Events
1710
January–March
- January 1 – In Prussia, Cölln is merged with Alt-Berlin by Frederick I to form Berlin.
- January 4 – Robert Balfour, 5th Lord Balfour of Burleigh, two days before he is due to be executed for murder, escapes from the Edinburgh Tolbooth by exchanging clothes with his sister.
- February 17 – Mauritius, a Dutch colony since 1638, is abandoned by the Dutch.
- February 28 (Swedish calendar) February 27 (Julian). March 10 (Gregorian) – Battle of Helsingborg: Fourteen thousand Danish invaders, under Jørgen Rantzau, are decisively defeated by an equally large Swedish army, under Magnus Stenbock.
- March 1 – The Sacheverell riots start in London with an attack on an elegant Presbyterian meeting-house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, followed by riots through the West End of London.
- March 6 – The ancient Roman Pillar of the Boatmen is found during the construction of a crypt under the nave of Notre-Dame de Paris.
April–June
- April 5 – Pylyp Orlyk, a Cossack of Ukraine, is elected as the Hetman of the Zaporizhian Host and immediately issues the Pacts and Constitutions of Rights and Freedoms of the Zaporizhian Host .
- April 10 – The world's first copyright legislation, Britain's Statute of Anne , becomes effective. [1]
- April 19 – Anne, Queen of Great Britain, meets the Four Mohawk Kings. [2]
- May 6 – The South Sea Company begins. [3]
- June – Protestant Swiss and German Palatines, under the leadership of Christoph von Graffenried, travel to Bath County in the Province of Carolina. The settlers displace the native town of Chattoka and found New Bern, named for von Graffenried's hometown of Bern, Switzerland.
- June 8 – The Tuscarora nation sends a petition to the Province of Pennsylvania, protesting the seizure of their lands and enslavement of their people, by citizens of the Province of Carolina.
- June 16 – Köprülüzade Numan Pasha becomes the grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire.
- June 24 – In the Isle of Man, Manx coins become legal tender.
July–September
- July 27 – The Battle of Almenar takes place in the Iberian theatre of the War of the Spanish Succession.
- August 2 – British Royal Navy 90-gun ship HMS Vanguard is relaunched from Chatham; Vanguard sank in Chatham Dockyard in the Great Storm of 1703, but was raised in 1704 for rebuilding.
- August 20 – War of the Spanish Succession – Battle of Saragossa: The Spanish-Bourbon army, commanded by the Marquis de Bay, is soundly defeated by the forces of the Habsburg monarchy, under Guido Starhemberg and their allies. [4]
- August 24 – Total eclipse of the sun is visible at 36°30′S105°06′W / 36.5°S 105.1°W .
- September 7 – In Jonathan Swift's satirical Gulliver's Travels , fictional Gulliver sets off on his fourth and final journey, a voyage to the Land of the Houyhnhnms.
- September 26 – Great Northern War – Capitulation of Livonia: the Swedish garrison in Riga surrenders, ending Swedish rule in modern Latvia.
October–December
- October – The start of the Mascate War (aka the War of the Peddlers) between two rival mercantile groups the Zillioto family and the Astrid family in colonial Brazil.
- October 4 – Great Northern War – the Battle of Køge Bay between Denmark and Norway has an indecisive outcome.
- October 5 – October 13 British forces under Francis Nicholson conduct the successful Siege of Port Royal against a French Acadian garrison and the Wabanaki Confederacy at the Acadian capital, Port Royal, marking the start of British control of what became Nova Scotia.
- October 10 – Great Northern War – Capitulation of Estonia: the Swedish garrison in Reval (Tallinn) surrenders, ending Swedish rule in Estonia.
- October 11 – The Battle of Rahon is fought between Sikhs and Mughal Empire.
- October 13 – Queen Anne's War – Siege of Port Royal: The French surrender, giving the British permanent possession of Nova Scotia.
- November 30 – The first visit to the Pacific islands of Palau is made by a Jesuit expedition led by Francisco Padilla; unfortunately, the ship is driven to Mindanao by a storm, leaving two priests stranded.
- December 8 – War of the Spanish Succession – Battle of Brihuega: An outnumbered British force under James Stanhope is forced to surrender.
- December 10
- War of the Spanish Succession – Battle of Villaviciosa: The indecisive battle between retreating Austrian-Dutch forces and a Franco-Spanish army is fought out.
- The Battle of Lohgarh takes place between Sikh forces and the Mughal army.
Date unknown
- In Sweden, the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala is founded as the Collegium curiosorum.
- Explorer Juan Arias Diaz becomes the first non-Incan visitor to Choquequirao, an Inca site in Peru.
- John Smithwick begins brewing Smithwick's ale at Kilkenny, Ireland (St. Francis Abbey Brewery). [5]
- Alexis Littré, in his treatise Diverses observations anatomiques, [6] is the first physician to suggest the possibility of performing a lumbar colostomy for an obstruction of the colon.
- Beijing becomes the largest city of the world, taking the lead from Istanbul.[ citation needed ]
- Jacob Christoph Le Blon, working in Amsterdam, invents a three-color printing process with red, blue, and yellow plates, a precursor of the modern CMYK printing process.
1711
January–March
- January – Cary's Rebellion: The Lords Proprietor appoint Edward Hyde to replace Thomas Cary, as the governor of the North Carolina portion of the Province of Carolina. Hyde's policies are deemed hostile to Quaker interests, leading former governor Cary and his Quaker allies to take up arms against the province. [7]
- January 24 – The first performance of Francesco Gasparini's most famous opera Tamerlano takes place at the Teatro San Cassiano in Venice. [8]
- February – French settlers at Fort Louis de la Mobile celebrate Mardi Gras in Mobile (Alabama), by parading a large papier-mache ox head on a cart (the first Mardi Gras parade in America). [9]
- February 3 – A total lunar eclipse occurs, at 12:31 UT.
- February 24
- Thomas Cary, after declaring himself Governor of North Carolina, sails an armed brigantine up the Chowan River, to attack Governor Hyde's forces fortified at Colonel Thomas Pollock's plantation. The attack fails, and Cary's forces retreat. [10]
- Rinaldo by George Frideric Handel, the first Italian opera written for the London stage, premieres at the Queen's Theatre, Haymarket. [11]
- March 1 – The Spectator is founded by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele in London. [12]
April–June
- April 3 – Clipperton Island is rediscovered by Frenchmen Martin de Chassiron and Michel Du Bocage, who draws up the first map and claims the island for France. The island had been discovered by Alvaro Saavedra Cedrón in 1528.
- April 5 (Easter Sunday) – The central tower of Elgin Cathedral in northeast Scotland collapses. [13]
- April 13 – The Treaty of the Lutsk, a secret agreement between the Tsardom of Russia and the Ottoman Protectorate of Moldavia is signed in Lutsk, Poland-Lithuania (modern-day Ukraine).
- April 17 – Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor dies, opening the way for the succession of his brother Charles VI. This complicates the ongoing War of the Spanish Succession as Charles is one of the two candidates for the Spanish throne, backed by the Grand Alliance.
- April 29 – A rabid wolf fatally injures two shepherds in Roncà, North Italy; it also attacks livestock.
- May – Alexander Pope publishes the poem An Essay on Criticism in London.
- May 25 – In Denmark, Helsingør is put under military blockade to prevent an outbreak of plague from spreading to Copenhagen; this year about one third of Helsingør's population is killed by the disease. [14]
- June 18 – King Louis XIV becomes the longest-reigning monarch in the world, surpassing the previous record of 68 years set by Kʼinich Janaabʼ Pakal in 683. As of 2022, Louis XIV still holds this record.
