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Moscow and Constantinople sign a truce June 23, ending 5 years of war. The Russians retain Azov but give up their Black Sea fleet.
The Great Northern War begins in Europe as Russia, Poland, and Denmark join forces to oppose Swedish supremacy in the Baltic (see 1699). Saxony's elector August attacks Swedish Livonia in February, and Denmark's Frederik IV sends troops into Schleswig in March, continuing his late father's efforts to sever connections between the House of Gottorp and Sweden. But Sweden's Karl (Charles) XII, now 18, marches a hastily assembled army to his ports, says nothing about their destination until the men are aboard ship, and then surprises the Danes by landing troops on the Danish island of Själland. Threatening Copenhagen, he forces Denmark to sign the Treaty of Travendal August 18 and remove herself from the alliance against Sweden (but see 1709). Karl lands 8,000 to 10,000 Swedish troops at Narva in Ingermanland November 20 to relieve a Russian siege of the fortified city and, although heavily outnumbered, wins a decisive victory over his Russian adversary Prince Dolgorouky after Peter I gives final orders and leaves for Moscow. Fought in a blizzard, the 3-hour Battle of Narva in northeastern Estonia ends with about 10,000 of the 40,000-man Russian army dead, wounded, or captured (Swedish losses total 600 dead and wounded). Peter recognizes the need for a modern army in place of the peasants who panicked at Narva; he orders recruitment and training of 70,000 new hussars, doubles taxes on religious groups, and has church bells melted down for cannon that will replace the artillery lost at Narva (see Poltava, 1709).
Spain's Carlos II dies at Madrid November 1 at age 39 after a 35-year reign. Known as Carlos el Hechizado (Charles the Mad), Spain's last Hapsburg king has named as his heir Philippe, duc d'Anjou, 17, a grandson of France's Louis XIV; the first Bourbon king of Spain ascends the throne and will reign until 1746 as Felipe (Philip) V (but see War of the Spanish Succession, 1701).
"The Selling of Joseph" (essay) by English-born Boston jurist Samuel Sewall, 48, condemns the selling of slaves. A Harvard-educated merchant who married the daughter of a rich shipowner in 1676, Sewall 3 years ago made public confession of error and guilt for his part in condemning to execution 19 alleged witches at Salem in 1692.
Explorer Louis Jolliet dies in May on an island in the St. Lawrence River at age 54 (approximate).
William Dampier leaves Batavia (later Jakarta) October 17, having spent some months in Java having the Roebuck repaired (see 1699; but see also1701).
German chemist Georg Ernst Stahl, 39, at the University of Halle enunciates a theory that some materials contain "phlogiston," which is consumed in the process of combustion (see Mayow, 1679). Stahl has been influenced by the ideas of his teacher Georg Wolfgng Wedel, 55, at Thüringen, whose chemiatric school has tried to explain life processes in terms of chemical composition (see Lavoisier and oxygen, 1784).
Diseases of Workers (De Morbis Artificum Diatriba) by Italian physician-teacher Bernardino Ramazzini, 66, is the first comprehensive work on occupational disease. Ramazzini has in recent years described outbreaks of lathyrism in humans and animals who ate (or even touched) chick peas or other legumes of the genus Lathyrus and has pioneered in reserving the use of cinchona bark to treat malaria rather than letting it be used indiscriminately for all kinds of disease (see 1642). Having visited workplaces and speaking directly with laborers, he has found that sewage workers sometimes go blind from a severe reddening of the eyes that he has related to ammonia, and he describes the health hazards to which workers are exposed in more than 50 occupations, including bricklayers, chemists, coppersmiths, gilders, glassmakers, limeworkers, miners, painters, potters, starch makers, printers, tanners, tinsmiths, tobacco workers, weavers, and woodworkers. Ramazzini has been at the University of Modena since 1682 but moves now to the University of Padua.
Smallpox will kill an estimated 60 million Europeans in the century ahead.
Pope Innocent XII dies at Rome September 27 at age 85 after a 9-year reign and is succeeded November 23 by the Urbino-born Giovanni Francesco Cardinal Albani, 51, who will reign until 1721 as Clement XI.
Poetry: "Annie Laurie" by Scottish poet William Douglas, 28, whose song is addressed to Anne, daughter of Sir Robert Laurie of the Maxwellton family: "Maxwellton's braes are bonnie/ . . . and for bonnie Annie Laurie/ I'd lay me down an' dee" (see song, 1838); Hans Carvel by Matthew Prior, who writes, "What if to Spells I had Resource?/ 'Tis but to hinder something Worse./ The End justifies the Means."
Theater: The Way of the World by William Congreve in March at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, London: "I like her with all her faults; nay, like her for her faults" (I, iii)"; 'Tis better to be left/ Than never to have loved" (II); The Ambitious Stepmother by English playwright Nicholas Rowe, 27, in December at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre; Love Makes a Man, or The Fop's Fortune by Colley Cibber 12/13 at London's Drury Lane Theatre.
Playwright-poet John Dryden dies in poverty at London May 1 at age 86 and is buried in Westminster Abbey.
Arcangelo Corelli's 12 Sonatas for Violin and Violone or Harpsichord, Opus 5 is published with a dedication to Sophia Charlotte of Brandenburg.
The German Protestant states adopt the Gregorian calendar of 1582 by order of the Diet of Regensburg, but England and her colonies continue to use the Old Style Julian calendar, as do many other countries (see 1752).
Captain William Kidd arrives at London in chains (see 1698). After hearing that he had been branded a pirate, Kidd sailed from the West Indies to New England with the intent of declaring his innocence, but he was tricked into coming ashore at Boston on the promise of a pardon, and the Board of the Admiralty examines him in private, fearing that Lord Bellomont and his other backers will defend Kidd in any public trial (see 1701). Parliament changes the law to permit Vice Admiralty Courts overseas to impose the death sentence on pirates (see Quelch, 1704).
Landscape architect André Le Nôtre dies at his native Paris September 15 at age 87.
Boston ships 50,000 quintals of dried codfish to market, the best of it to Bilbao, Lisbon, and Oporto (where it is traded for port wine). The refuse goes to the West Indies for sale to slaveowners.
Vienna has four coffeehouses and soon will have 10, each with its own loyal patronage of men who make the coffeehouse a home away from home (see 1683; 1842).
London has a population of between 575,000 and 600,000 by most estimates, up from no more than 400,000 in 1660. Despite the heavy losses to plague in 1665 and to fire in 1666, it rivals Paris (600,000) as the largest city in Europe.
England's American colonies have an estimated population of 262,000, with 12,000 each in Boston and Philadelphia, 5,000 in New York (see 1765).
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