Religion & Belief in the 18th century

221 sourced entries, 1700 CE to 1799 CE, oldest first. Also see Religion & Belief across every century or everything else in the 18th century.

• 1700January 1 – Protestant nations in Western Europe, except England, start using the Gregorian calendar. Catholic nations have been using the Gregorian calendar since its introduction in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII.source
• 1700May 5 – Within a few days of poet John Dryden's death in London (May 1 O.S.), his last written work (The Secular Masque) is performed as part of Vanbrugh's version of The Pilgrim.source
• 1700September 12 – Antioh Cantemir is deposed as the voivode of Moldavia and replaced by his predecessor Constantine Ducas.source
• 1700November 23 – Cardinal Giovanni Francesco Albani, having been ordained as a Roman Catholic priest only two months earlier, is elected by the Papal conclave to succeed Pope Innocent XII, and becomes the 243rd pope, taking the name of Clement XI.source
• 1700December 8 – The formal coronation of Pope Clement XI takes place in Rome.source
• 1704September 28 – Damat Hasan Pasha, Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, is removed from office by Ottoman Sultan Ahmed III, and replaced by Kalaylikoz Ahmed Pasha.source
• 1704November 26 – The inauguration of the newly built Kastelskirken takes place in Copenhagen, Denmark.source
• 1704Chinese Rites controversy: Rome decrees that Roman ceremonial practice in Latin (not in Chinese) is to be the law for Chinese missions.source
• 1705May 5 – Joseph I succeeds his father Leopold I as Holy Roman Emperor.source
• 1705July 15 – Al-Husayn I ibn Ali becomes the first Bey of Tunis, founding the Husainid dynasty that rules Tunisia until the abolition of the monarchy in 1957.source
• 1705October 4 (N.S.) – Stanisław Leszczyński is crowned Stanisław I of Poland.source
• 1706June 29 – Flemish Jesuit missionary François Noël is welcomed in China by the Kangxi Emperor at the Forbidden City in Beijing, and discusses the Emperor's disdain over the disapproval of Jesuit accommodation of Confucian rites by the Roman Catholic Church.source
• 1707January 1 – John V is crowned King of Portugal and the Algarves in Lisbon.source
• 1707June 28 – Yeshe Gyatso is installed as the new Dalai Lama by his father, Lha-bzang Khan, who has recently deposed the 6th Dalai Lama. Though the justification is that the 21-year-old Yeshe was the true reincarnation of the 5th Dalai Lama, Yeshe receives no recognition from Buddhists in Tibet or Mongolia and the 7th Dalai Lama is installed in 1710.source
• 1708October 26 – Topping out of new St Paul's Cathedral in London.source
• 1709October 12 – Chihuahua City in Mexico is founded.source
• 1709Basil Lazarus III becomes Syriac Orthodox Maphrian of the East.source
• 1710April 18 – Thomas Hancorne gives the county of Swansea's assize sermon, "The right way to honour and happiness" in which he espouses his High Church beliefs.source
• 1710John Smithwick begins brewing Smithwick's ale at Kilkenny, Ireland (St. Francis Abbey Brewery).source
• 1711April 5 (Easter Sunday) – The central tower of Elgin Cathedral in northeast Scotland collapses.source
• 1711May – Alexander Pope publishes the poem An Essay on Criticism in London.source
• 1711August 14 – The inauguration of the newly built Cathedral of the Assumption takes place in Gozo, Malta.source
• 1711September 18 – Bishop Bogusław Gosiewski sells the town of Maladzyechna in the Minsk Region of Belarus to the mighty Ogiński family.source
• 1711December 8 – The Immaculate Conception Cathedral, Comayagua in Honduras, one of the oldest cathedrals in Central America, is inaugurated.source
• 1711December 15 – The Old Pummerin, a massive bell cast from 208 captured cannons, is consecrated by Bishop Franz Ferdinand Freiherr von Rummel in preparation for its installation in St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna (the Stephansdom).source
• 1711December 25 – The rebuilding of St Paul's Cathedral in London to a design by Sir Christopher Wren is declared complete by Parliament; Old St Paul's had been destroyed by the 1666 Great Fire of London.source
• 1712January 26 – The Old Pummerin, a 18,161 kg bell newly installed in the Stephansdom, St. Stephen's Cathedral, in Vienna, is rung for the first time to mark the entry of Charles VI to Vienna from Frankfurt after his coronation as Emperor. It takes a quarter-hour for 16 men pulling on the bell rope to swing the heavy bell back-and-forth enough for the clapper to strike; the resulting forces endanger the tower so the architect orders that in future the bell be rung only by pulling its clapper.source