July–September
- July 2 – Cary's Rebellion: Lieutenant Governor Alexander Spotswood of Virginia dispatches a company of Royal Marines to assist Governor Hyde. After hearing of this, Cary's troops abandon all of their fortifications along the Pamlico River. Cary and many of his supporters are soon caught and sent to England as prisoners, ending Cary's Rebellion. [15]
- July 11 – The town of São Paulo, Brazil, is elevated to city status.
- July 21 – The Treaty of the Pruth is signed between the Ottoman Empire and Russia, ending the Pruth River Campaign. [16]
- July 29 – Total lunar eclipse at 17:50 UT.
- August 1 – The Dutch East India Company trading ship Zuytdorp leaves the Netherlands on an ill-fated voyage to Indonesia bearing a load of freshly minted silver coins. The wreck site remains unknown until the mid-20th century, on a remote part of the Western Australian coast between Kalbarri and Shark Bay.
- August 7 – Capture of the galleon San Joaquin: Spanish galleon San Joaquin in a treasure fleet sailing from Cartagena de Indias (modern-day Colombia) to Spain surrenders after an engagement with five British ships.
- August 9 – John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough with an army of 30,000 besieges Bouchain in the War of the Spanish Succession. The siege lasts 34 days and results in the last major victory for Churchill.
- August 11 – The first horse race is held at the newly founded Ascot Racecourse, which becomes one of the leading racecourses in England.
- August 13 – Tamachi Raisinhji becomes Jam Sahib (ruling prince) of Nawanagar State in Gujarat, India.
- August 14 – The inauguration of the newly built Cathedral of the Assumption takes place in Gozo, Malta.
- August 22 – The Quebec Expedition, a British attempt to attack Quebec as part of Queen Anne's War, fails when 8 of its ships are wrecked in the Saint Lawrence River and 890 people, mostly soldiers, drown.
- September 8 – The South Sea Company receives a Royal Charter in Britain. [17]
- September 10 (also dated September 12) – John Lawson, Christoph von Graffenried, two African American slaves and two Native Americans leave on an exploration expedition from New Bern, North Carolina, and travel north by canoe up the Neuse River.
- September 14 (approximate date) – Tuscarora natives capture John Lawson, Christoph von Graffenried and their expeditionary party, and bring them to Catechna.
- September 16 (approximate date) – Tuscarora natives kill Lawson. Von Graffenried and one African American slave are known to have been set free.
- September 18 – Bishop Bogusław Gosiewski sells the town of Maladzyechna in the Minsk Region of Belarus to the mighty Ogiński family.
- September 22 – The Tuscarora War begins when Tuscarora natives under the command of Chief Hancock raid settlements along the south bank of the Pamlico River, within the Province of Carolina (modern-day North Carolina), killing around 130 people.
October–December
- October 7 – HMS Feversham is wrecked on Scaterie Island, Nova Scotia with the loss of 102 lives.
- October 11 – 245 people are killed in a crush on the Guillottière bridge in Lyon, France, caused when a large crowd returning from a festival on the other side of the Rhône become trapped against an obstruction in the middle of the bridge caused by a collision between a carriage and a cart.
- October 14
- Yostos kills Tewoflos, becoming Emperor of Ethiopia.
- Woodes Rogers returns to England after a successful round-the-world privateering cruise against Spain, carrying loot worth £150,000.
- October 16 – Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts is established in Brussels.
- November 5 – The southwest spire of Southwell Minster in Nottinghamshire, England is struck by lightning, resulting in a fire that spreads to the nave and tower, destroying roofs, bells, clock and organ.
- November 7 – The Dutch East India Company ship Liefde runs aground and sinks off Out Skerries, Shetland, with the loss of all but one of her 300 crew.
- December 5 – Great Northern War: the Battle of Wismar results in a Danish victory over Swedish forces.
- December 7 – In the Parliament of Great Britain the Earl of Nottingham successfully proposes a "No Peace Without Spain" amendment.
- December 8 – The Immaculate Conception Cathedral, Comayagua in Honduras, one of the oldest cathedrals in Central America, is inaugurated.
- December 12 – A constitution is approved for the Academy of Sciences of the Institute of Bologna, which had been founded in 1690.
- December 13 – Wall Street in New York City becomes the city's first official slave market for the sale and rental of enslaved Africans and Indians.
- December 15 – The Old Pummerin, a massive bell cast from 208 captured cannons, is consecrated by Bishop Franz Ferdinand Freiherr von Rummel in preparation for its installation in St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna (the Stephansdom).
- December 25 – The rebuilding of St Paul's Cathedral in London to a design by Sir Christopher Wren is declared complete by Parliament; Old St Paul's had been destroyed by the 1666 Great Fire of London.
Date unknown
- John Shore invents the tuning fork.
- Luigi Ferdinando Marsili shows that coral is an animal rather than a plant as previously thought.
1712
January–March
- January 8 – Total eclipse of the sun visible from 60°36′S49°12′E / 60.6°S 49.2°E
- January 12 – The premiere of the opera Idoménée by André Campra takes place at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal in Paris.
- January 16 – A military engineering school is established in Moscow which is to become the A.F. Mozhaysky Military-Space Academy.
- January 26 – The Old Pummerin, a 18,161 kg bell newly installed in the Stephansdom, St. Stephen's Cathedral, in Vienna, is rung for the first time to mark the entry of Charles VI to Vienna from Frankfurt after his coronation as Emperor. It takes a quarter-hour for 16 men pulling on the bell rope to swing the heavy bell back-and-forth enough for the clapper to strike; the resulting forces endanger the tower so the architect orders that in future the bell be rung only by pulling its clapper.
- February 10 – Huilliche uprising of 1712: Huilliche people in Chile's Chiloé Archipelago rise up against Spanish encomenderos as vengeance for perceived injustices.
- Early March – Start of the Cassard expedition, a sea voyage by French Navy captain Jacques Cassard during which he ransacks Santiago in the Cape Verde Islands and pillages Montserrat, Antigua, Surinam, Berbice, Essequibo, St. Eustatius and Curaçao, returning to France with loot worth over nine million francs.
- March 3 – Scottish Episcopalians Act 1711 comes into effect, leading to incorporation of the Scottish Episcopal Church.
- March 11 (February 30 Swedish Style, February 29 on the Julian calendar) – Sweden temporarily adopts the rare February 30, as a day to adjust the Swedish Calendar back to the Julian calendar.
- March 15 – HMS Dragon, a 38-gun fourth rate frigate of the Royal Navy, is wrecked on Les Casquets , rocks to the west of Alderney. [18]
- March 30 – Anne, Queen of Great Britain administers the Royal touch (a ritual with the intent to cure illness) for the last time; 300 scrofulous people are touched, the last of whom is Samuel Johnson.
April –June
- April 6 – 7 – New York City's Slave Insurrection results in nine whites being killed, and 21 slaves and other blacks being convicted and executed.
- April 11 – Great Northern War: the Battle of Fladstrand takes place at sea near Fladstrand, Jylland, between Swedish and Danish forces.
- May 15 – Curuguaty in Paraguay is founded by Juan Gregorio de Bazán y Pedraza on the banks of the Curuguaty River.
- May 19 – Peter the Great moves the capital of Russia from Moscow to Saint Petersburg. [19]
- May 22 – Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor is crowned King of Hungary.
