1708
1701 1702 1703 1704 1705 1706 1707 1708 1709 1710
Contents: political eventshuman rights, social justice commerce science religion literature art theater, film music food and drink |
James Edward Stuart turns 20 June 10 and renews his claims to the English and Scottish thrones (see 1701). He and his supporters embark for Scotland in French ships, but the Royal Navy drives off his little fleet before it can land (see 1715).
Austria annexes the duchy of Mantua, whose territory has been laid waste by various foreign invasions; a succession of dissolute dukes have proved inept in handling the duchy's affairs and have squandered its resources; Gonzaga family rule ends after 380 years, and its final duke, Ferdinand Carlos, dies at Venice July 5.
Ghent and Bruges resume their allegiance to France in early July. Fearing that other cities will follow suit, the duke of Marlborough defeats the French July 11 at the Battle of Oudenarde with help from Eugene of Savoy. He lays siege to Lille for nearly 4 months, and the citadel surrenders in December after 30,000 combatants have lost their lives in the continuing War of the Spanish Succession.
The 5-year-old city of St. Petersburg withstands a siege by Sweden's Karl (Charles) XII, who invades the Ukraine and lays siege to the Russian fortress of Poltava on the Vorskla River 85 miles southwest of Kharkov. Russia's Peter the Great responds with a scorched earth policy, burning crops and destroying anything that might be of value to the invaders. The Cossack hetman Ivan Mazepa brings his 5,000 men to the support of the Swedes in October, but he is unable to inspire a Ukrainian revolt against Russia, and the Russians intercept an auxiliary army carrying supplies to Karl, whose hungry army is stricken with plague (see 1709).
Dahomey's king Akaba dies after a 23-year reign in which Yoruba horsemen from neighboring Oyo have gained control of his realm (see 1698). He is succeeded by Agaja, who will reign until 1732 and conquer some adjacent territories on the Gulf of Guinea coast where Europeans have erected forts to exploit the slave trade on which Dahomey has thrived.
The provincial assembly of New York condemns the administration of the colony's governor, Lord Cornbury, who has used tax revenues for his own purposes and whose arrest of the Presbyterian minister Francis Makemie last year has antagonized many citizens (see 1702). Queen Anne recalls him, but as he is about to board ship in December, his creditors have him arrested and the sheriff puts him in the common jail in Wall Street, where he will continue for nearly a year to affect women's garb (he owes £8,000 to New York merchants and shopkeepers alone). Cornbury's successor, John lord Lovelace, baron of Hurley, arrives at New York in a snowstorm December 18 after a 9-week passage and is so weak from the bitter cold he will not be well enough to take up his duties until spring. "This Coast is so terrible in Winter," he writes home, "[that] I think no Ship ought to be sent hither from England after August."
Canadian Indians and French colonists massacre settlers at Haverhill in the Massachusetts Bay colony.
The 2,400 adult whites in the 45-year-old Carolina colony are outnumbered by 2,900 black slaves and 1,100 Indian slaves (see 1775).
The United East India Company created by a merger of Britain's two rival East India Companies is the strongest European power on the coasts of India. The company ships Indian silks, cottons, indigo (for blue dye), coffee, and saltpetre (for gunpowder) as well as China tea, and it will pay regular dividends of 8 to 10 percent (see 1627).
The Bank of England Act prohibits any other bank with more than six partners from issuing bank notes (see 1694). By keeping the pound sterling strong and paying interest faithfully on its borrowings, the government will enjoy leverage that will enable it to outfinance France or any other sovereign nation, giving it the power to create the largest empire in history (see South Sea Company, 1719; clearing house, 1775).
Japanese samurai mathematician Kowa Seki dies at Edo October 24 at age 66, having developed a theory of determinants earlier (and more general) than those of his German contemporary Gottfried W. Leibniz. He has also been known as Takakazu, and his disciple Takebe will use his discoveries in calculus to develop a Japanese school of mathematics.
Bishop François de Montmorency Laval dies at Quebec May 6 at age 85, having resigned in 1688 after founding the Roman Catholic Church organization and education in New France.
Sikh leader Gobind Singh is killed at Nanded, Maharashtra, October 7 at age 42 by a Pashtun tribesman who takes vengeance for the killing of his father. Last of the 10 personal gurus, Gobind Singh has in his 33-year reign founded what will become the military brotherhood of Sikhs known as the Khalsa, but he has lost all four of his sons in one battle near Ambala (his wife and parents have also been killed in his struggle for religious freedom). Gobind Singh's disciple Banda Singh Bahadur succeeds to the leadership of the sect, but the Sikh guru henceforth will not be a person but rather the Adi Granth, a holy book.
Nonfiction: The Sot Weed Factor, or A Voyage to Maryland by English satirist Ebenezer Cook, 36, expresses disgust at the greedy colonials. Cook has gone to America to buy tobacco.
Painting: The Departing Regiment by Flemish rococo painter (Jean) Antoine Watteau, 23.
Theater: Electra (Elèctre) by Prosper Jolyot, sieur de Crébillon, 12/14 at the Comédie-Française, Paris.
German organist Johann Sebastian Bach, 23, becomes court organist at the duke of Weimar's castle, where he will be made court concertmeister in 1714. Born in Eisenach and orphaned before age 10, Bach had become a virtuosic organist by 1702 and traveled in the fall of 1705 from Arnstadt to Lübeck for the annual performance of the Abendmusiken concerto by the late Danish organist-composer Dietrich Buxtehude, who had great influence on young Bach.
Composer John Blow dies at London October 1 at age 59.
Saxon alchemist Johann Friedrich Böttger at Meissen, 14 miles northwest of Dresden, discovers a formula for making hard-paste porcelain of the kind imported from China, a combination of brown stone made pliable with kaolin (see 1705; 1709).
1701 1702 1703 1704 1705 1706 1707 1708 1709 1710
