanti maintain peaceful relations with the Europeans in the Dutch Gold Coast colony and the Dutch maintain their settlement at Fort Coenraadsburg. The area is now part of the Central Region of Ghana.source
1755October 12 – Having completed the Expulsion of the Acadians from St. John's Island (now Prince Edward Island), the British colonial Governor of Nova Scotia, Charles Lawrence, issues a proclamation that his office will receive proposals from English settlers "for the peopling and cultivating as well of the lands vacated by the French, as every other part of this valuable province."source
1755November 18 – The Corsican Constitution is adopted by Corsican representatives, at the Consulta generale di Corte.source
1756January 16 – The Treaty of Westminster is signed between Great Britain and Prussia, guaranteeing the neutrality of the Electorate of Hanover, controlled by King George II of Great Britain.source
1756April 1 – Yirmisekizzade Mehmed Said Pasha resigns as Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire. He is replaced by Köse Bahir Mustafa Pasha, who has been Grand Vizier from 1752 to 1755.source
1756October 14 – An "Agreement of Friendship and Trade" is signed by Sultan Osman III and King Frederick V. Denmark appoints an extraordinary representative to the Ottoman Empire.source
1757February 2 – At Versailles in France, representatives of the Russian Empire and the Austrian Empire enter into an alliance against Prussia, with each nation pledging 80,000 troops. Other clauses to the treaty, not disclosed to the public, commit Austria to pay Russia one million rubles per year during the war to pay for the expenses of 24,000 of the Russian troops, and two million rubles upon the conquest of Silesia (a Prussian province that had been seized from Austria in 1746).source
1757February 9 – The Nawab and General Clive sign the Treaty of Alinagar, with Bengal compensating the British East India Company for its losses and pledging respect for British control of India.source
1757March 21 – Sweden signs an alliance treaty with France and Austria in the multinational effort to remove King Frederick the Great, even though Queen Consort Ulrika of Sweden is Frederick's sister. Sweden agrees to contribute 25,000 troops to the French and Austrian force.source
1757May 1 – France and Austria sign a second Treaty of Versailles, committing France to sending an additional 105,000 troops to the war against Prussia, and to pay expenses to Austria at the rate of 12 million florins annually.source
1757June 25 – The Duke of Devonshire resigns as Prime Minister of Great Britain after being unable to conduct governmental affairs without William Pitt.source
1757July 2 – The Duke of Newcastle is asked to form a new government of Great Britain and fills the office of Prime Minister of Great Britain, after his forced resignation eight months earlier. Pitt is recalled to conduct Britain's foreign and military affairs and given greater control.source
1757December 24 – The Pratt-Yorke opinion distinguishes British overseas territories acquired by conquest from those acquired by private treaty: while the Crown of Great Britain enjoys sovereignty over both, only the property of the former is vested in the Crown.source
1757December 30 – James Abercrombie replaces James Mure-Campbell, 5th Earl of Loudoun as supreme commander in the British American colonies. Abercrombie is replaced himself, after failing to take the fort at Ticonderoga.source
1757Nam tiến, the southward expansion of the territory of Vietnam into the Indochina Peninsula, is concluded.source
1760January 28 – Benning Wentworth creates the New Hampshire Grant of Pownal, Vermont.source
1760April 3 – Great Britain and Prussia agree to begin peace negotiations to end the Seven Years' War.source
1760April 29 – Representatives of the remaining Penobscot Indian tribes in Maine and New Brunswick make peace with the British at Fort Pownal in Newfoundland.source
1760June 19 – The British create Cumberland County and Lincoln County in Maine.source
1760July 19 – A formal request is made to the Spanish government, to allow the founding of the later city of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico.source
1760Western countries pay 3,000,000 ounces of silver for Chinese goods.source
1761April 1 – The Austrian Empire and the Russian Empire sign a new treaty of alliance.source
1761August 11 – Two years after his marriage to Martha Custis and his move to Mount Vernon, American military officer and politician George Washington advertises a reward in the Maryland Gazette for the capture of four fugitive slaves who ran away from him: Cupid, Peros, Jack and Neptune, claiming in the gazette that they had escaped "without the least suspicion, provocation, or difference with anybody".source
1761August 29 – Cherokee chief Attakullakulla and British Army officer Major James Grant meet at Fort Prince George in the Province of South Carolina and begin negotiations to end the Anglo-Cherokee War.source
1761September 19 – Slavery in Portugal is abolished.source
1761October 30 – Colonel Henry Bouquet issues the first proclamation against Anglo-American settlement on Indian lands in America.source
1761November 19 – A separate peace treaty is signed between the Cherokee Indians and the Colony of Virginia, bringing the Anglo-Cherokee War to a close.source
1761The Halifax Treaties are concluded between the various bands of the Miꞌkmaq, other First Nations people and the British in Halifax, Nova Scotia, notably in the Burying the Hatchet ceremony on June 25.source
1761In Dutch Guyana, a "state" formed by escaped slaves signs a treaty with the local governor.source
1762May 5 (April 24 O.S.) – The Treaty of Saint Petersburg ends the war between Russia and Prussia, and returns all of Russia's territorial conquests to the Prussians.source
1762May 22 – The Treaty of Hamburg takes Sweden out of the war against Prussia.source
1762November 13 – In the Treaty of Fontainebleau, Louis XV secretly cedes Louisiana (New France) to Charles III of Spain to compensate his ally for territorial losses to Britain.source
1762December 4 – Less than six months after becoming Russia's Empress, Catherine the Great announces that almost all foreigners are welcome to travel to and settle in Russia, and waives previous requirements that new residents must be members of the Russian Orthodox Church; however, the manifesto adds the phrase kromye Zhydov - "except the Jews".source
1762December 22 – Catherine follows the waiver of religious requirement for Russian immigration with a 190-word invitation, translated into various European languages, that invites Europeans to build settlements along arable, but undeveloped, land in southern Russia along the Volga River; when the invitation attracts little notice, she follows on July 22 with a longer manifesto promising free travel expenses and a written guarantee of rights.source
1762The town of Charlottesville, Virginia is founded.source
1762Neolin, a Lenape prophet, begins to preach in America.source
1763January 27 – The seat of colonial administration in the Viceroyalty of Brazil is moved from Salvador to Rio de Janeiro.source
1763February 1 – The colonial authorities in the Province of North Carolina establish Mecklenburg County from the western portion of Anson County. The county is named for Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who married George III in 1761.source
1763February 10 – Seven Years' War – French and Indian War: The Treaty of Paris ends the war, and France cedes Canada (New France) to Great Britain.source
1763February 15 – The Treaty of Hubertusburg puts an end to the Seven Years' War between Prussia and Austria, and their allies France and Russia.source
1763April 16 – George Grenville takes office as the new Prime Minister of Great Britain, after the Earl of Bute resigns amid criticism over Britain's concessions in the Treaty of Paris.source
1763October 7 – The Royal Proclamation of 1763 is issued by George III of Great Britain, restricting the westward expansion of British North America, and stabilizing relations with the indigenous peoples of the Americas, by barring white settlement of lands west of the Appalachian Mountains.source
1764March 31 – A mutual defense treaty between the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia is signed in Saint Petersburg between representatives of Russia's Empress Catherine the Great and Prussia's King Frederick the Great. By agreement, each nation agrees (for an eight-year period) to commit 10,000 soldiers and 2,000 horses to the defense of the other in case of an attack, and secretly agree to maintain security within the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.source
1764April 21 – Residents of French Louisiana are informed for the first time that they will come under Spanish rule as the result of a secret agreement of November 13, 1762 whereby France has ceded all of its North American territory west of the Mississippi River. The Spanish, however, do not take possession until August 17, 1769.source
1764May 3 – Baden, one of the member states of the Confederation of Switzerland, declares a policy of remaining neutral in future conflicts, a model that is soon followed by other members of the Confederation and which eventually becomes the basis for Swiss neutrality from 1815 onward.source
1764July 20 – King George, on advice of the Privy Council, issues the Royal Determination of the disputed boundary between the colonial provinces of New York and New Hampshire. The King-in-Council "doth hereby order and declare the western banks of the river Connecticut from where it enters the province of Massachusetts Bay, as far north as the 45th degree of north latitude to be the boundary line between the two provinces of New Hampshire and New York."source
1764August 1 – The Treaty of Fort Niagara is signed between Great Britain and 44 North American Indian nations, bring an end to the ongoing war that had started in 1756 with most of the northern Indian tribes. Sir William Johnson appears on behalf of Britain, and principal chiefs appear for the Iroquois Confederacy, Wabash Confederacy, Illini Confederacy, Haudenosaunee, Seneca, Wyandot, Menominee, Algonquin, Nipissing, Ojibwa, Mississaugas, Mohawk, Abenaki, Huron, and Onondaga.source
