| World Chronology: 1719 |
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Contents: political eventshuman rights, social justice exploration, colonization commerce science medicine literature art theater, film music sports agriculture |
The Imperial Principality of Liechtenstein created under that name January 23 by the Holy Roman Emperor Karl VI unites Vaduz and Schellenburg into a sovereign state of 61 square miles (157 square kilometers) with his former prime minister Anton Florian, 62, as prince (see 1699). The Austrian count Hans Adam von Liechtenstein has bought the territory and its 397-year-old Vaduz Castle from another count who is heavily in debt. Anton Florian will die in 1721, but his princely house will continue its rule into the 21st century (see 1868).
The Scottish Highland chieftain Sir Ewen Cameron (of Lochiel) dies in February at age 90, having won renown for his great strength and ferocity.
Former French political power Madame de Maintenon dies at the Maison Royale de Saint-Louis at Saint-Cyr April 15 at age 83.
The Peace of Stockholm November 20 ends hostilities between Sweden and Britain's George I, who gains Bremen and Verden for 1 rix-million dollars as elector of Hanover (see Victoria, 1837).
Herat rebels against Persia's Shiite persecution, declares independence, and joins with Uzbeks in plundering Khorasan. A 30,000-man army sent by Shah Hussein to put down the uprising defeats a 12,000-man Uzbek force en route and joins battle with Herat's 15,000-man Afghan army. But Persian artillery accidentally hits Persian cavalrymen. The army suspects treachery and is thrown into confusion. The Afghans seize the opportunity to make a decisive charge, and the Persians flee, losing a third of their men, their general, their artillery, and their baggage. The Afghans lose 3,000 men (see 1722).
The Mughal emperor Farrukh-Siyar is killed by Abdullah Sayyid and his brother Hussein, who place the 19-year-old Afghan-born Nasir-ud-din Mohammad Shah on the throne; he will reign until 1748 as the Great Mughal (see 1720).
A British slaver anchors off Port Natal and buys 74 boys and girls for the Virginia colony's Rappahannock plantations. The Xhosa (called Bantu) are considered "better slaves for working than those of Madagascar, being stronger and blacker."
Hudson's Bay Company officials let their chief factor (post commander) James Knight, 78, at Fort Albany on the west shore of James Bay have two vessels to search for a "Northwest Passage" from the Atlantic to the Pacific (see commerce, 1713). Knight joined the company as a staff carpenter in 1676, rose through the ranks by dint of hard work and business sense, and by 1697 had enough money to buy Hudson Bay stock. His Chippewa translator Thenadelthur told him before she died of a broad strait in the north where tides ebbed and flowed (she also spoke of rich mineral deposits). Knight voyaged to London last year to organize an expedition. Crewmen from his ships Albany and Discovery build a house on Marble Island off the northwest coast of Hudson's Bay to spend the winter, but all will be dead within a few years, and no traces of them will be found until 1768 (see Hearne, 1767).
French explorer Pierre (François Xavier) de Charlevoix, 37, travels up the St. Lawrence River, through the Great Lakes, and down the Illinois and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans. He has been sent to find a new route westward from Acadia (see 1682).
John Law renames his 3-year-old Compagnie d'Occident the Compagnie des Indes as reports circulate that Louisiana is rich in gold and diamonds (see 1718). The government gives the company coinage rights; Law thereby gains control of the mint in addition to controlling public finances, the state bank, France's sea trade, and revenues from salt, tobacco, and the Louisiana territory. He encourages holders of government annuities to exchange their instruments for shares in the company, and by midyear investors who paid 500 livres for shares in the company are reselling them at 15,000 livres each in Paris's Rue de Quinquempoix. Parisians hear the word millionaire for the first time, and Law receives rights to collect all French government taxes and to issue paper currency, but few Frenchmen respond to appeals that they give up their lives in France and move to the Louisiana wilderness (see 1720).
Directors of Britain's 8-year-old South Sea Company propose that they be allowed to assume about £31 million of the country's national debt (see human rights, 1713). Sir Robert Walpole warns that this might lure "the unwary to their ruin, by making them part with the earnings of their labour for a prospect of imaginary wealth," but Parliament approves a measure implementing the proposal, having acted upon the urging of Whig leader Charles Spencer Sunderland, 45, lord president of the Privy Council and first lord of the Treasury to give the South Sea Company permission to take over more of the national debt and to create £1 in new stock for every £1 of the national debt that it assumed (Sunderland has been bribed). Stock in the company soars in value, jumping from £126 to £400. It reaches £1,000 by August, and other companies spring up to capitalize on the frenzy for easy riches, one of them "for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is" (the sponsor collects money from investors in the morning, takes off for the Continent in the afternoon, and will not be seen again) (see 1720).
Astronomer Royal John Flamsteed dies at Greenwich, London, December 31 at age 73, having created the first great star maps using telescopic observations.
Italian physician Giovanni Battista Morgagni, 37, observes changes found in the bodies of disease victims, initiating the science of pathological anatomy (see 1760).
Fiction: The Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Mariner by Daniel Defoe is a novel based roughly on fact. Defoe has read the late William Dampier's 1697 book Voyage Round the World and heard accounts of Alexander Selkirk, now 43. His novel is a bestseller and will remain popular for centuries (see Rousseau, 1762).
Painting: Still life with Fruits, Flowers, and Insects by Rachel Ruysch.
Playwright-poet-essayist Joseph Addison dies at London June 17 at age 47 and is buried in Westminster Abbey.
Hymn: "O God, Our Help in Ages Past" by English hymn writer Isaac Watts, 45, is published in The Psalms of David.
Oxfordshire-born pugilist James Figg, 23, opens a London academy to teach the "noble science of defence." Six feet tall and weighing 185 pounds, Figg has excelled at fighting with quarter-staffs and swords as well as with his bare knucles, he has gained recognition as the world's first heavyweight champion, the earl of Peterborough has backed him, and he will remain unbeaten until his retirement in 1734.
"Irish" potatoes are planted at Londonderry in the New Hampshire colony (see 1718) but will not gain wide acceptance in America for nearly a century.
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