- June 5 – Reus in Catalonia, Spain is given the title of imperial city by Elisabeth Christine, wife of Archduke Charles.
- June 10 – Kurtkulağı Caravanserai in Adana Province, Turkey, is restored and 50 soldiers are appointed to guard it.
- June 11 – Chatham, Barnstable County, Massachusetts is incorporated as a town.
- June 17 – The newly built St Ann's Church, Manchester is consecrated by the Bishop of Chester.
July–September
- July 8 – The Royal Navy 50-gun ship HMS Advice is launched at Deptford Dockyard.
- July 20 – Jesus College, Oxford, inherits the extensive library of its Principal Jonathan Edwards on his death.
- July 24
- Battle of Denain: The French defeat a combined Dutch-Austrian force.
- Battle of Villmergen: The Reformed cantons of Switzerland defeat the Catholic cantons.
- August 1 – The Stamp Act of 1712 is passed in the United Kingdom, imposing a tax on publishers, particularly of newspapers.
- August 11 – The Peace of Aarau is signed by Catholics and Protestants, ending the Toggenburg War and establishing Protestant dominance in Switzerland, while preserving the rights of Catholics.
- August 23 – The Royal Navy 60-gun ship HMS Rippon is launched at Deptford Dockyard.
- September – Composer George Frideric Handel re-locates to London with the permission of his patron, the future King George I of Great Britain. [20]
- September 8 – A severe hurricane buffets Bermuda for eight hours, destroying most of the churches.
October–December
- October 3 – In Scotland a warrant is issued for the arrest of outlaw Rob Roy MacGregor by Sir James Stewart (Lord Advocate). [21]
- October 31 – King Philip V of Spain establishes the Biblioteca Nacional de España as the Palace Public Library (Biblioteca Pública de Palacio) in Madrid.
- November 4 – The Bandbox Plot aims to kill British Lord Treasurer Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford but is foiled by Jonathan Swift (author of “Gulliver’s Travels”).
- November 22 – The first performance of George Frideric Handel's opera Il pastor fido takes place at the Queen's Theatre in the Haymarket, London.
- December 7 – The charter of Buchach Monastery in Ukraine, founded by Stefan Aleksander Potocki and his wife Joanna née Sieniawska, is signed in Lublin.
- December 20 – Great Northern War: the Battle of Gadebusch is Sweden's final great victory in the war, preventing the loss of the city of Stralsund to Danish and Saxon forces.
- December 27 – The premiere of the opera Callirhoé by André Cardinal Destouches takes place at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal in Paris.
- December 28 – Total eclipse of the sun visible from 21°30′S159°00′E / 21.5°S 159.0°E
Date unknown
- The first known working Newcomen steam engine is built by Thomas Newcomen with John Calley, to pump water out of mines in the Black Country of England, the first device to make practical use of the power of steam to produce mechanical work. [22]
- After many years of settlement, the Town on Queen Anne's Creek is established as a courthouse for Chowan County, North Carolina. The town is renamed Edenton in 1720, and incorporated in 1722.
- The VOC Zuytdorp is wrecked off the coast of Western Australia.
- John Arbuthnot creates the character of John Bull to represent Britain.
- A translation of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer into Irish, made by John Richardson (1664–1747), is published. [23]
1713
January–March
- January 17 – Tuscarora War: Colonel James Moore leads the Carolina militia out of Albemarle County, North Carolina, in a second offensive against the Tuscarora. Heavy snows force the troops to take refuge in Fort Reading, on the Pamlico River.
- February 1 – Skirmish at Bender, Moldova: Charles XII of Sweden is defeated by the Ottoman Empire.
- February 4 – Tuscarora War: The Carolina militia under Colonel James Moore leaves Fort Reading, to continue the campaign against the Tuscarora.
- February 25 – Frederick William I of Prussia begins his reign.
- March 1 – Tuscarora War: Colonel James Moore's Carolina militia lays siege to the Tuscaroran stronghold of Fort Neoheroka, located a few miles up Contentnea Creek from Fort Hancock.
- March 20 – Tuscarora War: Colonel James Moore's Carolina militia launches a major offensive against Fort Neoheroka.
- March 23 – Tuscarora War: Fort Neoheroka falls to the Carolina militia, effectively ending the Tuscarora nation's military strength. Two Tuscaroran allies, the Machapunga and Coree tribes, continue offensive actions against North Carolina.
- March 27 – First Treaty of Utrecht between Great Britain and Spain: Philip V is accepted by Britain and Austria as king of Spain; Spain cedes Gibraltar and Menorca to Britain. [11] [24]
April–June
- April 11 – The Second Treaty of Utrecht between Great Britain and France ends the War of the Spanish Succession. [25] France cedes Newfoundland, Acadia, Hudson Bay and St Kitts to Great Britain. [11]
- April 14 – First performance, in London, of Joseph Addison's libertarian play Cato, a Tragedy , which will be influential on both sides of the Atlantic. [26]
- April 19 – With no living male heirs, Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, issues the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713, to ensure one of his daughters will inherit the Habsburg lands.
- May 2 – In the Great Northern War, a fleet of the Russian Navy, transporting 12,000 soldiers, sails from Kronstadt to attack the Swedish Army at Helsinki.
- May 6 – The Parliament of Ireland is dissolved by Queen Anne and new elections are set.
- May 13 – King Philip V of Spain issues an auto accordado that changes the order of succession for the Spanish throne allowing a female descendant within the House of Bourbon to rule. The change will allow his great-great-granddaughter to ascend the throne in 1833 as Queen Isabella II.
- May 17 – Ottone in villa , the first opera by composer Antonio Vivaldi, is given its initial performance, debuting at the Teatro delle Grazie in Vicenza
- May 21 – Great Northern War: The Russian fleet lands a force of 10,000 men at Pernå on the southern coast of Finland.
- June 1 (approx.)– Tuscarora War: Colonel James Moore leads the Carolina militia into the Pamlico Peninsula to defeat the Machapunga and Coree tribes.
- June 23 – French residents of Acadia are given one year to declare allegiance to Great Britain, or leave Nova Scotia.
July–September
- July 9 – The Junta de Braços (parliament) of the Principality of Catalonia votes in favour of staying in the War of the Spanish Succession against Philip V of Spain. Army of Catalonia raised.
- July 13 – The Treaty of Portsmouth brings an end to Queen Anne's War.
- August 8 – The Parliament of Great Britain, third since the Act of Union, is dissolved
- August 22 – Voting begins in the 1713 British general election in various constituencies and continues to November 12
- September 1 – Tuscarora War: The Carolina militia, led by Colonel James Moore, returns to South Carolina, after mixed success in the campaign against the Machapunga and Coree tribes.
October–December
- October 6 – The Treaty of Schwedt is signed between Russia and Brandenburg-Prussia, with the latter accepting the annexation of Baltic territories and paying Russia expenses in return for the southern part of Pomerania, recently taken from Sweden in the Great Northern War.
- October 17 – The Battle of Pälkäne is fought in what is now Finland between Russia and Sweden, with Russia's Fyodor Arpaskin forcing Finnish troops under Carl Gustaf Armfeldt to withdraw.
- November 6 – The Dublin election riot breaks out during the fiercely contested Irish General Election. [27]
- November 12 – The 1713 British general election concludes with the conservative Tories winning 358 of the 558 available seats in the House of Commons, and the liberal Whigs having 200.