• 1712March 3 – Scottish Episcopalians Act 1711 comes into effect, leading to incorporation of the Scottish Episcopal Church.source
• 1712May 22 – Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor is crowned King of Hungary.source
• 1712June 17 – The newly built St Ann's Church, Manchester, England, is consecrated by the Bishop of Chester.source
• 1712December 7 – The charter of Buchach Monastery in Ukraine, founded by Stefan Aleksander Potocki and his wife Joanna née Sieniawska, is signed in Lublin.source
• 1713April 19 – With no living male heirs, Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, issues the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713, to ensure one of his daughters will inherit the Habsburg lands.source
• 1713Basil Matthew II becomes Syriac Orthodox Maphrian of the East.source
• 1714June 20 – In France, Henri-Charles du Cambout de Coislin, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Metz, condemns the papal bull Unigenitus, issued by Pope Clement XI against the 1671 commentary by Pasquier Quesnel of the four Gospels and inflaming the Jansenist controversy.source
• 1714October 20 – The coronation of George I of Great Britain and Ireland takes place in Westminster Abbey, a little less than three months after George became the new British monarch.source
• 1714Archbishop Tenison's School, the world's earliest surviving mixed gender school, is established by Thomas Tenison, Archbishop of Canterbury, in Croydon, south of London, England.source
• 1714Worcester College, University of Oxford is founded (formerly Gloucester College, closed during the Dissolution of the monasteries).source
• 1715March 14 – James Stuart, the "Old Pretender" attempting to restore the House of Stuart to control of Great Britain as King James III of England and James VIII of Scotland, meets with Pope Clement XI for the assistance of the Roman Catholic Church in the Jacobite rising.source
• 1716March 18 – Italian Jesuit missionary Ippolito Desideri arrives in Lhasa to become one of the first Europeans to attempt to bring Christianity to Buddhist Tibet.source
• 1716March 23 – Jeremias III becomes the new Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, leader of the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church.source
• 1716August 24 – Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, returns from Italy.source
• 1717February 6 – Following the treaty between France and Britain, the Pretender James Stuart leaves France, and seeks refuge with Pope Clement XI.source
• 1717March 31 – Benjamin Hoadly, Bishop of Bangor, brings the Bangorian Controversy within the Church of England into the open by delivering a sermon to, and supposedly at the request of, King George I of Great Britain, on The Nature of the Kingdom of Christ with the text "My kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36), concluding there is no Biblical justification for church government.source
• 1717Maharaja Pamheiba of Manipur is converted to Hinduism by Shantidas Goswami, and decrees it to be the official religion of his state.source
• 1718January 17 – Jeremias III reclaims his role as the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, chief leader within the Eastern Orthodox Church, 16 days after the Metropolitan Cyril IV of Pruoza had engineered an election to become the Patriarch.source
• 1718March 20 – The Privy Council of the United Kingdom is reorganized, forming the Second Stanhope–Sunderland ministry. Secretary of State for the Northern Department Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl of Sunderland succeeds James Stanhope as the new First Lord of the Treasury, and Stanhope takes Sunderland's job.source
• 1718May 1 – San Antonio in what later becomes Texas is founded by Father Antonio de San Buenaventura y Olivares with the construction of the initial Mission San Antonio de Valero.source
• 1719January 23 – The Principality of Liechtenstein is created, within the Holy Roman Empire.source
• 1720April 17 – Bajirao I is appointed as the Peshwa of the Maratha Empire by Chhatrapati Shahu, succeeding his father Peshwa.source
• 1721May 8 – Pope Innocent XIII succeeds Pope Clement XI, as the 244th pope.source
• 1722April 2 – The first Silence Dogood letter, written by Benjamin Franklin, is printed.source
• 1723May 30 – Johann Sebastian Bach assumed the office of Thomaskantor in Leipzig, presenting his first new cantata, Die Elenden sollen essen, BWV 75, in the St. Nicholas Church on the first Sunday after Trinity.source
• 1723July 12 – Christian von Wolff holds a lecture for students and the magistrates at the end of his term as a rector, as a result of which he is banned from Prussia, on a charge of atheism.source
