The 1710s decade ran from January 1, 1710 to December 31, 1719.

Events

1710

January–June

• February 28 (Swedish calendar) – Battle of Helsingborg: Fourteen thousand Danish invaders, under Jørgen Rantzau, are decisively defeated by an equally large Swedish army, under Magnus Stenbock.
• 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]
• 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.

July–December

• September 26 – Great Northern War – Capitulation of Livonia: the Swedish garrison in Riga surrenders, ending Swedish rule in modern Latvia.
• 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.^[3]
• September 26 – Great Northern War – Capitulation of Livonia: the Swedish garrison in Arensburg (Kuressaare) surrenders, ending Swedish rule in Livonia.
• October 10 – Great Northern War – Capitulation of Estonia: the Swedish garrison in Reval (Tallinn) surrenders, ending Swedish rule in Estonia.
• October 13 – Queen Anne's War – Siege of Port Royal: The French surrender, giving the British permanent possession of Nova Scotia.
• 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.

Date unknown

• In Sweden, the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala is founded as the Collegium curiosorum.
• John Smithwick begins brewing Smithwick's ale at Kilkenny, Ireland (St. Francis Abbey Brewery).^[4]
• Beijing becomes the largest city of the world, taking the lead from Istanbul.^[5]

1711

January–June

• 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.
• 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).
• 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.
  • London première of Rinaldo by George Frideric Handel, the first Italian opera written for the London stage.^[6]
• 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.
• June 18 – King Louis XIV becomes the longest-reigning monarch in the world, surpassing the almost 1028-year-old record set by K'inich Janaab' Pakal, who reigned from 615 to 683. As of 2020, Louis XIV still holds that record

July–December

• July 21 – The Treaty of the Pruth is signed, between the Ottoman Empire and Russia.
• July – 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.
• 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 850 soldiers drown.
• September 8 – The South Sea Company receives a Royal Charter in Britain.^[7]
• 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, 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 John Lawson. Christoph von Graffenried and one African American slave are known to have been set free.
• 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 14 – Yostos kills Tewoflos, becoming Emperor of Ethiopia.
• 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 7 – In the British Parliament the Earl of Nottingham successfully proposes a "No Peace Without Spain" amendment.

Date unknown

• Alexander Pope publishes the poem An Essay on Criticism in London.
• John Shore invents the tuning fork.

1712

January–June

• February 10 – Huilliche uprising of 1712: Huilliche people in Chile's Chiloé Archipelago rise up against Spanish encomenderos as vengeance for perceived injustices.
• March 11 (February 30 Swedish Style) – Sweden temporarily adopts the rare February 30, as a day to adjust the Swedish Calendar back to the Julian calendar.
• 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.
• May 19 – Peter the Great moves the capital of Russia from Moscow to Saint Petersburg.^[8]
• May 22 – Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor is crowned King of Hungary.

July–December

• July 24
  • The French defeat a combined Dutch-Austrian force in the Battle of Denain.
  • The Reformed cantons of Switzerland defeat the Catholic cantons in the Battle of Villmergen.
• 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.
• December 9 – Sweden defeats Denmark and Saxony in the Battle of Gadebusch.

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.^[9]
• 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.

1713

January–June

• 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.^[6][10]
• April 11 – The Second Treaty of Utrecht between Great Britain and France ends the War of the Spanish Succession.^[11] France cedes Newfoundland, Acadia, Hudson Bay and St Kitts to Great Britain.^[6]
• 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.^[12]
• 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.
• 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–December

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

1714

January-June

• 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.
• May 19 - Anne, Queen of Great Britain, refuses to allow members of the House of Hanover to settle in Britain during her lifetime.^[13]

July-December

• July - 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).
• July 27 - The Imperial Russian Navy gains its first important victory against the Swedish Navy in the Battle of Gangut.
• August 1 - George, Elector of Hanover, becomes King George I of Great Britain and Ireland, on the death of Queen Anne.
• September 11 - War of the Spanish Succession: Barcelona is taken after a long siege, and Catalonia surrenders to Spanish and French Bourbon armies.
• 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

January–June

• January 13 – A fire in London, described by some as the worst since the 1666 blaze almost 50 years earlier, starts on Thames Street when fireworks prematurely explode "in the house of Mr. Walker, and oil man"; more than 100 houses are consumed in the blaze, which continues over to Tower Street before it is controlled.^[14]
• February 11 – Tuscarora War: The Tuscarora and their allies sign a peace treaty with the Province of 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 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.^[15]
• 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).