- December 9 – As part of the agreements made at Utrecht to end the War of the Spanish Succession, Great Britain and Spain sign a treaty of commerce and navigation. [28]
- December 10 – The rebellion of Richard Raworth, Deputy Governor of Fort St. David (now abandoned and in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu near Cuddalore), against the British East India Company comes to an end after two months when forces sent by Bridish Madras Governor Edward Harrison to negotiate a settlement allowing Raworth to surrender in return for amnesty.
- December 21 – Victor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy is crowned King of Sicily at Palermo, and his wife Anne Marie is crowned as Queen consort. [29] The coronation follows Spain's recognition of Sicilian independence, effective September 22, as part of the Treaty of Utrecht.
Date unknown
- Ars Conjectandi , a seminal work on probability by Jacob Bernoulli, is published eight years after his death, by his nephew, Niklaus Bernoulli.
- Basil Matthew II becomes Syriac Orthodox Maphrian of the East. [30]
- San Basilio de Palenque officially becomes the first free town in America, being the first independent place in America from Europeans.[ citation needed ]
1714
January–March
- January 21 – After being tricked into deserting a battle against India's Mughal Empire by the rebel Sayyid brothers, Prince Azz-ud-din Mirza is blinded on orders of the Emperor Farrukhsiyar as punishment.
- February 7 – The Siege of Tönning (a fortress of the Swedish Empire and now located in Germany in the state of Schleswig-Holstein) ends after almost a year, as Danish forces force the surrender of the remaining 1,600 defenders. The fortress is then leveled by the Danes.
- February 28 – (February 17 old style) Russia's Tsar Peter the Great issues a decree requiring compulsory education in mathematics for children of government officials and nobility, applying to children between the ages of 10 and 15 years old. [31]
- March 2 – (February 19 old style) The Battle of Storkyro is fought between troops of the Swedish Empire and the Russian Empire, near what is now the village of Napue in Finland. The outnumbered Swedish forces, under the command of General Carl Gustaf Armfeldt, suffer 1,600 troops killed in action while the Russians led by General Mikhail Golitsyn lose 400 men.
- March 7 – The Treaty of Rastatt is signed between Austria and France, concluding the War of the Spanish Succession between them. Austria receives the Spanish territories in Italy (the Kingdom of Naples, Duchy of Milan and Kingdom of Sardinia), as well as the Southern Netherlands; and from France, Freiburg and Landau. The Austrian Habsburg Empire reaches its largest territorial extent yet, with Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor succeeding Philip V of Spain, as ruler in the ceded territories.
April–June
- April 11 – France signs five separate treaties— with Great Britain, the Netherlands, Portugal, Prussia and Savoy— to end hostilities in the War of the Spanish Succession following the negotiations of the Peace of Utrecht.
- April 12 – Italian Jesuit missionary Niccolò Gianpriamo is dispatched from Portugal on an evangelical trip to Asia starting with the Portuguese Indian colony of Goa, where he arrives after five months.
- May 19 – Anne, Queen of Great Britain, refuses to allow members of the House of Hanover to settle in Britain during her lifetime. [32]
- June 3 – The city of Kassel in Germany inaugurates the summer tradition of the "water stairs" or "great cascades" (Grossen Kaskaden) emptying from the base of the Hercules monument down to the Wilhelmshöhe castle.
- June 20 – In France, Henri-Charles du Cambout de Coislin, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Metz, condemns the papal bull Unigenitus , issued by Pope Clement XI against the 1671 commentary by Pasquier Quesnel of the four Gospels and inflaming the Jansenist controversy.
- June 26 – Spain and the Netherlands sign a peace treaty to end hostilities between those two nations in the War of the Spanish Succession.
July–September
- July 8 – Longitude prize: The Parliament of Great Britain votes "to offer a reward for such person or persons as shall discover the Longitude" (£10,000 for any method capable of determining a ship's longitude within 1 degree; £15,000, within 40 minutes, and £20,000 within ½ a degree). [33]
- July 27 – The Imperial Russian Navy gains its first important victory against the Swedish Navy in the Battle of Gangut.
- August 1 – Georg Ludwig von Braunschweig-Lüneburg, Elector of Hanover, becomes King George I of Great Britain and Ireland, on the death of Queen Anne. Anne's death brings an end to the reign of the House of Stuart, in that her half-brother James Francis Edward Stuart, the eldest son of James II of England, has been ineligible for the British throne based on the Act of Settlement 1701 had barred members of the Roman Catholic church from becoming monarchs. George of Hanover, as great-grandson of James I of England and a second cousin to Anne, is deemed the eldest living Protestant descendant of James I.
- September 11 – War of the Spanish Succession: Barcelona is taken after a year's siege, and Catalonia surrenders to Spanish and French Bourbon armies.
- September 18 – George I, the new King of Great Britain and Ireland, arrives in Britain for the first time in his life, after having departed Hannover and sailing from the Netherlands. [34]
- September 29 – The Great Hatred: the Cossacks of the Russian Empire kill about 800 people overnight on the Finnish island of Hailuoto. [35]
October–December
- October 20 – The coronation of George I of Great Britain and Ireland takes place in Westminster Abbey, a little less than three months after George became the new British monarch. [34]
- October 24 – Four Dutch investors, led by brothers Nicolaas and Hendrik van Hoorn, purchase the South American colony of Berbice from French mercenary Jacques Cassard, who had captured the colony from the Van Peere family. [36] A century later, in 1815, the land is ceded to Great Britain and later merged with neighboring colonies to form what is now Guyana.
- November 30 – King Philip V of Spain issues a decree reorganizing the Spanish government to create four ministries, with the Secretary of State being the chief minister, predecessor to the office of Prime Minister of Spain. José de Grimaldo becomes the first person to have the chief ministry.
- December 9 – Ottoman–Venetian War (1714–1718): The Ottoman Empire declares war on the Republic of Venice.
Date unknown
- Archbishop Tenison's School, the world's earliest surviving mixed gender school, is established by Thomas Tenison, Archbishop of Canterbury, in Croydon, south of London, England.
- Louis Juchereau de St. Denis establishes Fort St. Jean Baptiste, at the site of present day Natchitoches, Louisiana (the first permanent European settlement in the Louisiana Territory, after Biloxi (1699) and Mobile, Alabama (1702) were separated).
- Worcester College, University of Oxford is founded (formerly Gloucester College, closed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries).
- Stockholm County is founded.
- The river Kander (Switzerland) is redirected into Lake Thun.
1715
For dates within Great Britain and the British Empire, as well as in the Russian Empire, the "old style" Julian calendar was used in 1715, and can be converted to the "new style" Gregorian calendar (adopted in the British Empire in 1752 and in Russia in 1923) by adding 11 days.
January–March
- January 13 – A fire in London, described by some as the worst since the Great Fire of London (1666) almost 50 years earlier, starts on Thames Street when fireworks prematurely explode "in the house of Mr. Walker, an oil man"; more than 100 houses are consumed in the blaze, which continues over to Tower Street before it is controlled. [37]
- January 22 – Voting begins for the British House of Commons and continues for the next 46 days in different constituencies on different days.
- February 11 – Tuscarora War: The Tuscarora and their allies sign a peace treaty with the Province of North Carolina, and agree to move to a reservation near Lake Mattamuskeet, effectively ending the Tuscarora War. Large numbers of Tuscarora subsequently move to New York.
- March 9 – Voting for the British House of Commons concludes, with the liberal Whig Party winning 341 of the 558 seats, and reducing the conservative Tory Party share to 217 seats. Spencer Compton, the Earl of Wilmington, becomes the Speaker of the House of Commons.
