1717

Year 1717 (MDCCXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the 11-day slower Julian calendar).

Events of 1717

January – June

• January 4 – The Netherlands, Britain & France sign the Triple Alliance.
• February 1 – The Silent Sejm, in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, marks the beginning of the Russian Empire's increasing influence and control over the Commonwealth.
• February 26-March 6 – What is now the northeastern United States is paralyzed by a series of blizzards that bury the region.
• March 2 – Dancer John Weaver performs in the first ballet in Britain shown in Drury Lane, The Loves of Mars and Venus.
• March 31 – Bishop Benjamin Hoadly, acting on the advice of King George, begins the Bangorian Controversy by saying that God favors churches with no government.
• April 26 – The Whydah Gally, flagship of "Black Sam" Bellamy, is wrecked in a storm off Wellfleet, Massachusetts. The Whydah sinks with a reputed four and a half tons of treasure on board, and all but 2 of her crew are lost, including Bellamy.
• June 24 – The Premier Grand Lodge of England, the 'Modern' and first Free-Masonic Grand Lodge (which later merges with the Ancient Grand Lodge of England in 1813 to form the United Grand Lodge of England), is founded in London, England.

July – December

• September – The first known Druid revival ceremony is held by John Toland at Primrose Hill, in London, at the Autumnal Equinox, to found the Mother Grove, what is later to become the Ancient Order of Druids (AOD).
• September 29 – A 7.4 magnitude earthquake strikes Antigua Guatemala, destroying much of the city and making authorities consider moving the capital of Guatemala to a different city.
• November – Crews on two ships commanded by Benjamin Hornigold and Edward Teach attack and capture the British-built French guineyman "Concorde" in the eastern Caribbean. Hornigold soon accepts a British amnesty for all pirates, but Teach rejects it and subsequently becomes known as Blackbeard.
• December – Blackbeard teams up with Stede Bonnet but later takes his ship and demotes Bonnet to guest. The Queen Anne's Revenge and Revenge take several ships as prizes in the Caribbean. Blackbeard eventually adds 2 more ships to his party and sails north to the North American coast.
• December 24/25 – A disastrous flood hits the North Sea coast between the Netherlands and Denmark; thousands die or lose their houses.

Undated

• Voltaire is sentenced to the Bastille for a year because of his satirical writings.
• Spain unites its South American colonies as New Granada.
• Montevideo, Uruguay, is founded by the Portuguese.
• A rift between George I of Great Britain and his son the Prince of Wales leads to the latter being thrown out of the royal household.
• Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, wife of the British ambassador to Istanbul, has her son inoculated.
• Casa de Contratacion or Board of Trade is set up in Cádiz.
• Marc Weyl's family settled in America

Ongoing events

• Great Northern War (1700 – 1721)
• Maharaja Pamheiba of Manipur is converted to Hinduism by Shantidas Goswami, and decrees Hinduism the official religion of Manipur.

