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Ottoman forces attack Sweden's Karl XII in his camp at Bender in Moldavia February 1 and take him prisoner (see 1711); he has helped the Turks regain Azov but will remain their captive for 15 months (see 1715).
The first Prussian king Friedrich I dies at Berlin February 25 at age 55 after a 12-year reign in which he has welcomed Protestant refugees from France and elsewhere, founded the University of Halle and Berlin's Academy of Sciences, and lavished money on public buildings. His 24-year-old son has married Britain's Princess Sophia Dorothea and will reign until 1740 as Friedrich Wilhelm I.
The Treaty of Utrecht April 11 ends hostilities in the War of the Spanish Succession (called Queen Anne's War in North America), which is finally terminated in September by the Treaty of Baden. Louis XIV agrees not to unite France and Spain under one king, recognizes the Protestant succession in Britain, agrees to tear down French fortifications at Dunkirk and to fill up Dunkirk harbor, and gives up some North American territories to Britain (a brilliant diplomatic victory for British Foreign Secretary Henry St. John, 34, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke). Maximilian II Emanuel, elector of Bavaria, is restored to power and will return to his native Munich in 1715.
Spain cedes Gibraltar and Minorca to Britain, which is to hold Gibraltar "in perpetuity" under the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht.
France cedes Newfoundland and Acadia to Britain, which cedes Cape Breton Island to France under terms of the Treaty of Utrecht and changes the name of Acadia to Nova Scotia. France retains fish-drying rights on part of the Newfoundland coast and builds a fortress (Louisburg) on Cape Breton Island (see 1755; 1763).
The Caribbean island of Saint Kitts is awarded to Britain, and the South Sea Company that was started 2 years ago gains the right to send one ship per year to trade at Spain's isthmus city of Portobello (see 1716).
Spain cedes Sardinia and the kingdom of Naples to Austria and cedes Sicily to Savoy, which in 1720 will exchange Sicily for Sardinia (see 1722; 1734).
Southern Laotian provinces secede from the Vietnamese-controlled central government and establish the kingdom of Champassak (see 1707). The "Kingdom of the Million Elephants" (Lan Xang) goes out of existence.
The South Sea Company receives asientos to import 4,800 African slaves per year into Spain's New World colonies for the next 30 years. Founded partly in anticipation of receiving the asientos, the company is essentially a British finance company, but it begins the most active period of British participation in the slave trade (see commerce, 1720; commerce, 1719).
France turns over her fur-trading posts on Hudson Bay to the 43-year-old Hudson's Bay Company, which gains control of the entire region (see exploration, 1719).
The French establish a trading post at the Great Village of Natchez (see 1729).
A privateer operated by Boston's Quincy family captures a Spanish treasure ship "worth the better part of an hundred thousand pounds sterling."
The Treaty of Utrecht ends a Golden Age for the Netherlands that has continued since 1609. The Dutch economy has tripled since then, Amsterdam has become the world's financial capital, inflation has remained lower than in the rest of Europe despite the fact that workers were paid more than their counterparts in other European countries, the population has more than doubled (to 1.9 million), and business activity has been spurred by the recognition of property rights and contracts. However, building and maintaining a naval armada larger than the navies of Britain and France combined has required a sharp increase in taxes, putting a damper on business.
Scottish-born sea captain Andrew Robinson at Gloucester in the Massachusetts Bay colony builds the world's first schooner (its name derives from the Scottish dialect word scoon, meaning to skip over the surface of water). Its fore-and-aft rig makes it more maneuverable than a square-rigger, and it requires a smaller crew, so it is more suitable to the rugged New England coast and will be the most popular sailing ship for 2 centuries. Other New Englanders quickly imitate the distinctively American vessel, creating a fleet of schooners to fish the Grand Banks.
Clock and watchmaker Thomas Tompion dies at London November 20 at age 74. His former apprentice George Graham takes over the business, producing watches with cylinder escapements and dead-beat escapements.
The Art of Conjecturing (Ars Conjectandi) by the late Swiss mathematician Jakob Bernoulli helps advance probability theory with examples taken from games of chance (see Moivre, 1711).
Concerning Reduction of Equations (De reductione aequationum) by the late Dutch mathematician Johan van Waveren Hudde takes literal coefficients in algebra as indifferently positive or negative.
Synopsis of Birds and Fish (Synopsis Methodica Avium et Piscium) by the late naturalist John Ray is published at London.
London physician John Woodward receives a letter from Greek physician Emanuel Timoni at Constantinople describing a method for preventing smallpox by immunization. Timoni reports that Greek physician Giacomo Pylarini at Smyrna removes some of the thick liquid from a smallpox pustule, rubs it into a small scratch made with a needle on the skin of a healthy person, and thus protects that person, who generally develops a mild case of the pox but nothing worse (see 1714; Montagu, 1718).
Pope Clement XI issues a bull prohibiting the so-called "Chinese rites" used by Jesuits and their missionaries to attract converts by modifying Christian usage (see 1716).
London's Protestant bishop Henry Compton dies at Fulham, Middlesex, July 7 at age 81.
Lettres sur l'education des filles by Mme. de Maintenon says, "There is little point in girls of common extraction learning to read as well as young ladies or being taught as fine a pronunciation or knowing what a period is, etc. It is the same with writing. All they need is enough to keep their accounts and memoranda; you don't need to teach them fine hand-writing or talk to them of style; a little spelling will do. Arithmetic is different. They need it" (see 1686).
Spain's Real Academia Española has its beginnings in the Real Academia de la Lengua Española, estblished to maintain the purity of the language (see Academie Française, 1635).
Nonfiction: Three DialoguesBetween Hylas and Philonous by George Berkeley popularizes his system of subjective and empirical idealism (Berkeleianism) (see 1710).
Theater: Cato by Joseph Addison in April at London's Dury Lane Theatre.
First performances: a Te Deum and a Jubilate by George Frideric Handel 7/7 at St. Paul's Cathedral, London, to celebrate the Peace of Utrecht. Queen Anne, who has commissioned the works and five others, grants Handel a handsome lifetime pension of £200 per year.
Italian composer and violinist Arcangelo Corelli dies at Rome January 8 at age 59. He has lived since 1685 at the palace of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, conducting concerts while composing sonatas and 12 Concerto Grossi that will be published next year at Amsterdam and establish the concerto grosso form.
Prague's Clam-Gallas Palace is completed by J. B. Fischer von Erlach after 6 years of construction.
France's Louis XIV receives a coffee bush whose descendants will produce a vast industry in the Western Hemisphere. The five-foot bush from the Amsterdam greenhouses will be stolen and transported to Martinique (see 1690; 1723).
An extension of the British malt tax supersedes the Scottish tax on whisky enacted in 1693. Glaswegians riot and there is general resistance to the new tax throughout Scotland. Edinburgh alone has an estimated 400 illicit stills, whose operators pay no taxes, and there are even more on remote farms in the Highlands. Distillers who do pay the excise tax complain about those who do not and protest that tax-free whisky is being smuggled across the border into England (see 1784).
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