- March 14 – James Stuart, the "Old Pretender" attempting to restore the House of Stuart to control of Great Britain as King James III of England and James VIII of Scotland, meets with Pope Clement XI for the assistance of the Roman Catholic Church in the Jacobite rising.
- March 27 – Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, flees from Great Britain to France. His part in secret negotiations with France, leading to the Treaty of Utrecht, has cast suspicion on him in the eyes of the Whig government of Britain. He becomes secretary of state to the Pretender, James Edward Stuart. [38]
April–June
- April 1 – The Battle of Gurdas Nangal begins during the Mughal-Sikh Wars in India, as the Mughal Army begins an eight-month siege of a fortress near Gurdaspur (in what is now the Punjab state), where Sikh General Banda Singh Bahadur and 1,250 of his men have fled. The siege ends on December 7 when the 750 survivors, including Banda Singh, are captured. By June 1716, most of the Sikh prisoners have been tortured, killed and executed, with Banda Singh dying on June 9.
- April 15 – In the British colonial Province of South Carolina, the Yamasee Confederation launches an attack on English settlements in disputed territory on Good Friday, launching the two-year long Yamasee War. The day before, agents Thomas Nairne, William Bray and Samuel Warner had participated in peace negotiations with the Yamasee at Pocotaligo. [39] Bray and Warner are killed that day, while Nairne is tortured to death and dies on April 17.
- April 24 – The Battle of Fehmarn takes place in the Baltic Sea as part of the Great Northern War. Ten warships of Denmark, under the command of Christian Gabel, overwhelm a force of Swedish Navy ships led by Carl Wachtmeister. By the time the battle ends the next day, five Swedish ships and 1,626 crewmen have been captured, and another 353 killed. The Danish navy suffers 65 deaths. [40]
- May 3 – A total solar eclipse is seen across southern England, Sweden and Finland (the last total eclipse visible in London for almost 900 years). English astronomer Edmond Halley (who is using the old style Julian calendar date of April 22) records the first observation noted of the phenomenon of "Baily's beads", in which higher elevations on the moon can be observed obscuring portions of the light moments before and after totality.
- May 28 – Rioting begins in England on the birthday of King George I as supporters of the Old Pretender, James of the House of Stuart, begin mass protesting against the rule of the House of Hanover, near London in the towns of Smithfield and Highgate, and the Cheapside financial district in London.
- June 9 – King Philip, ruler of the Kingdom of Castile and the Kingdom of Aragon unifies the two governments into a single state, centralizing rule of a unified Kingdom of Spain.
- June 22 – Tsar Peter I of Russia witnesses the attempt of 45 Dutch and English ships to enter the small harbor at Saint Petersburg and decides that additional harbors are necessary for Russia to be able import Western goods.
- June 29 – Britain's Treason Act 1714 takes effect, providing for forfeiture to the British Crown of property owned by any person convicted of treason in the Kingdom. The Act remains in effect until June 24, 1718.
July–September
- July 20 – Ottoman–Venetian War (1714–18): The fall of Nauplion, the capital of the Venetian "Kingdom of the Morea", seals the fate of the Peloponnese Peninsula, which is soon completely retaken by the Ottomans.
- July 24 – 1715 Treasure Fleet: A Spanish treasure fleet of 12 ships, under General Don Juan Ubilla, leaves Havana, Cuba for Spain. Seven days later, 11 of them sink in a storm off the coast of Florida (some centuries later, treasure salvage is found from these wrecks).
- August 31 – Old Dock, Liverpool, England, the world's first enclosed commercial wet dock (Thomas Steers, engineer), opens. [41] [42]
- September 1 – King Louis XIV of France dies after a reign of 72 years, leaving his throne to his 5 year old great-grandson Louis XV. Philippe d'Orléans, the nephew of Louis XIV, serves as Regent.
- September 6 – The first major Jacobite rising in Scotland against the rule of King George I of Great Britain breaks out. The Earl of Mar raises the standard of James Edward Stuart, and marches on Edinburgh. James, the son of the deposed King James VII, arrives from France.
- September 14 – Less than two weeks after King Louis XIV's death, Daniel Voysin de la Noiraye, France's Secretary of State for War since 1709, steps down at the request of the new regent, the Duke of Orleans.
October–December
- October 2 – During the rebellion in Great Britain by supporters of the Pretender to the Throne, James Stuart, the Jacobites raid the Scottish parish of Burntisland, capture an arsenal of weapons, and begin an occupation of the area on October 9 in the name of Stuart as King James VIII of Scotland.
- October 11 – William Aislabie resigns as the British East India Company's administrator of Bombay and the company's territories and is replaced at year's end by Charles Boone.
- October 12
- William Mackintosh of Borlum, leader of the Jacobite rising against Great Britain, lands with 1,500 men in Scotland after crossing the Firth of Forth from France.
- Baron Onslow resigns as Great Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer and is replaced by future Prime Minister Robert Walpole.
- October 28 – The Treaty of Greifswald is signed between Russia and the Electorate of Hanover, with George I of Great Britain and Hanover agreeing to Russia's annexation of Swedish Ingria and Estonia, and Hanover claiming the Bremen-Verden Swedish duchies of Bremen and Verden.
- November 13 – Jacobite rising in Scotland – Battle of Sheriffmuir: The forces of the Kingdom of Great Britain, led by John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll, halt the Jacobite advance, although the action is inconclusive. [43]
- November 14 – Battle of Preston: Government forces defeat the Jacobite incursion, at the conclusion of a five-day siege and action.
- November 15 – The Third Barrier Treaty is signed by Britain, the Holy Roman Empire and the Dutch Republic. [44]
- November 28 – The application of the Nueva Planta decrees, in Majorca and the other Balearic Islands (formerly under the Crown of Aragon), bring them under the laws of the Crown of Castile.
- December 22 – James Edward Stuart rejoins Jacobite rebels in Scotland, [38] but fails to rouse his army.
- December 24 – Swedish troops occupy Norway.
Date unknown
- Karlsruhe Palace is built, resulting in the town of Karlsruhe growing up around it.
- The ancient right to evaluate royal decrees publicly, before they are given the force of law by the Parliament of Paris, is restored.
- Filippo Juvarra starts working on the previously postponed construction of the church of Santa Christina in Turin.
- Filippo Juvarra starts rebuilding the church of San Filippo Neri, Turin, in which the roof had collapsed, during the siege of Turin, during the War of the Spanish Succession.
- Coffee is first grown in the French colony of Saint-Domingue. [45]
- Around this year, a breech loading firearm is made for Philip V of Spain.
1716
January–March
- January 16 – The application of the Nueva Planta decrees to Catalonia make it subject to the laws of the Crown of Castile, and abolishes the Principality of Catalonia as a political entity, concluding the unification of Spain under Philip V. [46]
- January 27 – The Tugaloo massacre changes the course of the Yamasee War, allying the Cherokee nation with the British province of South Carolina against the Creek Indian nation. [47]
- January 28 – The town of Crieff, Scotland, is burned to the ground by Jacobites returning from the Battle of Sheriffmuir. [48] [49]
- February 3 – The 1716 Algiers earthquake sequence began with an Mw 7.0 mainshock that caused severe damage and killed 20,000 in Algeria. [50]
- February 10 – James Edward Stuart flees from Scotland to France with a handful of supporters, following the failure of the Jacobite rising of 1715.