• 1723September 14 – Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller António Manoel de Vilhena lays down the first stone of Fort Manoel in Malta.source
• 1724April 28 – The first of the seven Drapier's Letters, satirical pamphlets seeking to arouse public opinion in Ireland against the imposition by the British of a privately minted copper coinage, is published by Jonathan Swift, Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin and author, writing under the pseudonym "M. B., Drapier", identifying himself as a drapier or seller of cloth.source
• 1724May 13 – Cardinal Giulio Piazza, the Archbishop of Faenza, comes within four votes of being elected the new Popesource
• 1724May 29 – Cardinal Vincenzo Orsini, the Archbishop of Benevento, accepts the papacy, two days after being unanimously selected by the cardinals at the papal conclave in Rome. He becomes the 245th pontiff as Pope Benedict XIII.source
• 1724June 11 – Johann Sebastian Bach leads his cantata O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort (O eternity, you word of thunder), BWV20, on the first Sunday after Trinity, beginning his second cycle, the chorale cantata cycle.source
• 1724October 2 – Muhammad bin Nasir is elected as the new Imam of Oman after the overthrow of his brother, Saif bin Sultan II.source
• 1724December 2 – The Metropolitan Mojsije Petrović, leader of the Serbian Orthodox Church within the Habsburg monarchy, issues a 57-point decree to purge the church of the Turkish influence.source
• 1725May 15 – Bach leads the first performance of his cantata Ich bin ein guter Hirt, BWV 85, about Jesus as the Good Shepherd.source
• 1725June 24 – The Grand Lodge of Ireland in Dublin holds its first recorded meeting, making it the second most senior Grand Lodge in world Freemasonry, and the oldest in continuous existence.source
• 1725In Qing dynasty China, 66 copies of a 5,020 volume-long encyclopedia, the Complete Classics Collection of Ancient China are printed, necessitating the crafting of 250,000 movable type characters cast in bronze.source
• 1725The Terengganu Sultanate is established at Terengganu Darul Iman (in modern Malaysia).source
• 1726January 20 – J. S. Bach leads the first performance of his cantata Meine Seufzer, meine Tränen (My sighs, my tears), BWV 13, for the second Sunday after Epiphany.source
• 1726January 23 (January 12 Old Style) – The Conventicle Act (Konventikelplakatet) is adopted in Sweden, outlawing all non-Lutheran religious meetings outside of church services.source
• 1726September 11 – French bishop André-Hercule de Fleury, later Prime Minister for King Louis XV of France, is made a Roman Catholic Cardinal by Pope Benedict XIII.source
• 1726September 23 – Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, issues an order limiting the number of Jews who can be legally recognized as legitimate householders.source
• 1726September 24 – Permission to celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, celebrated on July 17, is extended by Pope Benedict XIII to the entire Roman Catholic Church.source
• 1727January 12 – Abd el-Sayed of Egypt is enthroned, as Pope John XVII of Alexandria becomes the leader of the Coptic Christian Church, as the 105th Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the Holy See of St. Mark. He will serve until his death on April 20, 1745.source
• 1727May 12 – History of the Moravian Church: The 18th century renewal: The Brotherly Agreement is adopted by the Moravian Church community at Herrnhut, under the influence of Count Nicolaus Zinzendorf, beginning the Church's renewal.source
• 1727November 27 – The foundation stone of the Jerusalem's Church in Berlin is laid.source
• 1728April 14 – Saint Serapion of Algiers, the first Mercedarian (of the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy) is canonized by Pope Benedict XIII.source
• 1728May 16 – Saint Margaret of Cortona, the patron saint of the falsely accused, homeless people and mental illness sufferers, is canonized.source
• 1728May 25 – Pope Gregory VII (Hildebrand of Sovana), who served as pontiff from 1073 to 1085, is canonized as a Roman Catholic saint.source
• 1729March 19 – John of Nepomuk (Jan Nepomucký) of Bohemia is canonized by Pope Benedict XIII more than 300 years after being tortured and drowned in 1393 by order of King Wenceslaus IV; John becomes patron saint of Roman Catholics in the Czech Republic.source
• 1729April 15 – Johann Sebastian Bach's St Matthew Passion, BWV 244b is performed again, at St. Thomas Church, Leipzig.source
