1736

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political events

The 18-year-old Austrian princess Maria Theresa is married at Vienna February 12 to the 27-year-old duc de Lorraine Francis Stephen (Franz Stefan), who will become grand duke of Tuscany in 1740. It was she and not her parents who chose her husband. The Holy Roman Emperor Karl VI has consented to the match only on condition that Francis cede Lorraine to Stanislaw Leszczynki, for whom the French have been unable to obtain Poland, and thereby end the War of the Polish Succession. Francis agrees on the promise that he will be allowed in compensation to succeed the childless grand duke of Tuscany Gian Gastone de' Medici (the arrangement will be confirmed 2 years hence in the Treaty of Vienna; see 1737); the bride receives the Florentine Diamond (see 1477), and it will become part of the Austrian crown jewels (see 1740).

The Safavid dynasty that began its rule of Persia in 1502 ends with the death at age 6 of Shah Abbas III. The Afshar chief Nadir Kuli is proclaimed shah, having ruled effectively since 1731, and will reign as Nadir Shah until his assassination in 1747, ruining the nation's economy by levying heavy taxes to support his endless military campaigns. A Sunni, Nadir accepts the title on condition that Persians renounce their Shiite faith, but he will have little success in converting them (see 1738).

Moscow declares war on Constantinople, sends troops into Ottoman lands north of the Black Sea, but the Russians retreat to the Ukraine after sustaining heavy losses.

Qianlong (Chienlung) ascends the Chinese imperial throne at age 25 to begin a reign that will continue until 1796 (see 1735). He will extend Qing control throughout central Asia.

human rights, social justice

Pope Clement XII issues a bull condemning Freemasonry.

Britain repeals her statutes against witchcraft after centuries of oppressing women, many of them midwives who compete with physicians.

exploration, colonization

Georgia colonist James E. Oglethorpe builds Fort Frederica on St. Simons Island as a defense against Spaniards to the south in Florida, but he offends settlers in the Carolinas by trying to regulate their trade with the natives, and the trustees of the Georgia colony suspect him of mismanaging their affairs. He returns to England to resolve the dispute (see 1739).

transportation

The ship's chronometer presented to London's Board of Longitude by John Harrison is accurate to within one-tenth of a second per day (1.3 miles of longitude) and will eventually win the prize offered by the Board in 1714 (see 1728). Harrison's chronometer is set to the time of O° longitude (Greenwich time), a navigator can fix his longitudinal position by determining local time with the quadrant devised by John Hadley in 1731 and comparing it with Harrison's chronometer. The wood-and-metal device weighs 66 pounds and is a complicated, costly, delicate affair, but it is independent of gravity, will soon be improved, reduced in size, and refined to keep it going through all weather aboard any sailing vessel (see 1761).

science

Mechanica sive motus analytice exposita by Swiss mathematician-physicist Leonard Euler, 29, is the first systematic textbook of mechanics. Euler has been at the Russian Academy of Sciences since 1727 (he arrived at St. Petersburg the day Catherine I died), has been the Academy's leading mathematician since 1733, when his teacher Daniel Bernoulli returned to Switzerland. He has married but lost the sight of one eye last year (see 1748).

An Introduction to the Doctrine of Fluxions, and a Defence of the Mathematicians Against the Objections of the Author of the Analyst by London-born theologian and mathematician Thomas Bayes, 34, replies to attacks by George Berkeley on the logical foundations set forth by the late Isaac Newton for his calculus.

Physicist Gabriel D. Fahrenheit dies at The Hague September 16 at age 50.

medicine

English surgeon Claudius Aymand, 56, performs the first successful appendix operation to be described in medical literature (see 1885).

"The Practical History of a New Epidemical Eruptive Military Fever . . . in Boston . . . 1735 and 1736" by Boston physician William Douglass gives the first clinical description of scarlet fever (see 1902; 1924).

art

Painting: The Four Times of the Day by William Hogarth.

theater, film

Theater: Alzire (Les Américains) by Voltaire 1/27 at the Comédie-Française, Paris.

music

Oratorio: Alexander's Feast 2/19 at London's Covent Garden, with Anna Maria Strata del Po, music by George Frideric Handel.

Opera: Atalanta 5/23 at London's Royal Theatre in Covent Garden, with Anna Maria Strata del Po in the title role, music by Handel; French soprano Elisabeth Duparc performs several dances to the satisfaction of the royal family at Kensington Palace 11/15 and makes her operatic debut 11/23 at the King's Theatre in Hasse's opera Siroe.

Composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi dies of tuberculosis outside Naples March 16 at age 26 and is given a pauper's burial.

everyday life

An English bathing establishment opens at the town of Scarborough on the northeast coast; other seaside communities follow, with concessionaires at most of them offering horse-drawn "machines" that take bathers out to a suitable depth, where women in bathing costumes scramble out through a "modesty" hood into the arms of strong local women, known as "dippers," who teach their customers how to dogpaddle. People on the Continent regard sea bathing as Anglomania.

Mary Wortley Montagu, 18, daughter of Lady Mary, is married August 13 to the young, handsome, but impecunious earl of Bute, whose uncle John Campbell, 2nd duke of Argyll, has tried to persuade the young man to break off the match because the bride's father has withheld her dowry of £20,000 in an effort to prevent the marriage. Lady Mary writes to her brother-in-law Lord Gower, "I hope by her future conduct she will atone for her past, and that her choice will prove more happy than you and Mr. Wortley expect." Lady Mary herself has begun a friendship with Count Francesco Algarotti, 24, a handsome Venetian scientist who is not particular about the gender of his lovers.

architecture, real estate

Baroque architect Nicholas Hawksmoor dies at London March 25 at age 74.

agriculture

Coffee bushes are introduced into Puerto Rico; the island's coffee exports will surpass its sugar exports by 1776.

food and drink

The Gin Act passed by Parliament forbids public sale of gin in London, but bootleggers spring up and sale continues under such labels as "Colic and Gripe Waters" (see 1735). Gin is sold in draughts under such names as "Cuckold's Comfort," "Ladies' Delight," and "Make Shift" (see 1740). Parliament raises the tax on spirits, but this does little to reduce gin consumption, which is creating misery and even death among many Britons. The Gin Act will remain on the books until 1742 (see 1751).

Passenger pigeons sell at six for a penny at Boston (see 1672; 1800).

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