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Thorn falls to Sweden's Karl (Charles) XII after an 8-month siege in which he has lost only 50 men. Karl has his ambassador at Warsaw use bribery and intimidation to secure the election July 2 of Stanislaw Leszczynski, 37, to succeed the elector of Saxony Augustus II as king of Poland (see 1705).
The Cossack hetman Mazepa helps Russia's Peter I in the Volhynian campaign as the Great Northern War continues. Peter's onetime orderly Aleksandr Danilovich Menshikov, 30, demonstrates his military prowess and will ultimately be elevated to the rank of field marshal.
The Battle of Donauworth (Schellenberg Heights) on the Danube in Bavaria July 2 ends in victory for England's duke of Marlborough, who commands a 52,000-man army in the continuing War of the Spanish Succession. Marlborough has marched his 10,000 British and 42,000 Allied troops up the Rhine to relieve Franco-Bavarian pressure on Vienna, burning 300 villages in an effort to provoke Maximilian II Emanuel, elector of Bavaria, to come out and fight. He storms the Schellenberg Heights near Donauworth, sustaining 5,400 casualties while killing, wounding, or capturing 6,000 of the enemy's 12,000-man defending force, commanded by Count d'Arco. The Bavarian elector waits for French reinforcements, but Austrian troops occupy Munich and will remain for a decade (see Sendlinger massacre, 1705).
Gibraltar (Jebel-al-Tarik) falls to English forces August 4 (see 1702); Admiral George Rooke wrests the rocky fortress from the Spanish, and the British will hold the entrance to the Mediterranean for centuries.
The Battle of Blenheim (Blindheim, or Hochstadt) in Bavaria August 13 gives England's duke of Marlborough a stunning victory over the French-Bavarian-Prussian coalition. Supported by Eugene of Savoy (whose realm is overrun in his absence by French forces under the duc de Vendôme), Marlborough's 10,000 English infantry and cavalry are augmented by 42,000 allied troops to face 56,000 under the command of Count Camille de Tallard, 52. Marlborough himself leads the cavalry charge that breaks the enemy's resistance. He drives his foes into the Danube, hundreds drown, 4,500 of the Franco-Bavarian army die, and 7,500 are wounded. The English and their allies lose 670 plus 1,500 wounded. Marlborough and Eugene take 11,000 prisoners, including Marshal de Tallard, with 24 battalions of infantry and four regiments of dragoons that include the finest in the French army. The French and Bavarians lose 100 guns, and the French survivors retreat first to the Rhine, then to the Moselle. Only 16,000 French survivors return home, and the loss brings dismay to France's wives and mothers as well as to Louis XIV, whose military supremacy is gone forever.
Canadian Indians and French forces attack the 35-year-old village of Deerfield in the Massachusetts Bay colony before dawn February 29, scaling its palisades, killing 56 of its 291 residents in their sleep, torching half its houses, and carrying off 112 captives, 40 of them under age 12. The French have been trying to discourage English settlement in northern New England. Deerfield has been the northernmost, and French officers have led 200 Abenaki, Mohawk, and Huron tribesmen south from Montreal through deep snowdrifts.
Mathematician Johan van Waveren Hudde dies at his native Amsterdam April 15 at age 75 (see 1713).
America's first regular newspaper begins publication at Boston. The weekly News-Letter published by local postmaster John Campbell, 51, consists of a single 7-by-11½-inch sheet covered on both sides with news and rumors received from post riders, sea captains, and sailors (see 1690; Zenger, 1735).
Journalist Sir Roger L'Estrange dies at London December 11 at age 87.
Chinese scholar Yan Ruoju (Yen Jo-chü) dies at Beijing (Peking) July 9 at age 67, having proved that 25 chapters of the Shu Ching (or Shang shu) were forged (one of the Five Classics of Confucianism, it has been the model for Chinese government for more than 1,000 years). Philosopher John Locke dies at Oates, Essex, October 28 at age 72, never having married.
Fiction: The Battle of the Books by English satirist Jonathan Swift, 37, is a travesty on the controversy over ancient and modern learning; A Tale of a Tub by Swift satirizes corruption in religion and learning; The Thousand and One Nights (Les Mille et une nuits) (first volume) by Antoine Galland is a freely translated version of a 10th century work with tales of Sinbad and his search for spices (see Burton, 1888).
Kabuki actor Dannjuro Ichikawa, now 44, is murdered onstage at Edo.
Anthem: "I Will Always Give Thanks" by English organist and church music composer William Croft, 25, who has studied under John Blow and been organist at St. Anne's in Soho since 1700.
The "Cassette girls" arrive at Mobile on the Gulf Coast in quest of husbands. The 25 young French women carry small trunks (cassettes) filled with dowry gifts from Louis XIV (see 1702).
Pirate John Quelch returns to Marblehead in the Massachusetts Bay colony, where he seized the vessel that he has used to raid shipping on the Brazilian coast. Quelch is arrested, he and six of his crew are sentenced to death, Cotton Mather delivers sermons against them, and they are hanged on the shore at Hudson's Point.
Explorer-buccaneer William Dampier has a quarrel with Scottish seaman Alexander Selkirk (or Selcraig), 28, who is put ashore at his own request in October on Mas-a-Tierra in the uninhabited Juan Fernández Isles off the coast of Chile. The island has plenty of water and Selkirk finds it teeming with feral goats, cats, and rats (see 1709).
London's Christ Church is completed by Sir Christopher Wren, who has designed 52 London churches.
The "Cassette girls" who come to Mobile from France take roux (composed of browned fat and flour); use okra obtained from Congolese slaves; and borrow game, crawfish (swamp crayfish or crawdad), crabs, peppers, and powdered sassafras leaves (called filé powder and employed, like okra, as a thickening agent) from the Choctaw to develop a cuisine that will include gumbo (the word comes from Bantu), jambalaya (a mixture of meat, rice, tomatoes, peppers, and onions), and crawfish pie, expanding the local fare of maize products, beans, sweet potatoes, and local game and seafood (see 1784).
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