• 1730March 12 – John Glas is deposed from the Church of Scotland; the Glasite sect forms around him.source
• 1730April 8 – Congregation Shearith Israel, the first synagogue in New York City, is dedicated.source
• 1730July 12 – The papal conclave selects Cardinal Lorenzo Corsini over Cardinal Pietro Marcellino Corradini as the successor to Pope Benedict XIII. Corsini becomes Pope Clement XII as the 246th pope.source
• 1732This year's General Assembly of the Church of Scotland gives rise to the First Secession of 1733.source
• 1733March 25 – English replaces Latin and Law French as the official language of English and Scottish courts following the enforcement of the Proceedings in Courts of Justice Act 1730.source
• 1735January 2 – Alexander Pope's poem Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot is published in London.source
• 1735December 19 – At the age of 8 years old, Prince Luis of Spain becomes the youngest Roman Catholic Cardinal in history, after being named by Pope Clement XII.source
• 1736September 30 – The Lebanese Council of 1736 begins, a major turning point in the reform of the Maronite Church. In the following three days, the assembled Maronite and Latin clergy presided by Yusuf ibn Siman as-Simani discuss various reforms and elaborate rules and canons.source
• 1736December 26 – Andrew Michael Ramsay gives an oration, in which he relates the heritage and internationalism of Freemasonry to that of the Crusades.source
• 1736Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab writes the Kitab at-tawhidt, marking the beginning of Wahhabism.source
• 1737April 5 – French Jesuit priest Jean-François Régis is canonized as Saint Regis by the Roman Catholic Church under the reign of Pope Clement XII.source
• 1737Our Lady of Guadalupe is designated the patron saint of Mexico City.source
• 1738April 28 – Pope Clement XII issues the papal bull In eminenti apostolatus, prohibiting Roman Catholics from being members of Masonic societies.source
• 1738June 27 – The Spanish Empire's Council of the Indies votes, 6 to 4, to re-establish the Viceroyalty of New Granada, incorporating modern-day Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela and Panama. King Philip V issues the order on August 20, 1738.source
• 1738September 18 – Samuel Johnson composes his first solemn prayer (published 1785).source
• 1739May 12 – John Wesley lays the foundation stone of the New Room, Bristol in England, the world's first Methodist meeting house.source
• 1739October 12 – The town of Utuado, Puerto Rico was founded by Sebastian de Morfi.source
• 1740August 17 – Pope Benedict XIV succeeds Pope Clement XII, as the 247th pope.source
• 1740The fairy-tale Beauty and the Beast by French novelist Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve was published.source
• 1741January 13 – Conventicle Act of 1741 is introduced in Denmark-Norway.source
• 1741July 8 – Jonathan Edwards repeats his Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God sermon at Enfield, Connecticut.source
• 1742January 24 – Charles VII becomes Holy Roman Emperor.source
• 1742Daniel le Pelley succeeds Nicolas le Pelley, as Seigneur of Sark.source
• 1742The Roman Catholic church decrees that Roman ceremonial practice in Latin (not in Chinese) is to be the law for Chinese missions.source
• 1743January 16 – Cardinal André-Hercule de Fleury turns his effects over to King Louis XV, 13 days before his death on January 29.source
• 1743April 1 – Pope Benedict XIV issues a new bill, barring agreements by spouses not to appeal annulments of marriagessource
• 1745March 1 – Augustus III, the King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, declares his candidacy to become the next Holy Roman Emperor, but loses in September to Francis, Duke of Tuscany.source
• 1745October 4 – Francis is crowned as the new Holy Roman Emperor.source
• 1745November 1 – Pope Benedict XIV issues the encyclical Vix pervenit, referred to in English as "On Usury and Other Dishonest Profit", to the bishops of Italy, condemning the charging of interest on loans as a sin against the Roman Catholic Church.source
• 1746June 18 – Samuel Johnson is contracted to write his A Dictionary of the English Language.source
• 1746June 29 – Catherine of Ricci (b. 1522) is canonized.source
• 1746July 3 – Father Joachim Royo, the last of the five Spanish Catholic missionaries to Fuzhou in China, is captured by Chinese authorities, after having spent three decades defying orders to not evangelize.source
• 1746The town of Vilkovo (Odes'ka oblast', Ukraine) is founded.source
