1722
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Russia's Peter the Great issues a decree January 24 that caps his reforms with a "Table of Rank," declaring that commoners may climb to the highest positions in government and society on the basis of merit. The czar invades Persia from the north later in the year, saying that he wants to rescue the shah Mahmoud from Afghan tyranny. Having heard that the Ottoman Turks are planning to take advantage of Persia's weakness and invade from the Caspian Sea region, he sends a flotilla down the Volga with 22,000 men to join at Dagastan with cavalry that has marched from Astrakhan. Defeating a force of Dagastanis, he occupies Derwent and prepares to sweep through the Caucasus, taking advantage of the grand vizier at Constantinople's preoccupation with growing tulips and hoping to distract the Turks with his cavalry while his navy captures the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles. He marshals his Cossacks on the Volga delta at Astrakhan, but his horses eat hay containing rye infected with the claviceps purpura (clubheaded purple) ergot fungus. His troops eat bread made from infected rye grain. Hundreds of horses and men go mad, many die, and Peter has to abandon his plans (see Baku, 1723; medicine, 1774). Peter issues a decree reserving to himself the right to name his successor, but he will not nominate anyone (see 1725).
Pope Innocent XIII invests the Holy Roman Emperor Karl VI with sovereignty over the kingdom of Naples (see 1713; 1734).
Former Whig minister Charles Spencer, 3rd earl of Sunderland, dies at London April 9 at age 47, having precipitated the South Sea Bubble that collapsed 2 years ago; John Churchill, 1st duke of Marlborough, dies after a third stroke at Cranbourne Lodge, Windsor, June 16 at age 72.
Marie-Anne de la Trémoille, princesse des Ursins, dies at Rome December 5 at age 80, having exercised great control over the Spanish government from 1701 to 1714.
Kandahar's Mir Mahmoud conquers Afghanistan, invades Persia with his Afghan army, routs a large Persian army at the Battle of Gulnabad, captures Farrahabad, and takes Isfahan October 12 after a 7-month siege that has left 80,000 dead and reduced the survivors to eating human flesh. Shah Hussein abdicates in favor of his son, who escapes to Mazandaran, tries to organize resistance, and will nominally reign until 1731 as Tahmasp II, but the Safavid dynasty is virtually ended. Mir Mahmoud makes himself shah to begin a 3-year reign of terror (see 1723).
The Ottoman sultan Ahmed III invades Shirwan, whose Sunni population has been cruelly persecuted. The mufti issues three fatwas, ordering true believers to extirpate the heretics, and Ottoman troops enter Georgia.
China's Qing (Ching, or Manchu) emperor Kangxi (Kang-hsi) dies at Beijing (Peking) December 20 age 68 after a personal reign of 53 years that has added Anhui, Henan (Henan), and Gansu to the 15 existing Chinese provinces. When the emperor's designated heir shows signs of mental derangement, his fourth son, Yin Zhen, 53, intrigues against his brothers, gains military support, seizes the throne, and will reign until his death in 1735.
Members of North America's Iroquois Confederacy sign a treaty with Virginia governor Alexander Spotswood and agree not to cross the Potomac River or the Blue Ridge without the governor's permission (see 1716; 1744).
Manchester, New Hampshire, has its beginnings in a settlement at Amoskeag on the Merrimack River established by Massachusetts colonists 55 miles northwest of Boston (see 1810).
New Orleans is made the capital of the Louisiana Territory at the persuasion of the sieur de Bienville (see 1718).
The Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeveen discovers Easter Island on Easter Sunday in the South Pacific 2,340 miles off the coast of Chile. Settled at some time between 400 and 750 A.D. by Polynesians who arrived in double-hulled canoes, the island of Rapa Nui has a population of between 2,500 and 3,000. Its artisans more than a century ago used easily-cut compressed volcanic ash (the island has three volcanoes) to fashion hundreds of monuments (moais) measuring three to 36 feet tall and weighing up to 50 tons, and they somehow moved the stone heads into position to stare vacantly inland or, in some cases, out to sea. The natives have also developed a unique ideographic script, unparalleled in Polynesia, but it will not be noted by archaeologists until 1864.
