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Sweden's Karl XII defeats a Russian force at Pultusk April 21 and lays siege to Thorn as the Great Northern War continues.
The Grand Alliance proclaims Austria's 18-year-old archduke Karl (Charles) king of Spain, and he prepares to invade Catalonia in the continuing War of the Spanish Succession. England's duke of Marlborough invades the Spanish Netherlands, taking Bonn, Huy, Limburg, and Guelders. Bavarian forces invade the Tyrol but are repulsed. A 35,000-man Franco-Bavarian army under the command of Marshal Claude Louis Hector, duc de Villars, 50, marches on Vienna and defeats a 20,000-man Austrian army under the command of Count Hermann Styrum September 30 in the Battle of Höchstadt on the Danube (Höchstadt an der Donau) in Württemberg. Leopold I, 27, prince of Anhalt-Dessau, distinguishes himself in the battle; the Austrians sustain 11,000 casualties; the Franco-Bavarians 1,000; but Maximilian II Emanuel, elector of Bavaria, rejects Villars's advice to continue the advance on Vienna. Villars resigns, and he is succeeded by Marshal Ferdinand de Marsin.
Scottish Royalist John Murray, 2nd earl of Atholl, dies May 6 at age 72; Jacobite Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat, returns to Scotland on a mission that he betrays to the duke of Queensberry, head of the Scottish ministry (see 1701). News of his treachery leaks out, and when Lovat returns to France he is placed in captivity, where he will remain until his escape in 1713 (see 1715).
The Ottoman sultan Mustapha II is dethroned September 3 (and soon dies of melancholia at age 41). His 30-year-old brother will reign until 1730 as Ahmed III.
Siam's king Phetracha dies at Ayutthaya at age 70 after a cruel and tyrannical 15-year reign in which he has reduced foreign influences, persecuted Christians, harassed Western traders, and suppressed numerous revolts. He is succeeded by his son Sua ("Tiger"), who will be no less tyrannical (see 1767).
New York's eccentric governor Lord Cornbury raises eyebrows by borrowing money from colonists and not repaying it (see 1702). When he cuts the allowance of his wife, Katherine, she borrows gowns from the aristocratic women in town and does not return them. She has the only carriage in town, and when women hear it approaching they have their servants hide the silver and china lest Lady Cornbury appropriate them (see 1708).
Guadeloupe's governor Jean-Baptiste Labat, 40, arms the Caribbean island's black slaves to augment his forces and keep the English from taking the French possession (see 1674). Having played a key role in establishing the Basse-Terre colony, Labat has been setting up Guadeloupe's first sugar refineries (see British occupation, 1759).
St. Petersburg is founded May 1 by Russia's Peter I on reclaimed marshlands at the mouth of the Gulf of Finland. Sweden acquired the Ingermanland territory early in 1617 under terms of the Treaty of Stolbovo, and then Peter regained it last year. He begins construction May 27 on the citadel of Peter and Paul at the southern end of an island in the Neva, where the river separates into two branches, and will make the new city Russia's seat of power, turning the country's focus to the West. Some 40,000 men drawn from all parts of the empire will work on building the city in the next few years; thousands will succumb to malaria from the marshes, to scurvy, and to exhaustion from their heavy labor (see politics, 1708).
The Methuen Treaty signed December 27 facilitates trade in English woolens and wines from vineyards in the Oporto area of northern Portugal, where 68,000 acres along the River Douro in the Alto Douro region are suitable for viniculture. English families own many of the vineyards, and England will admit the wine at duties one-third lower than those demanded of French wines in return for Portugal's agreement to import all her woolens from England.
Experimental physicist, chemist, architect, and city planner Robert Hooke dies at London March 3 at age 67, having founded microscopic biology; mathematician John Wallis dies at Oxford October 28 at age 86.
Vienna's Wiener Zeitung has its beginnings in Der Postalische Mercurius; it will become a daily in 1714 and survive as the world's oldest newspaper, but every issue must be approved by the government, and it will become an official government organ in 1724.
Diarist Samuel Pepys dies at his native London May 26 at age 70. His diary will not be decoded for more than a century.
London authorities place Daniel Defoe in the pillory and imprison him briefly for last year's ironic pamphlet "The Shortest Way with Dissenters," which has outraged both Whigs and Tories.
Nonfiction: New Voyages to North-America (Voyages dans l'Amerique septentrionale) by French military officer Louis-Armand de Lom d'Arce, Baron Lahontan, 37, who was in New France from 1683 to 1693, explored the Mississippi, studied the Iroquois, and writes that they "value themselves above anything else that you can imagine, and this is the reason they always five for it, that one's as much master as another, and since men are all made of the same clay there should be no distinction or superiority among them."
Poet-story teller Charles Perrault dies at his native Paris the night of May 15 at age 75; man-of-letters Charles de Marguetel de Saint-Denis, seigneur de Saint-Evremond, at London September 20 at age 89; clergyman-poet Thomas Kingo at Odense October 14 at age 68.
Painting: Still Life with Flowers and Plums by Rachel Ruysch.
Theater: Colley Cibber substitutes actress Anne Oldfield, 20, at the last moment for his leading lady in his new play The Careless Husband and launches her on a career; The Fair Penitent by Nicholas Rowe, in May at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, London, introduces Rowe's rakish seducer the "gay Lothario"; The Lying Lover, or The Ladies' Friendship by Richard Steele 12/2 at London's Drury Lane Theatre is based on the Corneille play Le menteur of 1643; Sonezakishinju by Monzaemon Chikamatsu at Osaka's Takemoto Theater (puppet show).
The great storm that strikes England November 26 to 27 shatters the Eddystone Lighthouse, leaves Bristol heavily damaged, and drowns some 8,000 sailors as the Royal Navy loses 15 warships.
A Japanese earthquake and fire December 30 destroys Edo and kills some 30,000 people (200,000 by some estimates). The country will soon have further catastrophes (see 1707).
The Methuen Treaty subjects French spirits to heavy duties, and one result of it will be to make port the national drink of England as the Portuguese learn to spike the pale white wines of the Douro with brandy.
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