• 1748August 26 – The first Lutheran Church body in America is founded at a conference in Philadelphia, organized by German-born evangelist Henry Muhlenberg and attended by pastors of orthodox and pious Lutheran communities. The two groups agree to create a common liturgy to govern public worship.source
• 1748November 22 – The Electorate of Hanover (now occupied by most of the northwestern German state of Niedersachsen or Lower Saxony) issues a decree banishing all adherents of the Moravian Church.source
• 1748Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock publishes the first three cantos of his epic poem Der Messias in hexameters (anonymously), in Bremer Beiträge (Leipzig).source
• 1749October 4 – What is later described as "the least examined yet most influential" of clerical reforms, by the Spanish Bourbon monarchs of the 18th century, begins when King Ferdinand VI approves a royal cédula, removing control of the Roman Catholic parishes of Latin America from religious orders. Henceforward, jurisdiction over parishioners in the archdioceses of Lima, Mexico City and Bogotá is with the secular clergy.source
• 1749December 1 – Sultan Azim ud-Din I, recently forced to flee to Manila after being driven from the throne of Sultanate of Sulu elsewhere in the Philippine Islands, announces his intention to convert from Sunni Islam to become baptized as a Christian within the Roman Catholic Church. He changes his name to Fernando after being baptized.source
• 1750April 14 – The Viceroy of New Spain, Juan Francisco de Güemes, issues a notice to the missionaries in Nuevo Santander (which includes parts of what are now the U.S. state of Texas, including San Antonio, and the Mexican state of Tamaulipas) to work peacefully to convert the indigenous Karankawa people to Roman Catholicism.source
• 1751February 16 – English poet Thomas Gray first publishes Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, anonymously in The Magazine of Magazines. The poem becomes more popularly known as "Gray's Elegy".source
• 17511751–1775 – 13 per cent of appointees to audiencias in the Spanish Empire are Creoles.source
• 1753James Lind writes A Treatise of the Scurvy.source
• 1754December 13 – Osman III succeeds his brother Mahmud I as Ottoman Emperor; he will rule until his death in 1757.source
• 1754St. Florian's Martyr Greek Catholic Church, Budapest is built.source
• 1755November 25 – King Ferdinand VI of Spain grants the Religious of the Virgin Mary in the Philippines royal protection.source
• 1755December 17 – Anton, Patriarch of the Georgian Orthodox Church, is dismissed by his opponents on the Ecclesiastical Council and briefly imprisoned for 18 months before being allowed to move to Russia; in 1764, Anton is again made the Georgian Orthodox Church's leader.source
• 1755Construction of St Ninian's Church, Tynet, Scotland, the country's oldest surviving post-Reformation Roman Catholic clandestine church, is completed.source
• 1755Construction of the Puning Temple complex in Chengde, China is completed, during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor.source
• 1757January 12 – Koca Ragıp Pasha becomes the new Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, and administers the office for seven years until his death in 1763.source
• 1757Emanuel Swedenborg claims to have witnessed the Last Judgment occurring in the spiritual world.source
• 1757A firman (decree) of Ottoman sultan Osman III (d. October 30) preserves the division of ownership and responsibilities of various Christian holy places in Jerusalem and Bethlehem (e.g. the former's Church of the Holy Sepulchre); this becomes established as the Status Quo in international law.source
• 1758July 6 – Pope Clement XIII succeeds Pope Benedict XIV, as the 248th pope.source
• 1760August 21 – The church (later cathedral) of Our Lady of Candlemas of Mayagüez (Puerto Rico) is founded, establishing the basis for the founding of the city in the following month.source
• 1760September 18 – The town (later city) of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, is founded.source
• 1760approximate date – Abu Dhabi is founded.source
• 1762Approximate date of the foundation of Zubarah on the northwestern shore of the Qatari Peninsula, by Shaikh Mohamed bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, who assumes the chieftainship of the city state and gains authority over the Arab tribes in the area.source
• 1762The Plymouth Synagogue is built in Plymouth, England, the oldest built by Ashkenazi Jews in the English-speaking world.source
• 1763December 2 – Touro Synagogue, Newport, Rhode Island, is dedicated; by the end of the 20th century, this will be the oldest surviving synagogue in North America.source