1764September 7 – Stanisław August Poniatowski is elected as the King of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.source
1764The Royal Colony of North Carolina establishes a new county from the eastern portion of Granville County and names it Bute County for John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, who had recently resigned his post as Prime Minister of Great Britain. In 1779 the State of North Carolina abolishes the county, when it forms Warren County from the northern portion and Franklin County from the southern portion.source
1765January 29 – One week before his death, Mir Jafar, who had been enthroned as the Nawab of Bengal and ruler of the Bengali people with the support and protection of the British East India Company, abdicates in favor of his 18-year-old son, Najmuddin Ali Khan.source
1765March 22 – Royal assent is given to the Duties in American Colonies Act 1765, historically referred to as the Stamp Act, imposing the first direct tax levied from Great Britain on the thirteen American colonies, effective November 1. The revenue measure (which requires the purchase of a stamp to be affixed for validation of all legal documents, but also to licensed newspapers and even playing cards and dice) is made to help defray the costs for British military operations in North America, including the French and Indian War.source
1765April 4 – At Fort Tombecbe, near what is now the town of Epes, Alabama, representatives of the British Empire and of the Choctaw Indian tribe in Mississippi sign a peace treaty in the wake of French cession of claims to the British. A boundary is fixed between land to be occupied by the Choctaws and for lands which British settlers can use; in addition, the British agree to provide a police official and a gunsmith at Fort Tombecbe for the Choctaws to use for trespassing complaints and for weapons repairs. By 1775, however, the Choctaws are outnumbered in Mississippi.source
1765June 21 – The Isle of Man is brought under British control, the Isle of Man Purchase Act (coming into force 10 May) confirming HM Treasury's purchase of the feudal rights of the Dukes of Atholl, as Lord of Mann over the island, and revesting them into the British Crown.source
1765July 10 – King George III dismisses George Grenville from the office of Prime Minister of Great Britain, and replaces him with another Whig Party statesman, Charles Watson-Wentworth, Lord Rockingham.source
1765July 12 – On orders of Chief Pontiac, War Chief Wahpesah of the Kickapoo people releases British Indian Affairs negotiator George Croghan from 35 days of detention. At the same time, Pontiac authorizes a Shawnee Chief, Nanicksah, to sign a treaty with the British on behalf of the Great Lakes tribes, settling the French and Indian War.source
1765July 21 – Having eliminated all of his rivals for leadership of Persia, Karim Khan Zand returns in triumph to his home in Shiraz and makes it his capital then begins construction of citadels, mosques, schools and other buildings.source
1765July 23 – Headed by Odawa Chief Pontiac and George Croghan, a party of Great Lakes tribesmen and British soldiers travel along the Wabash River and obtain the release of all white prisoners of war remaining in the Miami people and Odawa villages between Ouiatenon (near modern-day Granville, Indiana) and Detroit.source
1765August 16 – The Treaty of Allahabad is signed. The Treaty marks the political and constitutional involvement and the beginning of Company rule in India.source
1765November 1 – The Stamp Act goes into effect in the thirteen American colonies.source
1766March 18 – American Revolution: The British Parliament repeals the Stamp Act, which has been very unpopular in the British colonies; the persuasion of Benjamin Franklin is considered partly responsible. The Declaratory Act asserts the right of Britain to bind the colonies in all other respects.source
1766November 10 – The last Colonial governor of New Jersey, William Franklin, signs the charter of Queen's College (later renamed Rutgers University).source
1766December 2 – The Law on the Freedom of Printing abolishes censorship in Sweden and guarantees freedom of the press, making Sweden the first country of the world to introduce constitutional protection of press freedom, and to pass wide-ranging freedom of information legislation.source
1767January 9 – William Tryon, governor of the Royal Colony of North Carolina, signs a contract with architect John Hawks to build Tryon Palace, a lavish Georgian style governor's mansion on the New Bern waterfront.source
1767February 19 – The Earl of Shelburne, British Secretary of State for the Southern Department (which has jurisdiction over Britain's American colonies) fires the unpopular Governor of West Florida, George Johnstone, and summons him back to London.source
1767May 10 – Sir William Johnson, 1st Baronet, acting on behalf of Great Britain, meets with representatives of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy at German Flatts, New York, opening negotiations on the boundary between the New York colony and the Native Americans, eventually concluded by the Treaty of Fort Stanwix.source
1767May 31 – The Genoese island of Capraia is conquered by the Corsican Army after a ten-week campaign.source
1767October 17 – Šćepan Mali, nicknamed "Stephen the Little", is selected as the legislature at Podgorica to be the Tsar of Montenegro, representing "a short but an important break in the succession of the Petrovic dynasty".source
1767November 19 – Under the coercion of Russian occupation armies, the legislature of Poland follows the wishes of Russian Minister Nicholas Repnin and agrees to allow the kingdom to become a Russian protectorate.source
1767November 20 – The new American Colonies Act 1766, commonly called the "Declaratory Act", goes into effect, virtually providing for Great Britain's Parliament to govern lawmaking in 13 colonies and exacerbating tensions there.source
1767November 27 – Oconostota and Attakullakulla, Chiefs of the Cherokee people in the Carolinas, depart from Charleston, South Carolina on a ship voyage to New York City, where they are welcomed by British colonial officials as a prelude to negotiations with Britain's Superintendent of Indian Affairs, Sir William Johnson.source
1767December 2 – Future Pennsylvania chief executive John Dickinson begins publishing his revolutionary "Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania" in the Pennsylvania Chronicle.source
1767December 28 – Phraya Taksin, a minor provincial official in Siam (now Thailand), crowns himself as King of Siam, establishing the Siamese Thonburi Kingdom, taking the regnal name of Borommaracha IV and begins a 14-year reign of liberation and conquest; historically, he is known as "Taksin the Great".source
1767December 29 – Oconostota and Attakullakulla arrive at Johnstown, New York where they, along with leaders of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy (the Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscarora tribal nations) meet with Sir William Johnson to begin peace negotiations with the British Empire.source
1768February 11 – Samuel Adams's circular letter is issued by the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and sent to the other Thirteen Colonies. Refusal to revoke the letter will result in dissolution of the Massachusetts Assembly, and (from October) incur the institution of martial law to prevent civil unrest.source
1768February 24 – With Russian troops occupying the nation, opposition legislators of the national legislature having been deported, the government of Poland signs a treaty virtually turning the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth into a protectorate of the Russian Empire.source
1768February 27 – The first Secretary of State for the Colonies is appointed in Britain, the Earl of Hillsborough.source
1768February 29 – Five days after the signing of the treaty, a group of the szlachta, Polish nobles, establishes the Bar Confederation, to defend the internal and external independence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth against Russian influence, and against King Stanisław August Poniatowski.source
1768March 17 – Britain's Superintendent of Indian Affairs, Sir William Johnson, concludes a peace agreement with the leaders of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy (the Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscarora tribal nations) of the northern American lands, and with Chiefs Oconostota and Attakullakulla of the Cherokee nation in the southern American lands.source
1768May 15 – After the Treaty of Versailles, the island of Corsica is ceded by Genoa to France.source
1768August 27 – Almost all merchants and traders in the British colony of New York sign a pact not to import British manufactured goods as long as the Townshend Acts are in effect, nor to do business with nonassociators to the pact.source
1768September 16 – Louis XV appoints René de Maupeou as Grand Chancellor of France (an office he will hold until 1790), and orders him to crush the judicial opposition.source
1768October 14 – William Pitt resigns from his position as Prime Minister of Great Britain.source
1768October 17 – Representatives of the Cherokee nation sign the Treaty of Hard Labour with British representative John Stuart and relinquish all claims to the land between the Ohio River and the Allegheny Mountains, now the United States state of West Virginia.source
1768November 5 – The Treaty of Fort Stanwix is signed between the five nations of the Iroquois Confederacy (the Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, and Seneca) relinquishing their claims to territory south of the Ohio River to the British.source
1768December 15 – The king's refusal to sign state documents results in the December Crisis (1768) in Sweden.source
