1742

1741 1742 1743 1744 1745 1746 1747 1748 1749 1750

political events

Bavaria's elector Karl Albrecht is elected Holy Roman Emperor January 24 by opponents of Austria's young archduchess Maria Theresa who prefer a member of the Wittelsbach family to a Hapsburg (see 1740). A son of the late Maximilian II Emanuel, the new emperor is crowned February 12 at Frankfurt-am-Main and begins a 3-year reign as Karl VII, but even as he is crowned his hereditary domains are being overrun by Austrian troops in the continuing War of the Austrian Succession.

Britain's first prime minister Sir Robert Walpole, now 55, resigns in February after a 21-year ministry that has created the cabinet and party systems. A series of short-lived ministries will hold power until 1783.

Prussia's Frederick II triumphs over the Austrians in May at Czaslau and Chotusitz, even though the Austrians have 28,000 men to his 23,500 at the Battle of Chotusitz May 17 (see 1741), but his troops are stricken with violent dysentery and he withdraws from the coalition against Austria (see Dettigen, 1743).

The Treaties of Breslau June 11 and of Berlin a few weeks later end the Silesian War. Austria's Maria Theresa cedes to Prussia both upper and lower Silesia with their rich coal deposits, plus some other territory; Prussia assumes the Silesian debt of 1.7 million rix-dollars held by English and Dutch creditors.

Austria's archduchess Maria Theresa makes an alliance with Britain, raises two armies, and drives her allied invaders out of Bohemia.

The new Russian czarina Elizabeth reneges on the agreement she made last year to return Sweden's territories on the Baltic; she sends troops that conquer Helsingfors and Abo (later Turku) and occupy much of Finland, hostilities end, but the Russians try to force the Swedes to accept Adolf Frederick of Holstein-Gottorp-Eustin as heir apparent to the Swedish throne (see 1743).

The Battle of Bloody Marsh July 7 gives Britain control of the Georgia colony. James E. Oglethorpe has failed in an attempt to capture St. Augustine, but a small detachment of troops under his command repels a Spanish attack against Fort Frederica on St. Simons Island. He will fail in a second attempt on St. Augustine and return next year to England.

exploration, colonization

Commodore George Anson, Royal Navy, arrives at Tinian in the Philippine Islands August 28, having cruised the California coast, taken on water and supplies at a Panamian port, but subsequently lost H.M.S. Gloucester and scuttled two prize vessels (see 1741). He and his crew aboard H.M.S. Centurion are suffering once again from scurvy. They replenish their stores and manage to capture another Spanish ship at Tinian, but most of the 200-man crew is down with scurvy when Centurion arrives at Macao November 12 (see 1743).

Fur trader Pierre G. de Varennes, sieur de la Vérendrye, moves into the Black Hills region of the Dakotas (see 1738). He sends his younger sons Louis-Joseph and François beyond the Missouri River as he continues to expand his activities in Manitoba and what later will become western Minnesota (see Pierre, 1743).

energy

Coal found on the Coal River in western Virginia is the first of many deposits that will be discovered and exploited in the region over the next 2 centuries (see exploration, colonization [Morgan], 1731).

The wood-burning Franklin stove invented by Benjamin Franklin at Philadelphia heats a room far more efficiently than does an open fireplace. Designed to be set inside a fireplace, Franklin's iron "Pennsylvania fireplace" represents the first application of the principle of heating by warmed air. It has a top, back, and sides with an air box inside joined to the sides but not reaching quite to the top. The fire built in front of its opening produces smoke that moves up the front of its air box, over its top, and down again behind it whence it enters the flue at floor level, thus heating the air in the air box that is released by shutters in the sides of the stove.

technology

English cutler Thomas Boulsover, 36, at Sheffield invents a silverplating process that will make Sheffield plate as famous as Sheffield steel (see 1740). Boulsover has noticed while repairing a copper and silver knife handle that a combination of fused silver and copper retains the ductility of both metals. Taking an ingot of copper that is slightly alloyed with zinc and lead, he has covered it on both top and bottom with a thin sheet of silver. He has put it in a furnace, and when the silver began to melt removed it, let it cool, and rolled it to conceal the copper. Boulsover uses the process initially to make buttons and will soon diversify to snuffboxes; other Sheffield artisans will use the plate to manufacture utensils and hollow ware (see Boulton, 1762).

Cotton mills open at Birmingham and Northampton. The Lancashire millowners will import East India yarns next year to improve the quality of their textiles.

New Principles of Gunnery by English mathematician-military engineer Benjamin Robins, 35, disproves commonly-held assumptions about the nature and action of gunpowder and the flight of projectiles. Robins will invent a ballistic pendulum that will permit a gunner to determine the momentum of a projectile and measure with considerable precision the muzzle velocities of projectiles shot from their field pieces.

science

The centigrade (Celsius) scale of temperatures devised by Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius, 40, divides into 100 degrees the distance between freezing (O°) and boiling water at sea level (see Fahrenheit, 1709). Multiplying Celsius temperatures by 9/5 and adding 32 converts them to Fahrenheit temperatures.

