1720s

1720s: events by year

Contents: 1720 1721 1722 1723 1724 1725 1726 1727 1728 1729

1720

January–June

• February 11 – Sweden and Prussia sign the Treaty of Stockholm (Great Northern War).
• February 17 – Spain signs the Treaty of The Hague, ending the War of the Quadruple Alliance.
• February 29 – Queen Ulrike Eleonora of Sweden resigns to let her husband Frederick I take over as king of Sweden.

July–December

• July 12 – The Lords Justice of the UK attempt to curb some of the excesses of the stock markets during the South Sea bubble. They dissolved a number of petitions for patents and charters, and abolished more than 80 joint-stock companies of dubious merit. According to Charles MacKay, this had little effect on the creation of "Bubbles", ephemeral joint-stock companies created during the hysteria of the times.^[1]
• September – South Sea Bubble: The English stock market crashes with dropping prices for stock in the South Sea Company, an English company granted a monopoly to trade with South America.
• November 16 – Pirate Jack Rackham is brought to trial at St. Jago de la Vega in Jamaica.

Date unknown

• The Town on Queen Anne's Creek, North Carolina is renamed Edenton in honor of North Carolina Governor Charles Eden. It is later incorporated in 1722.
• The Tuscarora flee North Carolina as a result of European colonization.
• Edmond Halley is appointed as Astronomer Royal.
• The Academia Real da Historia is founded in Lisbon, Portugal.
• Jonathan Swift begins Gulliver's Travels.
• Emperor Kangxi announces that all western businessmen can only trade in Guangzhou.
• Il teatro alla moda, a satirical pamphlet by Benedetto Marcello, is published anonymously in Venice.
• The first yacht club in the world, the Royal Cork Yacht Club, is founded.

1721

January–June

• January 6 – The Committee of Inquiry on the South Sea Bubble in England publishes its findings.
• March 24 – Johann Sebastian Bach's Brandenburg concertos completed and dedicated to Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg-Schwedt.
• April 4 – Robert Walpole becomes the first Prime Minister of Great Britain (although this is more a term of disparagement at this time).^[2]
• May 8 – Pope Innocent XIII succeeds Pope Clement XI as the 244th pope.

July–December

• September 10 – The Treaty of Nystad is signed, ending the Great Northern War.
• November 2 – Peter I is proclaimed the first Emperor of All the Russias.
• December 22 – Philip V of Spain signs in Lerma a Royal Decree transforming the Seminary of Saint Rose of Lima in Caracas into the Universidad Real y Pontificia de Caracas.

Date unknown

• Regular mail service between Long Island and New England is established.^[3]
• A suggestion box is developed under the eighth shogun of Japan, Yoshimune Tokugawa.

1722

January–June

Ahu Akivi, Easter Island.

• March 8 – Persia's Safavid dynasty falls during a bloody revolt of the Afghani people, in The Battle of Gulnabad.
• April 5 – Easter Sunday: Dutch admiral Jakob Roggeveen lands on what is now Easter Island.
• May 5 – Pennsylvania colony enacts a statute requiring all persons importing any person previously convicted of sodomy to pay £5 for each such incoming person.
• June 2 – Wapping, a male Negro slave owned by a Mr. Heale, is hanged for murder in the colony of Virginia.

July–December

• July – Peter the Great's Persian campaign begins.
• July 25 – The Three Years War begins along the Maine and Massachusetts border.
• August 15 – William Battin, 17, is hanged for arson and murder in the colony of Pennsylvania.
• December 20 – After the longest reign by a Chinese Emperor in history, the Kangxi Emperor dies and is succeeded by his son Yinzhen with the reign name Yongzheng.

Date unknown

• The Silence Dogood letters appear, written by Benjamin Franklin.
• Edenton is incorporated as the county seat of Chowan County, North Carolina. The governor and assembly of North Carolina move to Edenton, making it the de facto capital of North Carolina until 1746, when the government is moved to New Bern.
• Peter the Great of Russia creates the Table of Ranks.
• Foundation ot the first public theatre in Denmark, Lille Grönnegade.
• Music: Modern music theory finds definition in Jean-Philippe Rameau's Treatise on Harmony.
• Johann Sebastian Bach composes Das Wohltemperierte Klavier.

1723

January–June

• February 16 – Louis XV of France attains his majority.
• March 9 – Mapuche Uprising of 1723 begins in Chile.
• May 23 – The Freemasonry lodge Theodor zum guten Rath is founded in Munich, Bavaria.