1769February 17 – The British House of Commons votes not to allow MP John Wilkes to take his seat after he wins a by-election, on the grounds that he was an outlaw when standing.source
1769May 9 – France conquers Corsica, ending the Corsican War of Independence.source
1769November 21 – Ireland's House of Commons rejects a spending bill passed by Great Britain's parliament, by a 94–71 margin.source
1770June 3 – Gaspar de Portolà and Father Junípero Serra establish Monterey, the presidio of Alta California territory for Spain from 1777–1822, United Mexican States 1824–1846, until the California Republic.source
1770December 7 – King Louis XV of France issues the "Edict of December", dismissing the rebellious magistrates of the Parlements of Paris and the other 13 provinces.source
1771January 5 – The Great Kalmyk (Torghut Migration) is led by Ubashi Khan, from the east bank of the Lower Volga River back to the homeland of Dzungaria, at this time under Qing dynasty rule.source
1771January 9 – Emperor Go-Momozono accedes to the throne of Tokugawa shogunate Japan following his aunt's abdication.source
1771The trade monopoly with Iceland is transferred to the Danish crown.source
1771The territory of Baden-Baden is inherited by Charles Frederick, Margrave of Baden-Durlach, reunifying the territories of Baden.source
1771The North Carolina General Assembly passes an act establishing the town of Martinsborough, named for Royal Governor Josiah Martin, on the land of Richard Evans, which will serve as the seat of Pitt County.source
1772February 17 – The First Partition of Poland is agreed to by Russia and Prussia, later including Austria.source
1772April 8 – Massachusetts legislator Samuel Adams persuades his colleagues to approve his plan for creating a Committee of Correspondence to begin a dialogue with the other American colonies concerning mutual problems with England.source
1772May 8 – The Watauga Association Compact is signed in what is now East Tennessee by a group of white settlers led by William Bean, creating the first non-colonial government body in British North America.source
1772June 22 – Somersett's Case: Lord Mansfield, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, delivers the decision that leads to the end of slavery in England.source
1772August 5 – The first Partition of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth begins. The Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria becomes part of the crown lands of the Habsburg monarchy.source
1772November 2 – American Revolutionary War: Samuel Adams and Joseph Warren form the first Committee of Correspondence.source
1773April 27 – The Parliament of Great Britain passes the Tea Act (coming into force on May 10), designed to save the British East India Company by granting it a monopoly on the North American tea trade.source
1773June 10 – The Regulating Act is given royal assent by King George III, creating the office of Governor General, with an advising council, to exercise political authority over the territory under British East India Company rule in India.source
1774February 6 – The Parlement of Paris votes a sentence of civil degradation, depriving Pierre Beaumarchais of all rights and duties of citizenship.source
1774February 24 – The Province of Massachusetts Bay House of Representatives votes, 92 to 8, to impeach Superior Court Chief Justice Peter Oliver, but Provincial Governor Thomas Hutchinson refuses to allow the trial to proceed.source
1774March 10 – The Boston Journal makes the first reference to the "Stars and Stripes" flag to symbolize the American colonies, reporting that "The American ensign now sparkles a door which shall shortly flame from the skies."source
1774March 31 – Intolerable Acts: The British Parliament passes the Boston Port Act, closing the port of Boston, Massachusetts, as punishment for the Boston Tea Party.source
1774May 17 – The colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations issues the first call for an "Intercolonial Congress" that eventually is set up as the Continental Congress.source
1774June 22 – The Parliament of Great Britain passes the Quebec Act, setting out rules of governance for the colony of Quebec in British North America, enlarging its territory as far south as the Ohio River and west to the Mississippi River, in the area now occupied by the U.S. states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio and granting freedom of religion for Roman Catholics.source
1774July 21 – Russia and the Ottoman Empire sign the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca with Russian victory, ending six years of war. The treaty gives Russia the right to intervene in Ottoman politics, to protect its Christian subjects.source
1774September 5 – The First Continental Congress assembles in Philadelphia.source
1774September 21 – George Mason and George Washington found the Fairfax County Militia Association, a military unit independent of British control.source
1774October 14 – The Continental Congress in America adopts the Declaration of Rights and Resolves, with 10 principles.source
1774October 20 – The First Continental Congress passes the Continental Association, a colony-wide boycotting of British goods. Theater performances in the American colonies are also halted, on the Congress's recommendation that the member colonies "discountenance and discourage all horse racing and all kinds of gaming, cock fighting, exhibitions of shows, plays, and other expensive diversions and entertainments."source
1774October 26 – The first Continental Congress adjourns in Philadelphia.source
1774November 10 – 1774 British general election: Voting for the House of Commons concludes in Great Britain, and Lord North retains the office of Prime Minister as his Tory coalition wins 343 of the 558 seats. Henry Seymour Conway's Whig Party wins the other 215 seats.source
1774November 15 – The government of the Republic of Venice allows adventurer and ladies' man Giacomo Casanova to return home after a 17-year absence.source
1774November 20 – Daniel Boone retires from the Virginia colonial militia in order to devote his full time to establishing a settlement in Kentucky.source
1774November 30 – Thomas Paine, a native of England, arrives in America at the age 37 and soon becomes an influential advocate for the colonies' independence.source
1774November 30 – Parliament adjourns in Great Britain, but declines to authorize any action against the rebellious American colonies, despite an address the day before by King George III and Prime Minister North.source
1774December 6 – Empress Maria Theresa, the ruler of Austria, Hungary and Croatia, signs the General School Ordinance providing for education for both males and females and setting compulsory education for children aged six through 12.source
1775January 17 – Second voyage of James Cook: Captain James Cook takes possession of South Georgia for the Kingdom of Great Britain.source
1775March 6 – Raghunathrao, Peshwa of the Maratha Empire in India, signs the Treaty of Surat with the British Governor-General Warren Hastings in Bombay ceding the territories of Salsette and Bassein to the British East India Company along with part of the revenues from Surat and Bharuch districts in return for military assistance. This leads to the First Anglo-Maratha War fought between the British and the Marathas, ending with the Treaty of Salbai in 1782.source
1775June 14 – American Revolution: The Continental Congress names George Washington as commander of the Continental Army.source
1775June 19 – The post of Commanding General is created by the Continental Congress.source
1775July 26 – The Second Continental Congress appoints Benjamin Franklin to be the first Postmaster General of what later becomes the United States Post Office Department.source
1775October 13 – American Revolution: The Continental Congress orders the establishment of the Continental Navy (later the United States Navy).source
1775November 7 – American Revolution: John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, British royal governor of the Colony of Virginia, signs Dunmore's Proclamation, declaring martial law and offering freedom to slaves of Patriots who run away from their owners and join the Loyalist forces (formal proclamation November 15) thus losing the support of planters who see slaves as their vital livelihood.source
1775November 10 – American Revolution: The Continental Congress passes a resolution creating the Continental Marines to serve as landing troops for the recently created Continental Navy (the Marines are disbanded at end of the war in April 1783 but reformed on July 11, 1798 as the United States Marine Corps).source
1775The Calcutta Theatre is inaugurated.source
1775Catherine the Great decrees a Statute for the Administration of the Provinces of the Russian Empire dividing the country into provinces and districts for efficient government.source
1775The Second Continental Congress meets, elects John Hancock president, raises the Continental Army under George Washington as commander and authorizes the colonies to adopt their own constitutions.source
1776January 20 – American Revolution: South Carolina Loyalists led by Robert Cunningham sign a petition from prison, agreeing to all demands for peace by the formed state government of South Carolina.source
1776March 1 – The Peshwa of the Maratha Empire and the British East India Company sign the Treaty of Purandar in which the British are able to secure Salsette Island and accept Sawai Madhavrao as a new Peshwa. The Marathas agree not to recognise existence of the French in India.source
1776April 12 – American Revolution: The Royal Colony of North Carolina produces the Halifax Resolves, making it the first British colony to officially authorize its Continental Congress delegates to vote for independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain.source
1776May 4 – Rhode Island becomes the first American colony to renounce allegiance to King George III of Great Britain.source