- February 24 – Jacobite leaders James Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Derwentwater and William Gordon, 6th Viscount of Kenmure are executed in London. [51]
- March 6 – At night, an aurora borealis was seen throughout Europe, from Ireland to Italy. [52] [53]
- March 8 – King Charles XII of Sweden leads an invasion of Norway, crossing the border at Basmo, near the modern-day town of Marker.
- March 10 – Simon Fraser, a former Scottish rebel who had helped end the Siege of Inverness during the first Jacobite rising, is given a pardon by King George I of Great Britain. [54]
- March 18 – Italian Jesuit missionary Ippolito Desideri arrives in Lhasa to become one of the first Europeans to attempt to bring Christianity to Buddhist Tibet. [55]
- March 23 – Jeremias III becomes the new Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, leader of the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church.
April–June
- April 13 – Austria, ruled by King Charles VI, renews its alliance with the Republic of Venice, leading the Ottoman Empire, ruled by Ahmed III, to declare war.
- May 20 – John Law founds the Banque Générale Privée in Paris. [56]
- May 26 – Two regular companies of field artillery, each 100 men strong, are raised at Woolwich, by Royal Warrant of King George I of Great Britain.
- May 28 – John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, suffers a paralytic stroke.
- June 9 – In India, 600 imprisoned members of the failed Sikh Khalsa rebellion against the Mughal Empire are executed on orders of the Emperor Farrukhsiyar. [57] Banda Singh Bahadur, leader of the rebellion, is brutally tortured and mutilated before being killed. [58]
- June 19 – The new Tokugawa Shogun of Japan, Tokugawa Yoshimune, assumes control of the monarchy's military after the illness and death of the six-year-old Ietsugu, last of the male descendants of Tokugawa Ieyasu. [59] Yoshimune's ascendancy begins Year 1 of the Kyōhō Era, which continues until Year 21 in 1736.
- June 25 – With the Holy Roman Empire having been ceded the "Southern Netherlands" (now 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. [60]
July–September
- July 5 – Prince Ernest Augustus is created Duke of York and Albany, in the peerage of Great Britain.
- July 8 – The Battle of Dynekilen: The Swedish fleet is defeated by a Danish–Norwegian fleet.
- July 8–August 21 – Seventh Ottoman–Venetian War: The Ottoman Empire unsuccessfully lays siege to Corfu, the last bastion of the Republic of Venice in the Greek islands. [61]
- August 3 – Natchez, one of the oldest towns on the Mississippi River, is founded by French civilians at the site of Fort Rosalie. [62]
- August 4 – George Seton, 5th Earl of Winton, under sentence of death for his part in the Jacobite rising of 1715, escapes from the Tower of London and flees into exile on the continent.
- August 5 – Battle of Petrovaradin: 83,300 Austrian troops of Prince Eugene of Savoy defeat 150,000 Ottoman Turks under Silahdar Damat Ali Pasha (who is killed).
- August 24 – Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, returns from Italy.
- September 15 – "Maria", an African slave of the Dutch West India Company on the Caribbean island of Curaçao, murders the plantation overseer, Christiaan Muller, then leads a rebellion, killing Muller's family and much of the white staff on the company's plantation. The uprising is suppressed after 10 days, and Maria is later executed by burning at the stake on November 9. [63]
- September 26 – Alexei Petrovich, Tsarevich of Russia, eldest son of the Tsar Peter the Great and heir to the throne, flees from Saint Petersburg with his mistress, Efrosinya Fedorova, along with her brother and three servants. After spending more than a year in Austria, he returns to Russia where he is arrested and dies in prison in 1718. [64] [65]
October–December
- October 12 – During the war between the Habsburg Empire ruling Austria and the Ottoman Empire ruling Turkey, the six week siege of the fortified city of Temeşvar is surrendered by the Turks to the Austrians. Under a flag of truce, the Turks are permitted to depart but have to leave behind their artillery as they give up their claim to Hungary. Austro-Hungarian rule lasts until World War One, and in 1919, the city of Timișoara becomes part of the Kingdom of Romania.
- November 1 – Two new laws go into effect in the Highlands of Scotland to prevent a threat to Britain's ruling House of Hanover by the Jacobites who supported the restoration of the House of Stuart. The Disarming Act requires government authorization 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.
- December 4 – Fifty people are killed, and 150 houses burned, when a fire breaks out in Wapping, London. The blaze comes two days after a fire at the Spring Gardens at St. James's, London, which destroyed the French Chapel there and which was put out by several rescuers, including the future King George II. [66]
- December 12 – Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend, is demoted from his office as Secretary of State for the Northern Department in the British government, and replaced by James Stanhope, 1st Earl Stanhope. This is a move towards the Whig Split of 1717.
Date unknown
- English pirate Edward Teach (Blackbeard) is given command of a sloop in the Bahamas. [67]
- Tsar Peter the Great of Russia studies with the physician Herman Boerhaave, at Leiden University.
- The Kangxi Dictionary is published, laying the foundation of most references to Han characters studied today.
1717
January–March
- January 1 – Count Carl Gyllenborg, the Swedish ambassador to the Kingdom of Great Britain, is arrested in London over a plot to assist the Pretender to the British throne, James Francis Edward Stuart. [68]
- January 4 (December 24, 1716 Old Style) – Great Britain, France and the Dutch Republic sign the Triple Alliance, [68] in an attempt to maintain the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), Britain having signed a preliminary alliance with France on November 28 (November 17) 1716.
- February 1 – The Silent Sejm, in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, marks the beginning of the Russian Empire's increasing influence and control over the Commonwealth.
- February 6 – Following the treaty between France and Britain, the Pretender James Stuart leaves France, and seeks refuge with Pope Clement XI. [69] [68]
- February 26 – March 6 – What becomes the northeastern United States is paralyzed by a series of blizzards that bury the region.
- March 2 – Dancer John Weaver performs in the first ballet in Britain, shown at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, The Loves of Mars and Venus .
- March 31 – Benjamin Hoadly, Bishop of Bangor, brings the Bangorian Controversy within the Church of England into the open by delivering a sermon to, and supposedly at the request of, King George I of Great Britain, on The Nature of the Kingdom of Christ with the text "My kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36), concluding there is no Biblical justification for church government. [70]
April–June
- April 26 – The Whydah Gally , flagship of "Black Sam" Bellamy, is wrecked in a storm off Wellfleet, Massachusetts. The Whydah sinks with a reputed 4+1⁄2 tons of treasure on board, and all but two of her crew are lost, including Bellamy.
- May 27 – Spain unites its South American colonies, as the Viceroyalty of New Granada.
- June 24 – The Premier Grand Lodge of England, the Modern and first Free-Masonic Grand Lodge (which merges with the Ancient Grand Lodge of England in 1813 to form the United Grand Lodge of England), is founded in London.
July–September
- July 17 – Water Music by George Frederick Handel is first performed, on a Thames barge in London,
- August 17 – The month-long Siege of Belgrade ends, with Prince Eugene of Savoy's Austrian troops capturing the city from the Ottoman Empire.
- August 22 – Spanish troops arrive on the island of Sardinia, at this time a part of the Holy Roman Empire, beginning the conquest of the island, completed by October 30.
- September 5 – King George I of Great Britain issues the "Proclamation for Suppressing of Pirates in the West Indies", an offer of amnesty to pirates, declaring that any pirates who surrender themselves to the government of Britain or one of its overseas territories, on or before September 5, 1718, "shall have Our Gracious Pardon of and for his or their Piracy or Piracies" committed before January 5, 1718. The amnesty is later extended to July 1, 1719. [71]
- September 21 – The first known Druid revival ceremony is held by John Toland at Primrose Hill, in London, at the Autumnal Equinox, to found the Mother Grove, what will later become the Ancient Order of Druids.