July–December

• July – The Russian army, under Matyushkin, captures Baku.
• September 1 – The Treaty of St. Petersburg is signed.
• November 23 – The Province of Carolina incorporates New Bern as Newbern (the town later becomes the capital of North Carolina).

Date unknown

• The Province of Carolina monica incorporates Beaufort, North Carolina as the "Port of Beaufort", making it the third incorporated town in the province.
• Christian von Wolff is banned from Prussia on a charge of atheism.
• The Four Seasons, a set of violin concertos by Antonio Vivaldi, was composed.

1724

January–June

• January 14 – King Philip V of Spain abdicates the throne.
• January 28 – The Saint Petersburg State University is established.
• February 8 – Catherine I is officially named czarina by her husband, Peter the Great, in Russia.
• February 20 – The premiere of Giulio Cesare, an Italian opera by George Frideric Handel, takes place in London.
• April 7 – Premiere performance of the St. John Passion BWV 245 of Johann Sebastian Bach at St. Nicholas Church, Leipzig.
• May 29 – Pope Benedict XIII, born Pierro Orsini, succeeds Pope Innocent XIII as the 245th pope.

Blenheim Palace completed.

• June 23 – Treaty of Constantinople is signed, partitioning Persia between the Ottoman Empire and Russia.

July–December

• July 27 – Wild Peter of Hanover is captured near Helpensen in Hanover.
• November 11 – Joseph Blake (alias Blueskin), highwayman, is hanged in London.
• November 16
  • Jack Sheppard is hanged in London.
  • Willem Mons, lover of Catherine I of Russia, is executed and his head preserved in alcohol.

Date unknown

• China expels foreign missionaries.
• Blenheim Palace construction is completed. It is presented as a gift to the Duke of Marlborough for his involvement in the Battle of Blenheim in 1704.
• The Austrian Netherlands agree to the Pragmatic Sanction.
• Shah Mahmud Hotaki of Afghanistan goes insane.
• Longman, the oldest publishing house in England, is founded.

1725

January–June

• February 8 – Catherine I becomes Empress of Russia on the death of her husband, Peter the Great.
• February 20 – The first reported case of white men scalping Native Americans takes place in New Hampshire colony.
• March 2 – In London, a night watchman finds a severed head by the Thames; it is later recognized to be that of the husband of Catherine Hayes. She and one accomplice are later executed.
• March 30 – 2nd performance of Johann Sebastian Bach's St. John Passion BWV 245 (including 5 movements from his "Weimarer Passion") at the St. Thomas Church, Leipzig.
• April 30 – Emperor Charles VI of Austria and King Philip V of Spain sign the Treaty of Vienna.
• May 21 – The Order of Alexander Nevsky is instituted in Russia by Empress Catherine I.
• May 24 – Jonathan Wild, fraudulent "Thief-Taker General", is hanged in Tyburn, England for actually aiding criminals.

July–December

• September 3 – The Treaty of Hanover is signed between Great Britain, France and Prussia.

Date unknown

• The Black Watch is founded in Scotland.
• A fire in Wapping, England destroys 70 houses.
• In Qing Dynasty China 66 copies of a 5,020 volume long encyclopedia, the Gujin Tushu Jicheng (Complete Collection of Illustrations and Writings from the Earliest to Current Times) are printed, necessitating the crafting of 250,000 movable type characters cast in bronze.

1726

January–June

• April 15 – Isaac Newton tells William Stukeley the story of how he developed his theory of gravity.
• April 19 – Premiere of the first Leipzig version of Johann Sebastian Bach's St Mark Passion pastiche BWV deest BC D 5b at the St. Nicholas Church, Leipzig
• May 1 – Voltaire begins exile in England.

July–December

• July 11 – André-Hercule Cardinal de Fleury, recalled from exile by King Louis XV of France, banishes Louis Henri, Duc de Bourbon, and Madame de Prie from court.
• August 7 – Pirate Nicholas Brown captured near Xtabi, Jamaica
• November – Mary Toft allegedly gives birth to 16 rabbits in England; the story is later revealed to be a hoax.
• December 24 – The city of Montevideo is founded by the Spaniards.

Date unknown

• The Supreme Privy Council is established in Imperial Russia.
• The Gujin tushu jicheng, an immense Chinese encyclopedia, is printed using copper-based movable type printing.
• The remaining ruins of Liverpool Castle are finally demolished.
• Muhammad bin Saud becomes head of the House of Saud.