1776June 7 – American Revolution: Lee Resolution – Richard Henry Lee of Virginia proposes to the Second Continental Congress (meeting in Philadelphia) that "these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states."source
1776June 11 – American Revolution: The Continental Congress appoints a Committee of Five to draft a Declaration of Independence.source
1776June 12 – American Revolution: The Virginia Declaration of Rights (by George Mason) is adopted by the Virginia Convention of Delegates.source
1776June 15 – American Revolution: Delaware Separation Day – The Delaware General Assembly votes to suspend government under the British Crown.source
1776July 4 – American Revolution: United States Declaration of Independence – The Continental Congress approves the declaration by the United States of its independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain. The text was drafted during June by Benjamin Franklin.source
1776August 1 – The Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata is established in southern South America.source
1776August 2 – Delegates of most of the American colonies sign the Declaration of Independence.source
1776August 15 – American Revolution: The first Hessian troops land on Staten Island, to join British forces.source
1776September 9 – The Continental Congress officially names its union of states the United States (previously the United Colonies).source
1776December 6 – The General Assembly of Virginia votes to create Kentucky County as the portion of the colony's Fincastle County that is located west of the Cumberland Mountains.source
1776December 12 – The second Continental Congress ends after a session that began on May 10, 1775, and continued for 582 days.source
1776December 21 – American Revolution: The Royal Colony of North Carolina reorganizes into the State of North Carolina after adopting its own constitution. Richard Caswell becomes the first governor of the newly formed state.source
1776Adlan II becomes ruler of the Kingdom of Sennar.source
1777January 15 – Vermont declares its independence from New York, becoming the Vermont Republic, an independent country, a status it retains until it joins the United States as the 14th state in 1791.source
1777January 21 – The Continental Congress approves a resolution "that an unauthentic copy, with names of the signers of the Declaration of independence, be sent to each of the United States.source
1777February 5 – Under the 1st Constitution of Georgia, 8 counties are chartered: Burke, Camden, Chatham, Effingham, Glynn, Liberty, Richmond, and Wilkes. This dissolves the existing parishes of St. George, St. Mary's, St. Thomas, St. Phillip, Christ Church, St. David, St. Matthews, St. Andrew, St. James, St. Johns, and St. Paul.source
1777March 4 – The Fourth Continental Congress, with John Hancock as president, begins a 199 day session in Philadelphia, lasting until September 18.source
1777June 14 – The Stars and Stripes is adopted by the Continental Congress as the flag of the United States.source
1777July 8 – The 1777 Constitution of Vermont is signed, officially abolishing slavery.source
1777November 15 – American Revolution: After 16 months of debate, the Continental Congress approves the Articles of Confederation, in the temporary American capital at York, Pennsylvania.source
1777November 17 – American Revolution: The Articles of Confederation are submitted to the states for ratification.source
1777December 20 – Morocco recognizes the United States as a sovereign state.source
1778February 6 – American Revolutionary War: In Paris, the Treaty of Alliance and the Treaty of Amity and Commerce are signed by the United States and France, signaling official French recognition of the new republic.source
1778July 26 – In the Russian Empire, the forced emigration of Christians from the Crimea to Pryazovia begins.source
1778September 17 – The Treaty of Fort Pitt is signed, the first formal treaty between the United States and a Native American tribe (the Lenape or Delaware).source
1778September 19 – The Continental Congress passes the first budget of the United States.source
1778November 26 – New Jersey becomes the second state to agree to the Articles of Confederation.source
1778December 10 – John Jay of New York is chosen as the sixth President of the Continental Congress.source
1778South Carolina becomes the first state to ratify the Articles of Confederation.source
1779January 29 – After a second petition for partition from its residents, the North Carolina General Assembly abolishes Bute County, North Carolina (established 1764) by dividing it and naming the northern portion Warren County (for Revolutionary War hero Joseph Warren), the southern portion Franklin County (for Benjamin Franklin). The General Assembly also establishes Warrenton (also named for Joseph Warren) to be the seat of Warren County, and Louisburg (named for Louis XVI of France) to be the seat of Franklin County.source
1779March 10 – The Treaty of Aynalıkavak is signed between Ottoman Turkey and the Russian Empire, regarding the Crimean Khanate.source
1779April 12 – Spain and France secretly sign the Convention of Aranjuez, with Spain joining an alliance against Great Britain in return for France's pledge to recover all Spanish territory lost to the British.source
1779September 28 – Samuel Huntington is elected as the seventh President of the Continental Congress.source
1779November 2 – The North Carolina General Assembly carves a new county from Dobbs County, North Carolina and names it Wayne County, in honor of United States General Anthony Wayne.source
1779A joint Spanish-Portuguese survey of the Amazon basin begins to determine the boundary between the colonial possessions in South America; it continues until 1795.source
1780February 19 – The legislature of New York votes to allow its delegates to cede a portion of its western territory to the Continental Congress for the common benefit of the war.source
1780March 1 – The legislature of Pennsylvania votes, 34 to 21, to approve An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery.source
1780March 11 – The First League of Armed Neutrality is formed by Russia with Denmark and Sweden to try to prevent the British Royal Navy from searching neutral vessels for contraband (February 28 O.S.).source
1780May 13 – The Cumberland Compact is signed by American settlers, in the Cumberland Valley of Tennessee.source
1780December 16 – Emperor Kōkaku accedes to the throne of Japan.source
1780The Duke of Richmond calls, in the House of Lords of Great Britain, for manhood suffrage and annual parliaments, which are rejected.source
1781January 2 – Virginia passes a law ceding its western land claims, paving the way for Maryland to ratify the Articles of Confederation.source
1781January – William Pitt the Younger, later Prime Minister of Great Britain, enters Parliament, aged 21.source
1781February 2 – The Articles of Confederation are ratified by Maryland, the 13th and final state to do so.source
1781March 1 – The United States Continental Congress implements the Articles of Confederation, forming its Perpetual Union as the United States in Congress Assembled.source
1781April 14 – The Continental Congress votes a resolution thanking U.S. Captain John Paul Jones for his services.source
1781September 10 – American Revolution: Graves gives up trying to break through the now-reinforced French fleet and returns to New York, leaving Cornwallis to his fate.source
1781November 5 – John Hanson is elected President of the Continental Congress.source
1781Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor abolishes serfdom.source
1781The Bank of North America is chartered by the Continental Congress.source
1782February 27 – The British House of Commons votes against further war in America, paving the way for the Second Rockingham ministry and the Peace of Paris.source
1782March 27 – Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham becomes Prime Minister of Great Britain.source
1782April 19 – John Adams secures recognition of the United States as an independent government by the Dutch Republic. During this visit, he also negotiates a loan of five million guilders, financed by Nicolaas van Staphorst and Wilhelm Willink.source
1782May 17 – The Parliament of Great Britain passes the Repeal of Act for Securing Dependence of Ireland Act, a major component of the reforms collectively known as the Constitution of 1782, which restore legislative independence to the Parliament of Ireland.source
1782June 20 – The bald eagle is chosen as the emblem of the United States of America. On the same day, the Confederation Congress adopts the design for the Great Seal of the United States.source
1782October 18 – John Adams returns to Paris as the first United States Minister to France.source
1782November 4 – Elias Boudinot of New Jersey is elected the new President of the Congress of the Confederation.source
1782November 30 – American Revolutionary War: In Paris, representatives from the United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain sign preliminary peace articles (later formalized in the Treaty of Paris).source
1782The North Carolina General Assembly incorporates Washington, North Carolina.source
1783January 20 – At the palace of Versailles, Great Britain signs preliminary peace treaties with the Kingdom of France and the Kingdom of Spain.source
1783January 23 – The Confederation Congress ratifies two October 8, 1782, treaties signed by the United States with the United Netherlands.source
1783February 3 – American Revolutionary War: Great Britain acknowledges the independence of the United States of America. At this time, the Spanish government does not grant diplomatic recognition.source
1783February 4 – American Revolutionary War: Great Britain formally declares that it will cease hostilities with the United States.source
1783April 3 – A Peace and Commercial Treaty is signed between the newly-formed United States and Sweden in Paris, among the first acts of state concluded between the U.S. and a foreign power.source
