1753
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Contents: political eventstransportation religion education literature theater, film architecture, real estate nutrition food and drink population |
Burmese forces under the command of their king Aloung P'Houra recapture their old capital, Ava, and take the offensive against the Mon king Binnya Dala in southern Burma (see 1752; Rangoon, 1755).
Some 1,500 French troops from Canada sent by the marquis Duquesne occupy the Ohio Valley, erecting Fort Presqu'Isle and Fort Le Boeuf (see Logstown Treaty, 1752). The lieutenant governor of Virginia Robert Dinwiddie, 60, sends out surveyor George Washington with a demand that the French withdraw. Washington reaches Fort Le Boeuf December 12, and he is told that Dinwiddie's letter will be forwarded to Duquesne (see 1754).
Naval commander Bertrand-François Mahé, comte de La Bourdonnais, dies at Paris November 10 at age 54. Arrested 5 years ago on charges of corruption, he was held prisoner in the Bastille for more than 2 years but acquitted at his trial in 1751.
The Hardwicke Marriage Act passed by Parliament forbids marriage by "unauthorized persons." It requires parental consent for minors to marry and invalidates marriages performed without license or publication of the banns. Errant husbands and wives of the lower classes have heretofore been able to disappear and contract bigamous marriages.
The Conestoga wagon introduced by Pennsylvania Dutch settlers in the town of Conestoga will come into wide use in the next 100 years. (Wagon drivers will smoke cheap cigars that will be called "stogies.") (see "The Flying Machine," 1818).
Parliament passes a Jewish Naturalization Bill, but the measure arouses opposition. It will be repealed next year, and British Jews will not gain civic emancipation until 1860.
The British Museum has its beginnings June 7 as George II gives royal assent to an act of Parliament providing for the acquisition of a collection amassed by the late London physician Sir Hans Sloan, who has died January 11 at age 92 leaving a will offering his 71,000 plants, animal specimens, and other objects on condition that the government provide £20,000 for his heirs. The government purchases his library of 50,000 volumes, several thousand manuscripts, and 80,000 curios that include coins, fossils, medals, and prints. Sloane inherited part of the collection in 1702 from the late naturalist William Courten, he practiced medicine in Chelsea, and the Cottonian Library created by the earls of Oxford is immediately added to Sloan's collection (see 1759; Royal Library, 1757).
Philosopher George Berkeley dies at Oxford January 14 at age 69.
Fiction: Ferdinand Count Fathom by Tobias Smollett is a pioneer horror mystery story.
Poetry: Hilliad by Christopher Smart satirizes critic John Hill.
Theater: The Mistress of the Inn (La locandier) by Carlo Goldoni in January at Venice's Teatro San Angelo. Sadler's Wells Theatre opens at London 4/23 (it will be rebuilt in 1765 and, again, in 1931).
Architect Balthasar Neumann dies at Würzburg the night of August 18 at age 68.
"Treatise on the scurvy" by James Lind is an account of his citrus cure (see 1747; 1757).
The Manufacture de Vincennes porcelain works founded in 1738 is declared the Manufacture Royale de Porcelaine de France (see Sèvres, 1756).
On the Numbers of Man by Scottish writer Robert Wallace, 56, echoes the view (see 1734) that the Greek and Roman world had a larger population than that of 18th-century Europe. Wallace argues against diverting capital and labor from basic commodities to the manufacture of luxury goods.
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