• 1764French Carthusian monks at Grande Chartreuse perfect a commercial recipe for Chartreuse (liqueur).source
• 1765August 18 – Joseph II becomes Holy Roman Emperor.source
• 1765Desai Atash Behram is established in Navsari, India.source
• 1766January 14 – Christian VII becomes King of Denmark-Norway.source
• 1766September 13 – The position of Patriarch of the Serbs, established on April 9, 1346 as the authority over the Serbian Orthodox Church, is abolished by order of Sultan Mustafa III of the Ottoman Empire; the patriarchate is not re-established until 1920 following the creation of Yugoslavia at the end of World War One.source
• 1767February 27 – King Carlos III of Spain issues a decree expelling the Jesuits from the dominions of the Spanish Empire worldwide.source
• 1767March 31 – Enforcement begins of the February 27 decree by King Carlos III of Spain, ordering the suppression of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) in the colonies in Spanish America. Over the next few months approximately 2,200 Jesuit priests and missionaries are deported.source
• 1767April 2 – Suppression of the Jesuits begins, in the Spanish Empire and Kingdom of Naples.source
• 1767May 16 – Ahmed al-Ghazzal, the emissary from Sultan Mohammed ben Abdallah of Morocco to the Spanish Empire, makes a triumphant return to Marrakesh with almost 300 Muslims who had been held captive in Spain, as well as sacred Islamic manuscripts that had been seized by the Spanish in 1612. The negotiation of the release had started with al-Ghazzal's meeting with Spain's King Carlos III on August 21, 1766.source
• 1767November 3 – King Ferdinand IV of the Spanish dominated Kingdom of Naples follows Spain's lead and orders the expulsion of the Jesuits from Naples and has them marched northward to the Neapolitan border with the Papal States.source
• 1767November 4 – Francisco de Paula Bucareli, the Governor of Buenos Aires (at the time, a province within the Spanish Empire's Viceroyalty of Peru), hosts the caciques who are the Guarani chiefs of the 30 mission towns established by Jesuit missionaries, in an effort to gain Guarani peoples' support in the expulsion of the Jesuits.source
• 1768June 14 – The largest mass meeting ever held in New England, up to this time, takes place at the Old South Church to support a petition demanding that the British remove a ship which has been hindering navigation in Boston Harbor.source
• 1768Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, the founder of the Al Khalifa dynasty, constructed Qal'at Murair in the town of Zubarah in present-day Qatar. The fortress served to consolidate his control over Zubarah and neighboring tribes.source
• 1769March 4 – Mozart departs Italy, after the last of his three tours there.source
• 1769May 19 – Cardinal Giovanni Vincenzo Antonio Ganganelli is elected as the 249th pope, succeeding the late Clement XIII and choosing to take the regnal name of Pope Clement XIV.source
• 1769July 16 – Father Junípero Serra founds Mission San Diego de Alcalá, the first of the 21 California missions.source
• 1770October 11 – Phillis Wheatley becomes the first African American woman to have her work published, after having written a poetic elegy to the late Reverend George Whitefield.source
• 1770December 24 – France's Secretary of the Navy, César Gabriel de Choiseul, is dismissed from his position by the king.source
• 1771Construction of the Putuo Zongcheng Temple complex in Chengde, China is completed during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor.source
• 1771Slovene literature: István Küzmics, the Hungarian Slovene writer and evangelical pastor, publishes (in Halle) the Nouvi Zákon, a translation of the New Testament into the Prekmurje Slovene language, with discrete South Slavic artwork.source
• 1772September 1 – Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa is founded in San Luis Obispo, California.source
• 1773January 1 – The hymn that becomes known as Amazing Grace, at this time titled "1 Chronicles 17:16–17", is first used to accompany a sermon led by curate John Newton in the town of Olney, Buckinghamshire, England.source
• 1773February 8 – The Grand Council of Poland meets in Warsaw, summoned by a circular letter from King Stanisław August Poniatowski to respond to the Kingdom's threatened partition between three foreign powers.source
• 1773February 27 – The construction of Christ Church (Alexandria, Virginia), known for being the house of worship for George Washington and the visiting site for subsequent U.S. presidents, is completed.source
• 1773July 14 – The first annual conference of American Methodists is convened at Philadelphia in St. George's Church.source