1783April 15 – Preliminary articles of peace ending the American Revolutionary War are ratified by the Congress of the Confederation in the United States.source
1783April – General George Washington sends a letter to the 13 governors of the Confederation of the United States, regarding the needs of the nation.source
1783May 18 – The first United Empire Loyalists, fleeing the new United States, reach Parrtown in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada.source
1783July 16 – Grants of land in Canada to American Loyalists are announced.source
1783July 24 – The Treaty of Georgievsk is signed between Imperial Russia and the Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti, making Georgia a protectorate of Russia.source
1783September 3 – Peace of Paris: A treaty between the United States and Great Britain is signed in Paris, formally ending the American Revolutionary War, in which Britain recognizes the independence of the United States; and treaties are signed between Britain, France, and Spain at Versailles, ending hostilities with the Franco-Spanish Alliance.source
1783November 3 – The American Continental Army is disbanded as the first act of business by the Confederation Congress, after Thomas Mifflin is elected the new President to succeed Elias Boudinot.source
1783November 25 – American Revolutionary War: The last British troops leave New York City and George Washington triumphantly returns, three months after the signing of the Treaty of Paris.source
1783December 19 – William Pitt the Younger becomes Prime Minister of Great Britain.source
1783December 23 – General George Washington resigns his commission as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army to the Congress of the Confederation in the Maryland State House in Annapolis, Maryland, and retires to his home at Mount Vernon. Washington's resignation, described by historian Thomas Fleming as "the most important moment in American history," affirms the United States' commitment to the principle of civilian control of the military, and prompts King George III to call Washington "the greatest character of the age."source
1783Ahmed ibn Muhammad ibn Khalifa, the Emir of Zubarah conquers and rules Bahrain. Shaikh Ahmed restores Arab independence and sovereignty over Bahrain and makes the islands his summer residence.source
1784January 6 – Treaty of Constantinople: The Ottoman Empire agrees to Russia's annexation of the Crimea.source
1784January 14 – The Congress of the United States ratifies the Treaty of Paris with Great Britain to end the American Revolution, with the signature of President of Congress Thomas Mifflin.source
1784March 1 – The Confederation Congress accepts Virginia's cession of all rights to the Northwest Territory and to Kentucky (Illinois County).source
1784April 23 – The Congress of the Confederation passes the Ordinance of Governance to set guidelines for adding to the original 13 states in the United States of America.source
1784May 12 – The Treaty of Paris (signed on September 3 the previous year, officially ending the War of American Independence) comes into effect.source
1784May 20 – A treaty is signed in Paris between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Dutch Republic, formally ending the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War.source
1784July 29 – The United States and the Kingdom of France sign a convention for establishing diplomatic relations and "determining the functions and prerogatives of their respective consuls, vice consuls, agents, and commissaries".source
1784August 13 – Parliament of Great Britain passes Pitt's India Act (An Act for the better Regulation and Management of the Affairs of the East India Company and of the British Possessions in India). It requires the governor-general to be chosen from outside the Company and makes company directors subject to parliamentary supervision.source
1784August 16 – Britain creates the colony of New Brunswick.source
1784September 22 – Russia establishes a colony at Kodiak, Alaska.source
1784October 22 – North Carolina rescinds its resolution ceding its western territory (Washington District, modern-day Tennessee) to the United States, after earlier giving Congress two years to accept the terms.source
1784November 26 – The Roman Catholic Apostolic Prefecture of the United States is established.source
1784November 30 – Richard Henry Lee of Virginia is selected as the new President of the Confederation Congress.source
1784King Charles III of Spain authorizes land grants in Alta California.source
1784The North Carolina General Assembly changes the name of Kingston, North Carolina, originally named for King George III of Great Britain, to Kinston.source
1784Britain receives its first bales of imported American cotton.source
1785January 11 – Richard Henry Lee is elected as President of the U.S. Congress of the Confederation.source
1785February 9 – Sir Warren Hastings, who has been governing India on behalf of King George III as the Governor-General of the Presidency of Fort William (later British India), resigns. Sir John Macpherson administers British India until General Charles Cornwallis arrives 19 months later.source
1785February 27 – The Confederation Congress votes an $80,000 expense to establish diplomatic relations with Morocco.source
1785March 10 – Thomas Jefferson is appointed the new U.S. Minister to France, and Benjamin Franklin's request for permission to return home is accepted.source
1785April 19 – The Commonwealth of Massachusetts cedes all of its claims to territory west of New York State to the United States Confederation Congress. The area will become the southern portions of Michigan and Wisconsin.source
1785April 21 – The Empress Catherine the Great of the Russian Empire issues the Charter to the Towns, providing for "a coherent, unified system of administration" for new governments organized in Russia.source
1785April 26 – John Adams is appointed as the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom, and Thomas Jefferson as ambassador to France.source
1785May 20 – The Land Ordinance of 1785, setting the rules for dividing the U.S. Northwest Territory (later Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan) into townships of 36 square miles apiece, is passed by the Confederation Congress. The survey system will later be applied to the continent west of the Mississippi River.source
1785July 2 – Don Diego de Gardoqui arrives in New York City as Spain's first minister to the United States.source
1785September 10 – The United States and the Kingdom of Prussia sign a Treaty of Amity and Commerce.source
1785September 13 – Benjamin Franklin returns to Philadelphia after seven years as the U.S. Ambassador to France and prepares to take office as the new Governor of Pennsylvania.source
1785October 17 – The Commonwealth of Virginia stops the importation of new African slaves by declaring that "No persons shall henceforth be slaves within this commonwealth, except such as were so on the seventeenth day of October, 1785, and the descendants of the females of them."source
1785November 23 – John Hancock of Massachusetts, the former President of the Continental Congress, is selected as the new President of the Congress of the Confederation, but is unable to take office because of illness.source
1785November 28 – The Treaty of Hopewell is signed between the United States of America and the Cherokee Nation.source
1785The British government establishes a permanent land force in the Eastern Caribbean, based in Barbados.source
1785General Henry Knox is appointed as the Confederation Congress's Secretary of War, with added duties as the Secretary of Navy, both functions later of the U.S. Department of Defense.source
1786January 3 – The third Treaty of Hopewell is signed between the United States and the Choctaw.source
1786April 25 – The United States and the Kingdom of Portugal sign their first commercial treaty, but it is never ratified.source
1786June 6 – Nathaniel Gorham is chosen as the new President of the U.S. Confederation Congress to substitute for John Hancock, who cannot take office because of illness.source
1786July 14 – Convention of London between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Spain: British settlements on the Mosquito Coast of Central America are to be evacuated; Spain expands the territory available to the British in Belize on the Yucatán Peninsula, for cutting mahogany.source
1786August 11 – Captain Francis Light acquires the island of Penang from the Sultan of Kedah on behalf of the British East India Company, renaming it Prince of Wales Island in honour of the heir to the British throne, and establishing the settlement of George Town. This is the first colony of the British Empire in Southeast Asia.source
1786September 11–14 - The Annapolis Convention is held by delegates from six of the 13 states (Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey and New York) resulting in the scheduling of the Philadelphia Convention to draft a national constitution.source
1786September 14 – Connecticut cedes to the United States all of its claims to lands between the 41st and 42nd parallels north and west of the Connecticut Western Reserve.source
1786September 26 – Eden Agreement: A commercial treaty is signed between the Kingdoms of Great Britain and France.source
1786October 10 – The Confederation Congress of the United States directs backpay for seven months for Virginia officers who have been waiting since 1782.source
1786October 12 – King George III of the United Kingdom appoints Captain Arthur Phillip as the first Governor of New Holland, which comprises the area of modern Australia from the 135th meridian east to the east coast and all adjacent islands in the Pacific Ocean.source
1786The Cabinet of Great Britain approves the establishment of a penal colony, at Botany Bay in Australia.source
1787January 9 – The North Carolina General Assembly authorizes nine commissioners to purchase 100 acre km2 of land for the seat of Chatham County. The town is named Pittsborough (later shortened to Pittsboro), for William Pitt the Younger.source