L'Art de convertier le fer forgé en acier et l'artd'adoucir le fer fondu by René A. F. de Réaumur is the first technical treatise on steelmaking. Réaumur will develop improvements in ironmaking and work on improving steel and tinned steel.
German Pietists found the town of Herrnhut on the Saxony estate of Dresden-born religious and social reformer Nikolaus (Ludwig), graf von Zinzendorf, 22, who welcomes a group of refugees from Bohemia and Moravia. They have been persecuted for belonging to the United Brotherhood (Unitas Fratrum), and the count is a devout Lutheran. Having inherited part of his grandmother's estate of Berthelsdorf and recently married Erdmuthe Dorothea of Reuss, he tries to persuade what he perceives to be sectarians to remain within the Lutheran Church but soon comes to recognize that they belong to a church older than his and helps them with initial reluctance to revive their traditions (see 1727).
Boston's New-England Courant runs a series of 14 essays signed "Silence Dogood" that satirize funeral eulogies and ridicule the lip service paid to the learned languages at Harvard College (see 1721). Printer's apprentice Benjamin Franklin, 16, has written the pieces in the voice of a fictitious widow for his half brother James's paper, and when James gets in trouble for criticizing provincial authorities late in the year, imprisoned briefly, and forbidden to print or publish the Courant, he sacks young Benjamin from his apprenticeship and makes him nominal publisher of the sheet, which continues to appear (see 1723).
Fiction: The Adventures and Misadventures of Moll Flanders, Journal of the Plague Year, and Captain Jack by Daniel Defoe, who passes off his fiction as history.
Theater: Double Indemnity (La Double Inconstance) by Pierre de Marivaux 5/3 at the Théâtre Italien, Paris; Arlequin Deucalion by Dijon-born playwright and wit Alexis Piron, 33, at the Théâtres de la Foire, Paris (Piron has written the three-act work as a series of monologues designed to circumvent a new edict banning the performance of dialogues at public fairs); The Conscious Lovers by Richard Steele 11/8 at London's Drury Lane Theatre.
"Traité de l'harmonie" by French composer Jean Philippe Rameau, 39, calls attention for the first time to inverted chords but contains erroneous ideas about augmented sixths and the eleventh chord. Organist since 1715 at Clermont-Ferrand, Rameau has returned to Paris, where he begins producing light dramatic pieces.
Concerts royaux by French composer-clavecinist François Couperin, 53, is published at Paris. Appointed by the late Louis XIV in 1701 as royal clavecinist and organist, Couperin instructed members of the king's family in music and composed his Concerts between 1714 and 1715.
The Well-Tempered Clavier (Das wohltemperierte Klavier) by Johann Sebastian Bach is published in its first part.
British pirate "Black Bart" (Bartholomew Roberts) is brought down by grapeshot February 10 at age 39 (approximate) in a storm-tossed battle off Africa's Guinea coast during which a 60-gun British man-o'-war captures his ship. His body is thrown overboard in accordance with his wishes. Roberts began his career as corsair less than 3 years ago but as captain, successively, of the Royal Rover, Fortune, Royal Fortune, and Good Fortune has burned and plundered some 400 vessels from Brazil to Newfoundland; 52 members of his crew are hanged after a trial (see 1721; 1730).
Dresden's Zwinger is completed by German architect Matthaus Daniel Poppelmann, 60, who leaves its pavilion unfinished. He has spent 11 years building the Zwinger.
An English mustard maker at Durham introduces the first commercial dry mustard. Mustard seeds have until now been brought to the table in their natural state and diners have crushed them with their knife handles on the sides of their plates. Durham mustard begins to end that practice.
Gruyère cheese is introduced into France, which will soon be its major producer. The most famous will be made at Jura in the Franche-Comté.
Boston's population reaches nearly 12,000 with one third of the town's almost 3,000 houses made of brick (see 1638).
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