- September 29 – Guatemala earthquake: A 7.4 magnitude earthquake strikes Antigua Guatemala, destroying much of the city, and making authorities consider moving the capital of Guatemala to a different location.
October–December
- October 9 – King Philip V of Spain orders the closure of all universities in Catalonia, including the historic Estudi General de Lleida. [72]
- October 16 – Antonio Vivaldi's opera Tieteberga is performed for the first time, premiering at the Teatro San Moisè in Venice
- October 18 – Trial begins in Boston for six pirates who had survived the April 26 wreck of Samuel Bellamy's ships Whydah and the Mary Anne. Five of them (John Brown, Hendrick Quintor, Thomas Baker, Peter Cornelius Hoof and John Shuan) are convicted on October 22 of piracy and robbery and hanged on November 15. [73]
- October 30 – The Spanish conquest of Sardinia, at this time part of the Holy Roman Empire, is finished two months after Spanish forces had landed on the island on August 22, as the last Sardinian outpost, Castelsardo, surrenders. [74]
- November 28 – Pirates led by Edward Teach, more popularly referred to as "Blackbeard", and Benjamin Hornigold capture the French slave transport Concorde near island of Saint Vincent the West Indies. [75] Blackbeard renames the vessel Queen Anne's Revenge , adds to its armaments, and makes it his flagship. [76] Hornigold soon accepts a British amnesty for all pirates, and Blackbeard teams up with Stede Bonnet and begins plundering ships approaching North American ports.
- December 9 (November 29, O.S.) – King George I of Great Britain banishes his son and daughter-in-law, George, Prince of Wales and Caroline of Ansbach, from the royal household after the Prince threatens the King's personal assistant, the Duke of Newcastle, the royal Lord Chamberlain. The altercation takes place at the baptismal ceremony for the Prince's newborn son, George William.
- December 24 – 25 – Christmas flood: A disastrous flood hits the North Sea coast, between the Netherlands and Denmark; thousands die or lose their houses.
Date unknown
- 1717 Omani invasion of Bahrain.
- François-Marie Arouet is sentenced to imprisonment in the Bastille for eleven months, because of a satirical verse against the Régent of France and his infamous daughter Marie Louise Élisabeth d'Orléans, who is hiding an illegitimate pregnancy and soon to give birth; [77] Arouet will emerge with the pseudonym Voltaire and the completed text of his first play, Œdipe .
- The Tatar invasions in Transylvania devastate many towns, including Cavnic, Sighet and Dej.
- Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, wife of the British ambassador to Istanbul, has her son inoculated.
- The Casa de Contratación (House of Trade) is set up in Cádiz.
- Maharaja Pamheiba of Manipur is converted to Hinduism by Shantidas Goswami, and decrees it to be the official religion of his state.
- Most recent rupture of New Zealand's Alpine Fault, with an earthquake estimated to have had a magnitude between 7.8 and 8.1.
- The Charleville musket enters service in France.
- Thomas Fairchild, a nurseryman at Hoxton in the East End of London, becomes the first person to produce a successful scientific plant hybrid, Dianthus Caryophyllus barbatus, known as Fairchild's Mule. [78]
- Murshid Quli Khan declares himself the first Nawab of the Bengal Subah. The Nawabs of Bengal will effectively function as near-sovereign rulers of Bengal while being nominally loyal to the Mughal Empire. [79]
1718
January – March
- January 7 – In India, Sufi rebel leader Shah Inayat Shaheed from Sindh who had led attacks against the Mughal Empire, is beheaded days after being tricked into meeting with the Mughals to discuss peace. [80]
- January 17 – Jeremias III reclaims his role as the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, chief leader within the Eastern Orthodox Church, 16 days after the Metropolitan Cyril IV of Pruoza had engineered an election to become the Patriarch. [81]
- February 14 – The reign of Victor Amadeus over the principality of Anhalt-Bernburg (now within the state of Saxony-Anhalt in northeastern Germany) ends after 61 years and 7 months. He had ascended the throne on September 22, 1656. He is succeeded by his son Karl Frederick.
- February 21 – Manuel II (Mpanzu a Nimi) becomes the new monarch of the Kingdom of Kongo (located in western Africa at present day Angola) when King Pedro IV (Nusamu a Mvemba) dies after a reign of 22 years. Manuel reigns until 1743. [82]
- March 12 – Anton Florian becomes the new Prince of Liechtenstein, succeeding Joseph Wenzel
- March 13 – Daniel Overbeek becomes the new Dutch Governor of Ceylon (now the nation of Sri Lanka), arriving after a 10-month sea voyage from the Netherlands.
- March 18 – Edward Wortley Montagu, the four-year-old son of the British Ambassador to Turkey, becomes the first British person to be inoculated with the smallpox vaccine, administered by Dr. Charles Maitland at the request of Edward's mother, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. [83]
- March 20 – The Privy Council of the United Kingdom, at the time the British Government prior to the creation of the officer of Prime Minister, is reorganized, with a reorganized 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.
April – June
- April 4 – Great Britain, France and the Dutch Republic agree on the phasing out of the authority of the House of Medici over the semi-independent Grand Duchy of Tuscany by declaring that Gian Gastone de' Medici will be the last of the Medici family to rule the Italian duchy and that Spain's House of Borbón will eventually control the Tuscan monarchy. Don Carlos of Spain, the two-year old son of King Philip V, is designated as the eventual heir, despite the objections of the 75-year old Grand Duke, Cosimo III de' Medici. [84]
- May 1 – San Antonio is founded by Father Antonio de San Buenaventura y Olivares with the construction of the initial Mission San Antonio de Valero.
- May 7 – The settlement of New Orleans is founded in New France. [85]
- May 22 – Sailing the Queen Anne's Revenge English pirate Edward Teach ("Blackbeard") leads 400 sailors in four ships, and blockades the port of Charleston, South Carolina for an entire week, plundering all arriving ships. [86] After their departure, Queen Anne's Revenge and Adventure are both lost at Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina; a week later. Blackbeard allows Stede Bonnet to command the Revenge (which is renamed the Royal James) once again. Bonnet rescues 25 sailors abandoned by Blackbeard on a sandbar and continues his life of piracy.
- June 3 – Pirates "Blackbeard" and Stede Bonnet accidentally run aground in the ship Queen Anne's Revenge after sailing into Topsail Inlet in the British colony of North Carolina. Learning of the royal pardon available to all pirates who surrender before September 5, Teach negotiates a settlement with Colonial Governor Charles Eden for a pardon for himself, Bonnet and the rest of his crew in return for the Governor receiving some of the pirates' plunder. [87]
- June 16 – The Treaty of Baden is signed, ending the Toggenburg War.
- June 19 – A 7.5 earthquake shakes Tongwei County in China, killing 73,000 people.
July–September
- July 21 – The Treaty of Passarowitz, ending the Austro-Turkish War, is signed.
- July 25 – At the behest of Tsar Peter the Great, the construction of the Kadriorg Palace, dedicated to his wife Catherine, began in Tallinn. [88]
- August 11 – Battle of Cape Passaro: a Spanish fleet is defeated by the British Royal Navy under Admiral George Byng, off Capo Passero, Sicily, a prelude to the War of the Quadruple Alliance.