1787February 2 – Arthur St. Clair of Pennsylvania is chosen as the new President of the Congress of the Confederation.source
1787February 21 – The Confederation Congress sends word to the 13 states that a convention will be held in Philadelphia on May 14 to revise the Articles of Confederation.source
1787March 3 – By a vote of 33 to 29, Harrisburg is approved as the new capital of Pennsylvania.source
1787April 2 – A Charter of Justice is signed, providing the authority for the establishment of the first New South Wales (i.e. Australian) Courts of Criminal and Civil Jurisdiction.source
1787May 14 – In Philadelphia, delegates begin arriving for a Constitutional Convention.source
1787May 22 – In Britain, Thomas Clarkson and Granville Sharp found the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, with support from John Wesley, Josiah Wedgwood and others.source
1787May 25 – In Philadelphia, delegates begin to convene the Constitutional Convention, intended to amend the Articles of Confederation (however, a new United States Constitution is eventually produced). George Washington presides over the Convention.source
1787June 20 – Oliver Ellsworth moves at the Federal Convention that the government be called the United States.source
1787July 13 – The Congress of the Confederation enacts the Northwest Ordinance, establishing governing rules for the Northwest Territory (the future states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin). It also establishes procedures for the admission of new states, and limits the expansion of slavery.source
1787July 18 – The United States ratifies its first treaty with the Sultanate of Morocco.source
1787August 9 – South Carolina cedes to the United States its claims to a 12-mile wide strip of land that runs across northern Alabama and Mississippi.source
1787September 17 – The United States Constitution is signed by the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.source
1787November 21 – Treaty of Versailles (1787) signed, forming an alliance between the Kingdom of France and the Lord Nguyễn Phúc Ánh, future Emperor of Vietnam.source
1787December 7 – Delaware ratifies the Constitution, and becomes the first U.S. state.source
1787December 12 – Pennsylvania becomes the second U.S. state.source
1787December 18 – New Jersey becomes the third U.S. state.source
1788January 2 – Georgia ratifies the United States Constitution, and becomes the fourth U.S. state under the new government.source
1788January 9 – Connecticut ratifies the United States Constitution, and becomes the fifth U.S. state.source
1788January 22 – The Congress of the Confederation, effectively a caretaker government until the United States Constitution can be ratified by at least nine of the 13 states, elects Cyrus Griffin as its last president.source
1788February 6 – Massachusetts ratifies the United States Constitution, and becomes the sixth U.S. state.source
1788February 7 – Sydney is named and founded, in the British colony of New South Wales.source
1788April 28 – Maryland ratifies the United States Constitution, and becomes the seventh U.S. state.source
1788May 23 – South Carolina ratifies the United States Constitution, and becomes the eighth U.S. state.source
1788June 21 – New Hampshire ratifies the United States Constitution, and becomes the ninth U.S. state, enabling the Constitution to go into effect. (The latter happens on March 4, 1789, when the first Congress elected under the new Constitution assembles.)source
1788June 25 – The Virginia Ratifying Convention ratifies the United States Constitution, and becomes the tenth U.S. state under the new government.source
1788July 24 – Governor General Lord Dorchester, by proclamation issued from the Chateau St. Louis in Quebec City, divides the British Province of Quebec into five Districts, namely: Gaspé, Nassau, Lunenburg, Mecklenburg, and Hesse.source
1788July 26 – New York ratifies the United States Constitution, and becomes the eleventh U.S. state.source
1788August 12 – The Anjala conspiracy is signed.source
1788September 13 – The United States Congress of the Confederation passes an act providing a timeline for the voting for the first President under the new U.S. Constitution. William Waller Hening, ed., The Statutes at Large: Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia, from the First Session of the Legislature, in the Year 1619 (George Cochran Publishing, 1823) p653source
1788October 21 – The 14th and last session of the Continental Congress and (the 6th as Congress under the Articles of Confederation) is adjourned.source
1788November 8 – Voting takes place in the 11 states that have ratified the United States Constitution for the first U.S. Senators; in Virginia, Richard Henry Lee and William Grayson, both anti-federalists, receive the highest number of votes in the Virginia Senate.source
1788November 15 – Cyrus Griffin of Virginia completes his service as the last President of the Congress of the Confederation, under the Articles of Confederation.source
1789January 7 – The 1788-89 United States presidential election and House of Representatives elections are held.source
1789January 9 – Treaty of Fort Harmar: The terms of the Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1784) and the Treaty of Fort McIntosh, between the United States Government and certain native American tribes, are reaffirmed, with some minor changes.source
1789February 4 – George Washington is unanimously elected the first president of the United States, by the United States Electoral College.source
1789February 21 – King Gustav III enforces the Union and Security Act, delivering the coup de grace to Sweden's 70-year-old parliamentarian system, in favor of absolute monarchy.source
1789March 4 – At Federal Hall in New York City, the 1st United States Congress meets, and declares the new United States Constitution to be in effect. The bicameral United States Congress replaces the unicameral Congress of the Confederation, as the legislature of the federal government of the United States.source
1789April 1 – At Federal Hall, the United States House of Representatives attains its first quorum, and elects congressman Frederick Muhlenberg as the first Speaker of the House.source
1789April 6 – At Federal Hall, the United States Senate attains its first quorum, and elects John Langdon of Pennsylvania as its first president pro tempore. Later that day, the Senate and the House of Representatives meet in joint session for the first time, and the electoral votes of the first U.S. presidential election are counted. General George Washington is certified as president-elect, and John Adams is certified as vice-president elect.source
1789April 21 – John Adams takes office as the first vice president of the United States, and begins presiding over the United States Senate.source
1789April 30 – George Washington is inaugurated at Federal Hall in New York City, beginning his term as the first president of the United States.source
1789June 17 – In France, representatives of the Third Estate at the Estates-General declare themselves the National Assembly.source
1789June – The Inconfidência Mineira is the first attempt at Brazilian independence from Portugal.source
1789July 9 – At Versailles, the National Assembly reconstitutes itself as the National Constituent Assembly, and begins preparations for what will become the French Constitution of 1791.source
1789July 27 – The first agency of the Federal government of the United States under the new Constitution, the Department of Foreign Affairs (on September 15 renamed the Department of State), is established.source
1789August 4 – In France, members of the Constituent Assembly take an oath to end feudalism and abandon their privileges.source
1789August 21 – A proposal for a Bill of Rights is adopted by the United States House of Representatives.source
1789August 26 – The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen is proclaimed in France by the Constituent Assembly.source
1789September 24 – The Judiciary Act of 1789 establishes the federal judiciary, and the United States Marshals Service.source
1789September 25 – The United States Congress proposes a set of 12 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, for ratification by the states. Ratification for 10 of these proposals is completed on December 5, 1791, creating the United States Bill of Rights.source
1789October 24 – Brabant Revolution: Brabant revolutionaries cross the border from the Dutch Republic into the Austrian Netherlands; the first public reading of the Manifesto of the People of Brabant declares the independence of the Austrian Netherlands.source
1789November 20 – New Jersey ratifies the United States Bill of Rights, the first state to do so.source
1789November 21 – North Carolina ratifies the United States Constitution, and becomes the 12th U.S. state.source
1789November 26 – A national Thanksgiving Day is observed in the United States, as recommended by President George Washington and approved by Congress.source
1789The Bengal Presidency first establishes a penal colony, in the Andaman Islands.source
1789The Qajar dynasty establish themselves as rulers in Iran.source
1790January 8 – United States President George Washington gives the first State of the Union address, in New York City.source
1790January 11 – The 11 minor states of the Austrian Netherlands, which took part in the Brabant Revolution at the end of 1789, sign a Treaty of Union, creating the United States of Belgium.source
1790January 14 – U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton submits his proposed plan for payment of American debts, starting with $12,000,000 to pay the foreign debts of the confederation, followed by $40 million for domestic debts, and $21.5 million for the war debts of the states. The plan is narrowly approved 14-12 in the Senate, and 34-28 in the House.source
1790February 1 – In New York City, the Supreme Court of the United States convenes for the first time.source
1790February 4 – King Louis XVI declares to the French National Assembly that he will maintain the constitutional laws.source