Königsberg-born Russian mathematician Christian Goldbach, 52, writes a letter to the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler claiming that "every number greater than 2 is an aggregate of three prime numbers." Mathematicians consider 1 to be a prime number (they will later define a prime number to be a positive integer greater than 1 that is divisible only by 1 or by itself), and what will be called "Goldbach's conjecture" will be restated as, "Every even natural number greater than 2 is equal to the sum of two prime numbers."

Memoirs Serving as a Natural History of Insects (Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire des insectes) by René-Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur is a pioneer work in entomology. Its first volume appeared in 1734, the sixth is published this year, but the series will remain unfinished at Réaumur's death in 1757.

medicine

Irish physician Fielding Ould gives the first description of episiotomy—an "incision towards the anus with a crooked pair of probe-sizars; introducing one blade between the head and the vagina . . . and the business is done in one pinch, by which the whole body will easily come forth" (see 1748).

religion

Pope Benedict XIV issues a decree July 11 condemning disciplinary actions taken against Jesuits in China.

Russia's czarina Elizabeth gives orders December 1 that all Jews are to be expelled from the country.

communications, media

Clergyman and classical scholar Richard Bentley dies at Cambridge July 14 at age 80, having shown that a sound was used in certain Homeric Greek words that was not represented by any letter when the words were written.

literature

Fiction: The Adventures of Joseph Andrews and his Friend Abraham Adams by Henry Fielding ridicules Samuel Richardson's 1740 novel Pamela.

Poetry: The Complaint—Or, Night Thoughts by English poet Edward Young, 59, who writes, "Procrastination is the thief of time."

Poet William Somerville dies at Henley-in-Arden, Warwickshire, July 17 at age 66.

art

Painting: The Graham Children by William Hogarth.

theater, film

Theater: Mahomet the Prophet (Le fanatisme, ou Mahomet le prophète) by Voltaire 8/9 at the Comédie-Française, Paris.

music

Oratorio: The Messiah by George Frideric Handel 4/13 at the Dublin Cathedral, with Susannah Cibber (née Arne), 28, singing the contralto part in a charity concert for the benefit of "the Prisoners in several Gaols, and for the support of Mercer's Hospital in Stephen Street, and of the Charitable Infirmary on the Inn's Quay." Sister of the composer Thomas Arne, Mrs. Cibber was married 8 years ago to Theophilus Cibber, profligate son of the playwright-theatrical manager Colley Cibber, and 3 years ago was disgraced in a sex scandal that culminated in a trial that revealed the adulterous relationship forced upon her by her husband. He virtually sold her favors to John Sloper, a country squire who admired her, and when she eloped with Sloper he sued for £5,000 but was awarded only £10. Cibber's threats of reprisal forced her to hide out at Sloper's country house in Berkshire, where she has borne Sloper's children and led a quiet life. The chancellor of the cathedral, a Dr. Delany, rises after her moving aria "He was despised" describing Christ's suffering and cries out, "Woman, for this all thy sins be forgiven thee," and the concert raises enough money to free 142 prisoners from debtors' prison. Handel has intended the oratorio to be performed at a theater, not a church, and many have taken exception to its being sung at the cathedral, but it will have its London premiere 3/23 of next year and performances of the oratorio will become an annual Christmas tradition in both lay and religious venues.

Hymn: "Joy to the World" by George Frideric Handel (see 1830).

Keyboard practice: Goldberg Variations (Alia mit verschiedenen Veraenderungen vors Clavicimbal mit 2 manualen) by Johann Sebastian Bach.

everyday life

Short Treatise on Whist by English card-player Edmond Hoyle, 70, is published August 29 giving the first systematization to a game that will develop first into auction bridge and then into contract bridge (see 1904; Vanderbilt, 1925). Hoyle's name will survive in the phrase "according to Hoyle."

architecture, real estate

London's 42 Berkeley Square town house is completed to designs by architect William Kent.

Boston's Faneuil Hall is presented to the city by local merchant Peter Faneuil, 42, whose red brick meeting house opens to the public September 24, will be enlarged by architect Charles Bulfinch, and will remain a Boston landmark for centuries. America's first recorded town meeting will be held in the hall March 14 of next year.

food and drink

Eliza Smith's The Compleat Housewife, or, Accomplish'd Gentlewoman's Companion of 1727 is published at Williamsburg in the Virginia colony and is probably the first cookbook published in Britain's American colonies.

London brewer Samuel Whitbread, 22, forms a partnership and goes into business in Whitecross Street, specializing in porter in competition with Ralph Harwood (see 1722). Apprenticed at age 16 to John Wightman, master of London's Brewer's Company, Whitbread has seen the potential of porter, which can be made in bulk and will not deteriorate if matured over long periods in wooden casks. He and his partner, Shewell, will move to nearby Chiswell Street in 1750 and by 1760 will have a porter tun room, "the unsupported roof span of which [a contemporary account will say] is exceeded in its majestic size only by that of Westminster Hall." Porter will have become the city's staple beverage; Whitbread's will be producing 65,000 barrels of it per year by the late 1860s; it will be brewing ale as well by 1834; and the Chiswell Street brewery will continue operating until 1976 (see 1869).

1741 1742 1743 1744 1745 1746 1747 1748 1749 1750