• 1773July 21 – Under pressure from the Bourbon courts, Pope Clement XIV suppresses the Society of Jesus (brief Dominus ac Redemptor). Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, expels the order from his territories.source
• 1773Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock publishes the last five cantos of his epic poem Der Messias in Hamburg.source
• 1774February 3 – The Privy Council of Great Britain, as advisors to King George III, votes for the King's abolition of free land grants of North American lands. Henceforward, land is to be sold at auction to the highest bidder.source
• 1774April 17 – The first avowedly Unitarian congregation, Essex Street Chapel, is founded in London by Theophilus Lindsey.source
• 1774December 23 – King Louis XVI of France issues a declaration that, for the first time, protects "the free commerce of meat during Lent" to support the needs of "the poor whose infirmity requires them to eat meat."source
• 1775February 15 – Pope Pius VI succeeds Pope Clement XIV as the 250th pope.source
• 1775March 17 – Catherine the Great of Russia issues a manifesto prohibiting freed serfs from being returned to serfdom.source
• 1775Shneur Zalman of Liadi founds the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic Jewish dynasty.source
• 1776March 28 – Juan Bautista de Anza finds the site for the Presidio of San Francisco.source
• 1776May 1 – Adam Weishaupt founds the Illuminati in Ingolstadt, Bavaria.source
• 1776October 9 – Father Francisco Palóu founds the Mission San Francisco de Asís, in what becomes San Francisco.source
• 1777January 12 – Mission Santa Clara de Asís is founded in what becomes Santa Clara, California.source
• 1777November 29 – San Jose, California, is founded. It is the first pueblo in Spanish Alta California.source
• 1778May 30 – Benedict Arnold signs the U.S. Oath of Allegiance at Valley Forge.source
• 1778The city of Ulaanbaatar is settled at its present location, having functioned as a mobile monastic settlement since 1639.source
• 1779July 16 – Declaratory Rescript of the Illyrian Nation issued in order to regulate organization of Eastern Orthodox Church in Habsburg monarchy.source
• 1780Nikephoros Theotokis starts introducing Edinoverie, an attempt to integrate the Old Believers into Russia's established church.source
• 1781March 16 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart arrives in Vienna after being fired by the Archbishop of Salzburg. He would stay there for the rest of his brief life.source
• 1782March 31 (Easter Sunday) – Mission San Buenaventura is founded in Las Californias, part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain.source
• 1782July – Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, receives a visit from Pope Pius VI.source
• 1783August – Robert Burns writes his poem "Now Westlin' Winds" or "Composed in August".source
• 1783November 24 – In Spain, the Cedula of Population is signed, stating that anyone who will swear fealty to Spain and is of the Roman Catholic faith is welcome to populate Trinidad and Tobago.source
• 1784February 28 – John Wesley ordains ministers for the Methodist Church in the United States.source
• 1784March 22 – The Emerald Buddha is installed at the Wat Phra Kaew, on the grounds of the Grand Palace in Bangkok (or in 1785).source
• 1784December 25 – The Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States is officially formed at the "Christmas Conference", led by Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury.source
• 1785October 18 – Benjamin Franklin takes office as the new President of the Supreme Council of Pennsylvania, at the time the equivalent of a republic as one of the 13 independent governments of the United States of America under the Articles of Confederation.source
• 1785December 11 – An edict is issued limiting Masonic lodges throughout the Holy Roman Empire by Emperor Joseph II. With the exception of Vienna, Budapest and Prague, no Empire province may have more than one lodge.source
• 1785Mozart's "Haydn" String Quartets are published, as is his collaboration with Salieri and a third, unknown composer, Cornetti, Per la ricuperata salute di Ofelia.source
• 1786February 2 – In a speech before The Asiatic Society in Calcutta, Sir William Jones notes the formal resemblances between Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit, laying the foundation for comparative linguistics and Indo-European studies.source
• 1786December 4 – Mission Santa Barbara is founded by Padre Fermín Lasuén as the tenth of the Spanish missions in California.source
• 1786December 20 – Robert Burns's Address to a Haggis is first published, in Edinburgh.source