1727

January–June

• April 11– Premiere of Johann Sebastian Bach's St Matthew Passion BWV 244b at the St. Thomas Church, Leipzig
• June 11 – George, Prince of Wales becomes King George II of Great Britain.
• June 27 – Uxbridge, Massachusetts is incorporated as a town.

July–December

• August 30 – Anne, eldest daughter of King George II of Great Britain, is given the title Princess Royal.
• September 8 – A barn fire during a puppet show in the village of Burwell, Cambridgeshire, England, kills 78 people, many of whom are children.
• November 18 – An earthquake in Tazriz, Persia kills 77,000.
• November 27 – The foundation stone to the Jerusalem's Church in Berlin was laid.

Date unknown

• 1727–1800 – Lt. Col. Francisco de Mello Palheta smuggles coffee seeds to Brazil in a bouquet, starting a coffee empire.
• The last execution for witchcraft is carried out in Scotland.
• The first Amish move to America.
• The Committee of 300 is founded with financial support from the Rothschild family. The committee's long term aims are to organize politics, commerce, banking, media, and the military in the interests of the ruling dynasties of the world, more specifically The Black Nobility.
• The Royal Bank of Scotland is founded by royal charter in Edinburgh.
• Catholic Charities is founded in New Orleans, by the French Ursuline Sisters.
• Ursuline Academy is founded by the Sisters of the Order of Saint Ursula in New Orleans. Ursuline Academy enjoys the distinction of being both the oldest, continuously operating school for girls and the oldest Catholic school in the United States.

1728

January–June

• February 28 – At the Battle of Palkhed, Maratha Peshwa Baji Rao I defeats the Mughal Governor of Deccan, Nizam-ul-Mulk.
• March 14 – Jean-Jacques Rousseau leaves Geneva for the first time.
• May 18 – Peter II succeeds Catherine I as Tsar of Russia.

July–December

• July 14–August 14 – Vitus Bering sails northward from the Kamchatka Peninsula, through the Bering Strait, and round Cape Dezhnev.
• Late Summer – Voltaire ends his exile in England.
• October 20–October 23 – The Copenhagen Fire of 1728 (the largest in the city's history) burns.

Date unknown

• The city of Godthåb is founded in Greenland by the Danish-Norwegian missionary Hans Egede.
• The English astronomer James Bradley uses stellar aberration (first observed in 1725) to calculate the speed of light and observes nutation of the Earth's axis.^[4]
• The Real y Pontificia Universidad de San Gerónimo de la Habana, the oldest university in Cuba, is founded in Havana.
• Frederick, Prince of Wales, son of King George II of Great Britain, arrives in Britain for the first time, aged 21.

In fiction

• The Meerkat–Mongoose war.

1729

January–June

• March 23 Premiere performance of Johann Sebastian Bach's First Köthen Funeral music at the St. James Church, Köthen in the evening in honor of the Funeral of his former employer Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen
• March 24 Premiere performance of Johann Sebastian Bach's Funeral cantata Klagt, Kinder, klagt es aller Welt, BWV 244a before midday at the St. James Church, Köthen (for the same event as above).
• April 15 Repeat performance of Johann Sebastian Bach's St Matthew Passion BWV 244b at the St. Thomas Church, Leipzig

July–December

• July 25 – Seven of the original eight Lords Proprietors sell their tracts within the Province of Carolina back to the crown. The Province is permanently divided and reorganized into the Royal Colonies of North Carolina and South Carolina.
• July 30 – Baltimore, Maryland is founded.
• August 1 – The Comet of 1729, possibly the largest comet on record, was discovered by Nicolas Sarabat.
• November 9 – The Treaty of Seville is signed between Great Britain, France, Spain and the Dutch Republic.
• November 28 – The worst Indian massacre to take place on Mississippi soil occurs when Natchez Indians kill 138 Frenchmen, 35 French women, and 56 children at Fort Rosalie (near modern-day Natchez, Mississippi).

Date unknown

• The third oldest settlement in Mississippi, Port Gibson, is founded.
• A fire in Istanbul destroys 12,000 houses and kills 7,000 inhabitants.
• Jonathan Swift publishes A Modest Proposal.
• Battle of Damghan: The Persians under Nadir Shah defeat the Afghans.
• Putney Bridge was built.

Significant people

Births

• September 27,1722(in Boston)-Samuel Adams-American statesman,political philosopher and Founding Father of the U.S..Died on October 2,1803. A beer is named after him in his honor.

Deaths

References