- September 10 – In France, Armande Félice de La Porte Mazarin and the Vicomtesse de Polignac, both mistresses of the Duc de Richelieu, fight a duel with pistols at the Bois de Boulogne near Paris. Lady Mazarin, who had initiated the duel, is wounded in the shoulder and both survive. Richelieu, though impressed by the willingness of the ladies to fight over his affections, comments Je ne sacrifierai pas un de mes cheveux, ni à l’une, ni à l’autre ("I will not sacrifice anything, not to one, nor to the other.") [89]
- September 27 – The Battle of Cape Fear River begins as pirate Stede Bonnet and his crew on the Royal James are confronted in North Carolina by Colonel William Rhett and the ships Henry and Sea Nymph.
- September – In Tibet, forces of the Tibetan Dzungar Khanate destroys an advancing expedition of the Chinese Imperial Army, under the command of General Erentei, in the Battle of the Salween River.
October –December
- October 3 – Stede Bonnet and his crew are captured near the mouth of the Cape Fear River and taken to Charleston, South Carolina, where they are tried for piracy. All but four are found guilty and sentenced to death (with 22 hanged on November 8), but Bonnet escapes from prison on October 24.
- October 31 – The Mughal Emperor of India, Farrukhsiyar, restores the titles and responsibilities of his chief adviser, Mir Jumla III, almost three years after dismissing him.
- November 11 – Lightning strikes the powder magazine at the Old Fortress, Corfu, causing an explosion that kills a large number of people on the island.
- November 18 – Voltaire's first play, Oedipus , premières at the Comédie-Française in Paris. This is his first use of the pseudonym.
- November 22 – Citing violations of the amnesty agreement with Blackbeard, Virginia Governor Alexander Spotswood sends a Royal Navy contingent to North Carolina, where they battle Blackbeard and his crew in Ocracoke Inlet. Blackbeard is killed in action, after receiving five musketball wounds and twenty sword lacerations.
- December 5 – Following the death of Charles XII on November 30, his sister Ulrika Eleonora proclaims herself Queen regnant of Sweden, as the news of her brother's death reaches Stockholm.
- December 10 – Stede Bonnet is hanged at Charleston, after being recaptured.
- December 17 – The Holy Roman Empire, Kingdom of Great Britain and Dutch Republic join the Kingdom of France in formally declaring war on Spain, launching the War of the Quadruple Alliance.
Date unknown
- Islamization of Sudan: The Funj warrior aristocracy deposes the reigning mek and places one of their own ranks on the throne of Sennar.
- The white potato reaches New England from England.
- Coffee is grown in Surinam (Dutch colony). [90]
1719
January–March
- January 8 – Carolean Death March begins: A catastrophic retreat by a largely-Finnish Swedish-Carolean army under the command of Carl Gustaf Armfeldt across the Tydal mountains in a blizzard kills around 3,700 men and cripples a further 600 for life. [91]
- January 23 – The Principality of Liechtenstein is created, within the Holy Roman Empire. [92]
- February 3 (January 23 Old Style) – The Riksdag of the Estates 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.
- February 20 – The first Treaty of Stockholm is signed.
- February 28 – Farrukhsiyar, the Mughal Emperor of India since 1713, is deposed by the Sayyid brothers, who install Rafi ud-Darajat in his place. In prison, Farrukhsiyar is strangled by assassins on April 19.
- March 6 – A serious earthquake (estimated magnitude >7) in El Salvador results in large fractures, liquefaction zones, and a sulphuric gas leak. It destroys houses, churches and monasteries. [93]
- March 17 – The coronation of Ulrika Eleonora as Queen of Sweden takes place in Stockholm.
April–June
- April 4 – The French army under James FitzJames, 1st Duke of Berwick invades the Basque provinces of Spain, with 20,000 troops crossing into Navarre. [94]
- April 19 – In Louisiana (New France), Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville's brother Serigny arrives on a French man-of-war, bringing news that war had been declared between France and Spain (since December 1718).
- April 25 – Daniel Defoe publishes Robinson Crusoe .
- April 26 – King Philip V of Spain departs Madrid and leads 15,000 men of the Spanish Army into Navare to fight the French under Berwick. [95]
- May 14 – In Louisiana (New France), Bienville, from Mobile, captures Pensacola, but Pensacola is later recaptured by the Spanish, and again re-taken by Bienville. [96]
- May 25 – An earthquake in Turkey damages İzmit and Istanbul, damaging some city walls and ruining mosques and palaces. [97]
- June 4 – Battle of Ösel Island: A Russian naval force defeats the Swedish fleet.
- June 18 – Captain John Perry fixes Dagenham Breach.
- June 10 – Battle of Glen Shiel: British forces defeat the Jacobites and their Spanish allies.
- June 20 – Battle of Francavilla: The Austrians are defeated by the Spanish.
- June 30 – French forces under the Duke of Berwick open the Siege of San Sebastian
July–September
- July 11 – Russia's Baltic Sea fleet is first spotted from the Swedish coast, starting the Russian Pillage of 1719–21 as part of the Great Northern War.
- July 16 – The Carlsten fortress in Sweden surrenders to a Danish and Norwegian force after a siege of seven days. Colonel Henrich Danckwardt, who surrendered the fortress to Peter Tordenskjold after being away from it while it was still defensible, is beheaded on September 16.
- August 13 – In the Battle of Stäket, Crown Prince Frederick I of Sweden leads the successful defense of Stockholm from Russian Admiral Fyodor Apraksin's Baltic Fleet during the Russian Pillage.
- August 19 – Siege of San Sebastian. The Spanish garrison surrenders to the Duke of Berwick.
- August 20 – Princess Maria Josepha of Austria, at one time the heir presumptive to the throne of Austria's Habsburg Empire, marries Frederick Augustus, Elector of Saxony ten days after renouncing any claim to the Austrian throne.
- September 3 – The three-story tall Opernhaus am Zwinger , one of the largest opera houses in the world at the time, opens in Dresden by staging Antonio Lotti's Giovi in Argo. [98]
- September 29 – Muhammad Shah is crowned as the 12th Mughal Emperor of India at Shahjahanabad (now Delhi), 12 days after the death of Shah Jahan II from tuberculosis. [99]
October–December
- October 11 – Fernando Manuel de Bustillo Bustamante y Rueda, the Spanish Governor-General of the Philippines, is assassinated in a bloody coup d'etat by supporters of the Archbishop of Manila, whom Bustamante had imprisoned.
- October 14 – The British Army, under the command of Major General George Wade, invades and captures the forts of Vigo on the Atlantic coast of Spain. [100]
- October 21 – The Red Canal is opened in the Russian capital, Saint Petersburg, after seven years of construction, at a ceremony in the presence of the Tsar Peter the Great. [101]
- October 28 – Sweden and Denmark 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. [102]
- November 9 – In a treaty between Sweden and Hanover at the close of the Great Northern War, Sweden cedes the Duchies of Bremen and Verden (in northern Germany) to Hanover.
- December 22 – Andrew Bradford publishes the American Weekly Mercury, Pennsylvania's first newspaper.
Date unknown
- Prussia conducts Europe's first systematic census.
- Miners in Falun, Sweden find the apparently petrified body of Fet-Mats Israelsson (d. 1677), in an unused part of the copper mine.
- Raine's Foundation School, Bethnal Green (founded by Henry Raine), opens in Wapping, England.
- James Figg opens one of the first indoor venues for combat sports, adjoining the City of Oxford tavern in Oxford Road, London. [103]