• 1787March 28 – In the British House of Commons, Henry Beaufoy files the first motion to repeal the Test Act 1673, which restricts the rights of non-members of the Church of England; Beaufoy's motion is rejected, and the Act is not repealed until 1829.source
• 1787March 30 – Biblical theology becomes a separate discipline from biblical studies, as Johann Philipp Gabler delivers his speech "On the proper distinction between biblical and dogmatic theology and the specific objectives of each" upon his inauguration as the professor of theology at the University of Altdorf in Germany. Craig Bartholomew, Out of Egypt: Biblical Theology and Biblical Interpretation (Zondervan, 2011) p2source
• 1787May 7 – The New Church (Swedenborgian) is founded in England.source
• 1787December 8 – La Purisima Mission is founded by Padre Fermín Lasuén as the eleventh of the Spanish missions in California.source
• 1788January 31 – Henry Benedict Stuart becomes the new Stuart claimant to the throne of Great Britain, as King Henry IX and the figurehead of Jacobitism.source
• 1789April 7 – Selim III (1789–1807) succeeds Abdul Hamid I (1773–1789) as Ottoman Sultan.source
• 1789November 2 – Decree on the goods of the clergy placed at the disposal of the Nation passed by the National Constituent Assembly.source
• 1789November 6 – Pope Pius VI creates the first diocese in the United States at Baltimore, and appoints John Carroll the first Roman Catholic bishop in the United States.source
• 1789Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, decrees that all peasant labor obligations be converted into cash payments.source
• 1791January 12 – Holy Roman troops reenter Liège, heralding the end of the Liège Revolution, and the restoration of its Prince-Bishops.source
• 1791July 11 – The ashes of Voltaire are transferred to the Panthéon in Paris.source
• 1791September 5 – Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen is written by activist Olympe de Gouges in response to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.source
• 1791September 14 – French Revolution: The Papal States lose Avignon to Revolutionary France.source
• 1791September 25 – Mission Santa Cruz is founded by Basque Franciscan Father Fermín Lasuén, becoming the 12th mission in the California mission chain.source
• 1791October 9 – Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad is founded by Father Fermín Lasuén, becoming the 13th mission in the California mission chain.source
• 1792March 1 – Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor, the last emperor, takes office.source
• 1792October 2 – The Baptist Missionary Society is founded in Kettering, England.source
• 1792Shiloh Meeting House, predecessor of Shiloh United Methodist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, is founded.source
• 1793April 25 – The pioneer parishes of New Orleans and Louisiana are erected, as well as incorporated into the Roman Catholic Diocese of Louisiana and the Two Floridas.source
• 1793November 10 – The dechristianization of France during the French Revolution reaches a climax with the celebration of the Goddess of Reason in the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris.source
• 1794May 7 – Maximilien Robespierre establishes the Cult of the Supreme Being as the new state religion of the French First Republic.source
• 1794December 23 – St. Louis Cathedral, New Orleans is dedicated.source
• 1795March – English Benedictine monks expelled from Douai are permitted to proceed to England.source
• 1796November 12 – Groton, New Hampshire is incorporated as a town.source
• 1797September 4 – The Coup of 18 Fructidor is carried out in France as three of the five members of The Directory, France's executive council, arrested royalist members of the Council of Five Hundred, the national legislature, and discard the results of the spring elections.source
• 1798February 10 – The Pope is taken captive, and the Papacy is removed from power, by French General Louis-Alexandre Berthier.source
• 1798June 13 – Mission San Luis Rey de Francia is founded in California.source
• 1799September 29 – The Second Roman Republic, a puppet state formed by the French Army after they dissolve the Papal States and the occupation of Rome, is dissolved 19 months after its creation on February 15, 1798.source
• 1799November 10 (19 Brumaire) – A remnant of the Council of Ancients in France abolishes the Constitution of the Year III, and ordains the French Consulate with Napoleon as First Consul, with the Constitution of the Year VIII.source
• 1799November 30 – 1799–1800 Papal conclave opens in Venice at San Giorgio Monastery.source