1790February 11 – Two Quaker delegates petition the United States Congress for the abolition of slavery.source
1790February 25 – North Carolina cedes its western territories (modern day Tennessee) to the federal government.source
1790March 4 – France is divided into 83 départements, which cut across the former provinces, in an attempt to dislodge regional loyalties based on noble ownership of land.source
1790March 6 – The New York legislature consents to the admission to the Union of a new state, Vermont, formed within the boundaries of New York, contingent upon the successful conclusion of negotiations concerning disputed real-estate claims, and the boundary between the two states.source
1790March 21 – Thomas Jefferson reports to President George Washington in New York, as the new United States Secretary of State.source
1790May 26 – Congress passes an act to govern the creation of states from the "Southwest Territory", from which Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi will be formed.source
1790May 29 – Rhode Island ratifies the United States Constitution, and becomes the last of the 13 original states to do so.source
1790June 20 – Compromise of 1790: Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton come to an agreement: Madison agrees to not be "strenuous" in opposition for the assumption of state debts by the federal government; Hamilton agrees to support the capital site being above the Potomac.source
1790July 10 — The U.S. House of Representatives votes 32–29 to approve creating the District of Columbia from portions of Maryland and Virginia for the eventual seat of government and national capital.source
1790July 12 – French Revolution: The Civil Constitution of the Clergy is passed. This completes the destruction of the monastic orders, legislating out of existence all regular and secular chapters for either sex, abbacies and priorships.source
1790July 16 – U.S. President George Washington signs the Residence Act into law, establishing a site along the Potomac River as the District of Columbia and the future site of the capital of the United States. The move comes after the bill is narrowly approved on July 1 by the Senate, 14 to 12, and on July 9 by the House, 32 to 29. At the same time, plans are made to move the national capital from New York to Philadelphia until the Potomac River site can be completed.source
1790July 26 – Alexander Hamilton's Assumption Bill, giving effect to his First Report on the Public Credit, is passed in the United States Congress, allowing the federal government to assume the consolidated debts of the U.S. states.source
1790July 27 – The Convention of Reichenbach is signed between Prussia and Austria.source
1790July – Louis XVI accepts a constitutional monarchy in France.source
1790August 14 – The Treaty of Värälä ends the Russo-Swedish War.source
1790October 7 – Commissioners appointed by the New York legislature announce the successful conclusion of negotiations between New York and Vermont, concerning disputed real-estate claims, and the consent of New York's legislature to the admission to the Union of the state of Vermont as the 14th State (which was formed within what New York claimed as its territory, under an Order in Council, that King George III issued on July 20, 1764).source
1790November 27 – U.S. President George Washington and his wife, Martha Washington, arrive in the new temporary U.S. capital, Philadelphia, and take up residence at the President's House located at 524 Market Street.source
1790December 6 – The United States Congress opens its first session in the new temporary U.S. capital in Philadelphia.source
1790December 26 – Louis XVI gives his public assent to Civil Constitution of the Clergy during the French Revolution.source
1791January 25 – The British Parliament passes the Constitutional Act 1791, splitting the old province of Quebec into Upper and Lower Canada.source
1791February 21 – The United States opens diplomatic relations with Portugal.source
1791March 4 – Vermont is admitted as the 14th U.S. state.source
1791March – French Revolution: In France, the National Constituent Assembly accepts the recommendation of its Commission of Weights and Measures that the nation should adopt the metric system.source
1791April 21 – The first of forty boundary markers of the original District of Columbia, delineating the borders of the new District in the United States is laid at Jones Point Light in Alexandria, Virginia.source
1791May 3 – The Sejm of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth proclaims the Constitution of May 3, 1791, the first modern codified constitution in Europe.source
1791August 4 – The Treaty of Sistova is signed, ending the Ottoman–Habsburg wars.source
1791August 7 – George Hammond is appointed as Great Britain's first minister to the United States.source
1791August 27 – Declaration of Pillnitz: A proclamation by Frederick William II of Prussia and the Habsburg Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor, affirms their wish to "put the King of France in a state to strengthen the bases of monarchic government."source
1791September 9 – The capital of the United States, Washington, D.C., is named after the incumbent 1st President George Washington.source
1791September 13 – French Revolution: King Louis XVI accepts the final version of the completed constitution.source
1791September 28 – French Revolution: The law on Jewish emancipation is promulgated in France, the first such legislation in modern Europe.source
1791October 1 – French Revolution: The Legislative Assembly (France) convenes.source
1791October 19 – The Treaty of Drottningholm is signed between the Russian Empire and Sweden establishing an alliance between the two.source
1791December 15 – Ratification by the states of the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution is completed, creating the United States Bill of Rights. Two additional amendments remain pending, and one of these is finally ratified in 1992, becoming the Twenty-seventh Amendment.source
1791December 23 – The Pale of Settlement is established by ukase of Catherine the Great, specifying those areas of the Russian Empire in which Jews are permitted permanent residency.source
1791The abolition of guilds is enacted.source
1792January 9 – The Treaty of Jassy ends the Russian Empire's war with the Ottoman Empire over Crimea.source
1792February 20 – Parliament House, Dublin catches fire during a legislative session. "Although in imminent danger of the roof falling in," it is noted later, "the House did not adjourn until a proper motion had been put and carried in the affirmative."source
1792February 20 – The Postal Service Act, establishing the United States Post Office Department, is signed by President George Washington.source
1792March 7 – A settlement is formed in Sierra Leone in West Africa as a home for freed slaves.source
1792March 20 – A new capital of North Carolina, and seat of the newly formed Wake County, is established after North Carolina State senator and surveyor William Christmas submits his design for the city. A few months later, the capital is officially named Raleigh, in honor of Sir Walter Raleigh.source
1792March 25 – The National Legislative Assembly (France) agrees that the guillotine should be used for judicial executions.source
1792April 5 – United States President George Washington vetoes a bill designed to apportion representatives among U.S. states. This is the first time the presidential veto is used in the United States.source
1792April 25 – La Marseillaise, the French national anthem, is composed by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle.source
1792June 1 – Kentucky becomes the 15th state of the United States of America.source
1792June 4 – Captain George Vancouver claims Puget Sound for Great Britain.source
1792September 21 – French Revolution: A Proclamation of the abolition of the monarchy by the French Convention goes into effect, and the French First Republic is established, effective the following day.source
1792September 22 – French Revolution: The Era of the historical French Republican Calendar begins.source
1792October 13 – Foundation of Washington, D.C.: The cornerstone of the United States Executive Mansion (known as the White House after 1818) is laid.source
1792November 6 – The second United States presidential election is held. Incumbent President George Washington receives all 132 electoral votes for president, and incumbent Vice President John Adams is re-elected with 77 of 132 votes, with George Clinton receiving 50.source
1792November 19 – France's National Convention passes a resolution pledging French support for the overthrow of the governments of other nations.source
1792December 3 – George Washington is re-elected president of the United States.source
1793January 23 – Second Partition of Poland: The Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia partition the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.source
1793February 25 – George Washington holds the first Cabinet meeting as President of the United States.source
1793February 27 – The Giles Resolutions are introduced to the United States House of Representatives, asking the House to condemn Alexander Hamilton's handling of loans.source
1793March 1–3 – John Langdon serves as President pro tempore of the United States Senate.source
1793March 4 – George Washington is sworn in as the president of the United States in Philadelphia, for his second term.source
1793March 18 – The first republican state in Germany, the Republic of Mainz, is declared by Andreas Joseph Hofmann.source
1793April 22 – George Washington signs the Neutrality Proclamation.source
1793June – The Macartney Embassy, a British diplomatic mission to China led by George Macartney, 1st Earl Macartney, reaches Canton, but will be rebuffed by the Qianlong Emperor.source
1793July 9 – The Act Against Slavery is passed in Upper Canada.source
1793August – France decrees all the slaves on Saint-Domingue to be free.source