Births

• January 2 – Edward Seymour, 9th Duke of Somerset, son of Edward Seymour, 8th Duke of Somerset and Mary Webb (d. 1792)
• January 5 – William Barrington, 2nd Viscount Barrington, British statesman (d. 1793)
• January 21 – Antonio María de Bucareli y Ursúa, Spanish military officer (d. 1779)
• January 23 – Benjamin Beddome, English Baptist minister and hymnist (d. 1795)
• January 28 – Mustafa III, Ottoman Sultan (d. 1774)
• January 29 – Jeffrey Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst, British soldier and conqueror of Quebec (died 1797)
• February 2 – Ernst Gideon Freiherr von Laudon, Austrian field marshal (d. 1790)
• February 17 – Adam Friedrich Oeser, German etcher (d. 1799)
• February 19 – David Garrick, English actor (d. 1779)
• February 27 – Johann David Michaelis, German biblical scholar and teacher (d. 1791)
• April – Pieter Barbiers, Dutch artist (d. 1780)
• April 9 – Georg Matthias Monn, Austrian composer (d. 1750)
• May 8 – Charles-Guillaume Le Normant d'Étiolles, husband of Madame de Pompadour (d. 1799)
• May 13 – Maria Theresa of Austria, Archduchess of Austria and Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, married with the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (d. 1780)
• June 5 – Emanuel Mendez da Costa, English botanist (d. 1791)
• June 8 – John Collins, American politician (d. 1795)
• June 19 – Johann Stamitz, Czech-born composer (d. 1757)
• June 20 – Jacques Saly, French sculptor (d. 1776)
• June 27 – Louis Guillaume Lemonnier, French botanist (d. 1799)
• July 5 – Peter III of Portugal, consort of Queen Maria I of Portugal (d. 1786)
• August 13 – Louis François I de Bourbon, prince de Conti, French military leader (d. 1776)
• August 15
  • Louis Carrogis Carmontelle, French dramatist (d. 1806)
  • John Metcalf, English roadbuilder (d. 1810)
• September 4 – Job Orton, English dissenting minister (d. 1783)
• September 7
  • A-kuei, Chinese noble general for the Ch'ing dynasty (d. 1797)
  • Martin Dobrizhoffer, Austrian Jesuit missionary (d. 1791)
• September 22 – Pehr Wilhelm Wargentin, Swedish astronomer (d. 1783)
• September 24 – Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford, British writer (died 1797)
• September 28 – William Nassau de Zuylestein, 4th Earl of Rochford, British diplomat and statesman (d. 1781)
• October 5 – Marie-Anne de Mailly-Nesle duchess de Châteauroux, French mistress of King Louis XV of France (d. 1744)
• October 13 – John Armstrong, American civil engineer and soldier who served as a major general in the Revolutionary War (d. 1795)
• October 30 – Jonathan Hornblower, English pioneer of steam power (d. 1780)
• November 13 – Prince George William of Great Britain, member of the British Royal Family (d. 1718)
• November 16 – Jean le Rond d'Alembert, French mathematician and encyclopædist (d. 1783)
• November 17 – Caroline Townshend, 1st Baroness Greenwich, British peeress (d. 1794)
• November 25 – Alexander Sumarokov, Russian poet and playwright (d. 1777)
• December 9 – Johann Joachim Winckelmann, German classical scholar and archaeologist (d. 1768)
• December 16 – Elizabeth Carter, English writer (d. 1806)
• December 20 – Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes, French statesman and diplomat (d. 1785)
• December 25 – George Augustus Eliott, 1st Baron Heathfield (d. 1790)
• December 27 – Pope Pius VI (d. 1799)
• December 28 – Johann Heinrich Gottlob Justi, leading German Kameralist in the 18th century (d. 1771)
• date unknown
  • Giambattista Almici, Italian jurist (d. 1793)
  • Claude Humbert Piarron de Chamousset, French philanthropist (d. 1773)
  • Nicholas Cooke, first Governor of Rhode Island (d. 1782)
  • Jean-François-Marie de Surville, French trader and navigator (d. 1770)
  • Gottlieb Sigmund Gruner, cartographer and geologist (d. 1778)
  • Antoine Guenée, French priest and Christian apologist (d. 1803)
  • Elimelech of Lizhensk, Orthodox Jewish Rabbi and one of the great Hassidic Rebbes of the past (d. 1577)
  • Henry Middleton, second President of the Continental Congress (d. 1784)
  • James Paine, English architect (d. 1789)
  • Isaac de Pinto, Dutch Jew of Portuguese origin (d. 1787)
  • Anne Steele, hymn-writer (d. 1778)
  • Matthew Stewart, Scottish mathematician born in Rothesay (d. 1785)
  • Molla Panah Vagif, Azerbaijani poet (d. 1797)
  • William Williams Pantycelyn, one of the key leaders of the 18th century Welsh Methodist revival (d. 1791)

Deaths

• January 13 – Maria Sibylla Merian, naturalist and scientific illustrator who studied plants and insects and made detailed paintings about them (b. 1647)
• February 23 – Magnus Stenbock, Swedish military officer (b. 1664)
• March 3 – Pierre Allix, French Protestant clergyman (b. 1641)
• March 5 – François de Callières, member of the Académie française (b. 1645)
• March 8 – Abraham Darby I, first of that name of three generations of an English Quaker family that was key to the development of the Industrial Revolution (b. 1678)
• March 19 – John Campbell, 1st Earl of Breadalbane and Holland, Scottish royalist (b. 1636)
• April 3 – Jacques Ozanam, French mathematician (b. 1640)
• April 5 – Jean Jouvenet, French painter (b. 1647)
• April 11 – Abraham ben Saul Broda, Bohemian Talmudist
• April 26 – John King, 18th century pirate
• May 10 – John Hathorne, American magistrate (b. 1641)
• May 20 – John Trevor, English Speaker of the House of Commons (b. 1637)
• June 3 – Fernando de Alencastre Noroña y Silva, duque de Linares, Spanish nobleman and military officer
• June 9 – Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon, French mystic (b. 1648)
• July 17 – Juan María de Salvatierra, Catholic missionary to the Americas (b. 1648)
• August
  • William Blathwayt, civil servant and politician
  • William Cochrane, Scottish MP in the British Parliament
• August 30 – William Lloyd (b. 1627)
• September 17 – Robert Cotton, English politician (born 1644)
• October – Philippe de Pastour de Costebelle, naval officer and Governor of Newfoundland (b. 1661)
• October 22 – Henry Luttrell (Colonel), British colonel (shot and mortally wounded in his sedan chair in Dublin)
• October 26 – Catherine Sedley, Countess of Dorchester, English mistress of James II of England (b. 1657)
• November 21 – Jean-Baptiste Santerre, French painter (b. 1650)
• November 26 – Daniel Purcell, English composer (b. 1664)
• December 4 – William Hamilton, surgeon in the British East India Company
• December 5 – Richard Onslow, 1st Baron Onslow, English politician (b. 1654)
• date unknown
  • Jane Wiseman, English actress, poet and playwright (b. c. 1682)
  • Lambert Bos, Dutch scholar and critic (b. 1670)
  • William Diaper, English poet of the Augustan era (b. 1685)
  • Wang Hui, Chinese landscape painter (b. 1632)
  • Osei Kofi Tutu I, founder of the Ashanti Confederacy
  • William Boyd, 3rd Earl of Kilmarnock, Scottish nobleman
  • Jan Dobrogost Krasiński, Polish nobleman (szlachcic)
  • Niccolao Manucci, Italian writer and traveller (b. 1639)
  • Empress XiaoHui, second Consort of the Qing Dynasty Shun Zhi Emperor of China (b. 1641)