July–December

• 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.^[16][17]
• September – 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 1 – King Louis XIV of France dies after a reign of 72 years, leaving his throne to his great-grandson Louis XV, who will reign for 58 years. Regent for the new, five-year-old monarch is Philippe d'Orléans, nephew of Louis XIV.
• October – John Moore becomes a Peer of Ireland.
• 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.
• 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.^[11]
• 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,^[15] but fails to rouse his army.
• December 24 – Swedish troops occupy Norway.

Date unknown

• Yamasee War: The Province of Carolina goes to war with the Yamasee Native Americans.
• 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 high court of Paris (the Parlement), 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.
• Around this year, a breech loading firearm is made for Philip V of Spain.
• According to Coffee: A Dark History, coffee is first grown this year, in the French colony of Saint-Domingue.

1716

January–June

• January – The town of Crieff, Scotland, is burned to the ground by Jacobites returning from the Battle of Sheriffmuir.^[18]
• 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.^[19]
• January 27 – The Tugaloo Massacre changes the course of the Yamasee War.
• 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.^[20]
• May – John Law founds the Banque Générale.
• 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.

July–December

• 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.^[21]
• 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 VII, Holy Roman Emperor, returns from Italy.
• November 9 – Caroline of Ansbach, Princess of Wales, gives birth to a stillborn son in London.
• 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.^[14]
• 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.

Date unknown

• English pirate Edward Teach (Blackbeard) is given command of a sloop in the Bahamas.^[22]
• Natchez, one of the oldest towns on the Mississippi River, is founded.
• 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-June

• 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.^[23]
• January 4 (December 24, 1716 Old Style) – Great Britain, France and the Dutch Republic sign the Triple Alliance,^[23] 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 – Following the treaty between France and Britain, James Stuart leaves France, and seeks refuge with Pope Clement XI.^[23]
• 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 26–March 6 – What is now 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.^[24]
• April 26 – The Whydah Gally, flagship of "Black Sam" Bellamy, is wrecked in a storm off Wellfleet, Massachusetts. The Whydah sinks with a reputed 4½ 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–December

• 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 land on Sardinia beginning the Spanish conquest of Sardinia.
• September – 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.
• November
  • Crews on two ships, commanded by Benjamin Hornigold and Edward Teach, attack and capture the British-built French Guineaman Concorde, in the eastern Caribbean. Hornigold soon accepts a British amnesty for all pirates, but Teach rejects it, and subsequently becomes known as Blackbeard.
  • A rift between George I of Great Britain and his son the Prince of Wales leads to the latter being banished from the royal household.
• December – Blackbeard teams up with Stede Bonnet, but later takes his ship and demotes Bonnet to guest. The Queen Anne's Revenge and Revenge take several ships as prizes in the Caribbean. Blackbeard eventually adds two more ships to his party, and sails north to the North American coast.
• 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 at the time was hiding an illegitimate pregnancy and soon to give birth;^[25] Arouet will emerge with the pseudonym Voltaire, and the completed text of his first play, OEdipe.
• 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.^[26]
• 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.^[27]

1718

January–June

• January – France declares war on Spain, leading to the 2-year War of the Quadruple Alliance.
• May – English pirate Blackbeard leads 400 sailors in four ships, to blockade the port of Charleston, South Carolina. The 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.
• 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.^[28]
• June – Blackbeard and Bonnet take refuge in Bath, North Carolina, where Governor Charles Eden pardons them and their crew.
• June 16 – The Treaty of Baden (1718) is signed, ending the Toggenburg War.

July–December

May 7: New Orleans

• July 21 – The Treaty of Passarowitz is signed.
• 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 – The Dzungar Khanate destroys a Qing army in the Battle of the Salween River.
• October – 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.
• October 24 – Stede Bonnet escapes from prison.
• November 8 – 22 of Stede Bonnet's pirate crew are hanged at Charleston.
• November 11 – Lightning strikes the powder magazine at the Old Fortress, Corfu, causing a major catastrophe 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).^[29]

1719

• January 23 – The Principality of Liechtenstein is created, within the Holy Roman Empire.^[30]
• 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.
• 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 (from December 1718).
• April 25 – Daniel Defoe publishes Robinson Crusoe.
• April – The French army under James FitzJames, 1st Duke of Berwick invades the Basque provinces of Spain.
• 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.^[31]
• June 4 – Battle of Ösel Island: A Russian naval force defeats the Swedish fleet.
• 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.
• August – The Swedish coast is devastated by the Imperial Russian Fleet in the Russian Pillage of 1719-21 during the Great Northern War from the summer of 1719 until the Peace of 1721.
• 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.

References