1793October 24 – French Revolution:The French Republican Calendar is adopted by the National Convention.source
1794January 13 – The U.S. Congress enacts a law providing for, effective May 1, 1795, a United States flag of 15 stars and 15 stripes, in recognition of the recent admission of Vermont and Kentucky as the 14th and 15th states. A subsequent act restores the number of stripes to 13, but provides for additional stars upon the admission of each additional state.source
1794January 21 – King George III of Great Britain delivers the speech opening Parliament and recommends a continuation of Britain's war with France.source
1794February 11 – The first session of the United States Senate is open to the public.source
1794March 4 – The Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution is passed by Congress for submission to the states for ratification.source
1794March 27 – The U.S. Senate passes a rule ending its policy of closing all of its sessions to the public.source
1794April 19 – Britain, Prussia and the Netherlands sign a treaty of alliance against France.source
1794June 17 – The Anglo-Corsican Kingdom is established.source
1794September 28 – Austria, Britain and Russia ally against France.source
1794October 22 – Fort Wayne founded in what is now the U.S. state of Indiana.source
1794November 19 – The United States and Great Britain sign the Jay Treaty (coming into effect in 1796), which attempts to clear up some issues left over from the American Revolutionary War and secures a decade of peaceful trade between the two nations. Britain agrees to evacuate border forts in the Northwest Territory (roughly the area north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi) and thereby end British support for the Indians.source
1795January 19 – The Batavian Republic is proclaimed in Amsterdam, ending the Dutch Republic (Republic of the Seven United Netherlands).source
1795February 7 – The Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution is passed.source
1795April 5 – The Peace of Basel is signed, between France and Prussia.source
1795April 23 – Sweden becomes the first monarchy to recognize the French Republic - Swedish ambassador introduced into the French Convention.source
1795June 24 – The United States Senate ratifies the Jay Treaty with Great Britain.source
1795July 22 – The Second Treaty of Basel is signed between the French First Republic and Spain, ending the War of the Pyrenees. Spain cedes its half of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola to France.source
1795August 3 – The signing of the Treaty of Greenville puts an end to the Northwest Indian War.source
1795August 14 – President Washington signs the Jay Treaty with Britain on behalf of the United States.source
1795August 22 – French Revolution: The Constitution of the Year III is ratified by the National Convention.source
1795August 28 – The Third Treaty of Basel is signed, between the French First Republic and the Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel.source
1795September 5 – The United States signs a treaty with the Dey of Algiers, ruled by Baba Hassan, pledging the payment of $23,000 a year tribute to prevent piracy against American ships.source
1795September 28 – The Alliance of St Petersburg is formed between Britain, Russia and Austria against France.source
1795October 1 – The Austrian Netherlands is annexed to the French Republic, as the Belgian departments.source
1795October 20 – The United States signs a treaty with Spain, opening commerce along the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico, and establishing boundaries between U.S. territory and Spanish Florida.source
1795October 24 – The Third Partition of Poland is made, dividing the territory of the Commonwealth of Poland between the Habsburg monarchy, Prussia and the Russian Empire. On November 25, Stanisław August Poniatowski formally abdicates as last King of Poland.source
1795October 27 – The United States and Spain sign the Treaty of Madrid, which establishes the boundaries between Spanish colonies and the U.S.source
1795November 2 – French Revolution: The French Directory takes power; the influence of the Sans-culottes declines.source
1796January 16 – The first Dutch (and general) elections are held for the National Assembly of the Batavian Republic. (The next Dutch general elections are held in 1888).source
1796February 1 – The capital of Upper Canada is moved from Newark to York.source
1796February 9 – The Qianlong Emperor of China abdicates at age 84 to make way for his son, the Jiaqing Emperor.source
1796February 16 – The Kingdom of Great Britain is granted control of Ceylon by the Dutch.source
1796February 29 – Ratifications of the Jay Treaty between Great Britain and the United States are officially exchanged, bringing it into effect.source
1796March 20 – The U.S. House of Representatives demands that the U.S. State Department supply it with documents relating to the negotiation of the Jay Treaty; President Washington declines the request, citing that only the U.S. Senate has jurisdiction over treaties.source
1796April 28 – In an impassioned speech, U.S. Representative Fisher Ames of Massachusetts persuades his fellow members of the House to support the Jay Treaty.source
1796May 20 – The last mock Garrat Elections are held in Surrey, England.source
1796June 1 – Tennessee is admitted as the 16th U.S. state.source
1796July 11 – The United States takes possession of Detroit from Great Britain, under the terms of the Jay Treaty.source
1796August 19 – Second Treaty of San Ildefonso: Spain and France form an alliance against Great Britain.source
1796September 2 – Jewish emancipation in the Batavian Republic (Netherlands).source
1796September 17 – U.S. President George Washington issues his Farewell Address, which warns against partisan politics and foreign entanglements. In addition, he sets a precedent by declining to run for a third term.source
1796September 28 – Empress Catherine the Great signs an agreement with Great Britain, formally joining Russia to the coalition.source
1796November 3 – John Adams defeats Thomas Jefferson, in the 1796 U.S. presidential election.source
1796November 4 – The Treaty of Tripoli (between the United States and Tripoli) is signed at Tripoli (see also 1797).source
1796December 7 – The U.S. Electoral College meets to elect John Adams president of the United States.source
1796The Spanish government lifts the restrictions against neutrals trading with the colonies, thus acknowledging Spain's inability to supply the colonies with needed goods and markets.source
1797January 3 – The Treaty of Tripoli, a peace treaty between the United States and Ottoman Tripolitania, is signed at Algiers (see also 1796).source
1797January 7 – The parliament of the Cisalpine Republic adopts the Italian green-white-red tricolour as their official flag (this is considered the birth of the flag of Italy).source
1797January 26 – The Treaty of the Third Partition of Poland is signed in St. Petersburg by the Russian Empire, Austria and the Kingdom of Prussia.source
1797February 19 – Treaty of Tolentino: Pope Pius VI signs a peace treaty with Revolutionary France. He is forced to deliver works of art, treasures, territory, the Comtat Venaissin, and 30 million francs.source
1797June 29 – Napoleon Bonaparte decrees the birth of the Cisalpine Republic; he appoints ministers and establishes the first constitution.source
1797July 9 – U.S. Senator William Blount becomes the first federal legislator to be expelled from office, as his fellow Senators vote 25 to 1 to block him from his seat during an investigation against him on charges of criminal conspiracy.source
1797October 17 – The Treaty of Campo Formio ends the War of the First Coalition.source
1797The secret Lautaro Lodge as the Logia de los Caballeros Racionales ("Lodge of Rational Knights") is founded, perhaps in Cádiz; membership will include many leaders of the Spanish American wars of independence such as Francisco de Miranda, Bernardo O'Higgins and José de San Martín.source
1798April 7 – The Mississippi Territory is organized by the United States, from territory ceded by Georgia and South Carolina; later it is twice expanded, to include disputed territory claimed by both the U.S. and Spain (which acquired territory in trade with Great Britain).source
1798June 18 – The first of the four Alien and Sedition Acts, the Naturalization Act of 1798, is signed into law by U.S. President Adams, requiring immigrants to wait 14 years rather than five years to become naturalized citizens of the United States. On June 25, another law is signed authorizing the imprisonment and deportation of any non-citizens deemed to be dangerous.source
1798July 7 – Quasi-War: The United States Congress rescinds treaties with France, sparking the war.source
1798July 11 – The United States Marine Corps is re-established under its present name.source
1798July 31 – A second round of elections are held in the Netherlands (Batavian Republic); no general elections this time.source
1798September 10 – The Piedmontese Republic is declared in the territory of Piedmont.source
1798October 2 – The Cherokee nation signs a treaty with the United States allowing free passage through Cherokee lands in Tennessee through the Cumberland Gap through the Appalachian Mountains from Virginia into Kentucky.source
1799January 21 – The Parthenopean Republic is established in Naples by French General Jean Étienne Championnet; King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies flees.source
1799March 1 – Federalist James Ross becomes President pro tempore of the United States Senate.source
1799June 13 – Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies is restored to his kingdom following the collapse of the Parthenopean Republic.source
1799September 23 – Frederick North, 5th Earl of Guilford, the Governor of British Ceylon (modern-day Sri Lanka), issues a proclamation declaring that the laws of the Netherlands for the conquered Dutch Ceylon shall be enforced until superseded by new laws.source
1799December 10 – France adopts the metre as its official unit of length.source