The 1750s (pronounced "seventeen-fifties") was a decade of the Gregorian calendar that began on January 1, 1750, and ended on December 31, 1759. The 1750s was a pioneering decade. Waves of settlers flooded the New World (specifically the Americas) in hopes of re-establishing life away from European control, and electricity was a field of novelty that had yet to be merged with the studies of chemistry and engineering. Numerous discoveries of the 1750s forged the basis for contemporary scientific consensus. The decade saw the end of the Baroque period.
February 15 – After Spain and Portugal agree that the Uruguay River will be the boundary line between the two kingdoms' territory in South America, the Spanish Governor orders the Jesuits to vacate seven Indian missions along the river (San Angel, San Nicolas, San Luis, San Lorenzo, San Miguel, San Juan and San Borja).[2]
March 5 – The Murray-Kean Company, a troupe of actors from Philadelphia, gives the first performance of a play announced in advance in a newspaper, presenting Richard III at New York City's Nassau Street Theatre.[3]
April 13 – Dr. Thomas Walker and five other men (Ambrose Powell, Colby Chew, William Tomlinson, Henry Lawless and John Hughes) cross through the Cumberland Gap, a mountain pass through the Appalachian Mountains, to become the first white people to venture into territories that had been inhabited exclusively by various Indian tribes.[4] On April 17, Walker's party continues through what is now Kentucky and locates the Cumberland River, which Walker names in honor of Prince William, Duke of Cumberland.
A group of West African slaves, bound for the Americas, successfully overpowers the crew of the British slave ship Snow Ann, imprisons the survivors, and then navigates the vessel back to Cape Lopez in Gabon.[5] Upon regaining their freedom, the rebels leave the survivors on the Gabonese coast.
April 25 – The Acadian settlement in Beaubassin, Nova Scotia, is burnt by the French army, and the population is forcibly relocated, after France and Great Britain agree that the Missaguash River should be the new boundary between peninsular British Nova Scotia and the mainland remnant of French Acadia (now New Brunswick) [7]
May 16 – Two weeks after police in Paris arrest six teenagers for gambling in the suburb of Saint-Laurent, rioting breaks out when a rumor spreads that plainclothes policemen are hauling off small children between the ages of five to ten years old, in order to provide blood to an ailing aristocrat.[8] Over the next two weeks, rioting breaks out in other sections of Paris. Police are attacked, including one who is beaten to death by the mob, until order is restored and police reforms are announced.[9]
June 19 – At a time when mountain climbing is still relatively uncommon, Eggert Ólafsson and Bjarni Pálsson scale their first peak, the 4,892 foot (1,491 m) high Icelandic volcano, Hekla.[10]
June 24 – Parliament passes Britain's Iron Act, designed to restrict American manufactured goods by prohibiting additional ironworking businesses from producing finished goods. At the same time, import taxes on raw iron from America are lifted in order to give British manufacturers additional material for production.[11] By 1775, the North American colonies have surpassed England and Wales in iron production and have become the world's third largest producer of iron.
June 29 – An attempt in Lima to begin a native uprising against Spanish colonial authorities in the Viceroyalty of Peru is discovered and thwarted.[12] One of the conspirators, Francisco Garcia Jimenez, escapes to Huarochirí and kills dozens of Spaniards on July 25.
July–September
July 9 – Traveller Jonas Hanway leaves St. Petersburg to return home, via Germany and the Netherlands. Later the same year, Hanway reputedly becomes the first Englishman to use an umbrella (a French fashion).
July 31 – José I takes over the throne of Portugal from his deceased father, João V. King José Manuel appoints the Marquis of Pombal as his Chief Minister, who then strips the Inquisition of its power.
August 8 – In advance of the Province of Georgia changing in status from a corporate-owned American settlement to a British colony, Royal Assent is given to an act that lifts the province's ban on slavery; effective January 1, "it shall and may be lawful to import or bring Black Slaves or Negroes in to the Province of Georgia of America and to keep and to use the same therein".[14]
September 30 – Crispus Attucks, an African-American slave who will later become the first person killed in the Boston Massacre of 1770, escapes from the Framingham, Massachusetts estate of slaveowner William Brown.[17][18] In an unsuccessful attempt to recapture the fugitive, Brown runs an advertisement on October 2 in the Boston Gazette, but Attucks eludes recapture.
October–December
October 5 – Treaty of Madrid: Spain and Great Britain sign a treaty temporarily eliminating their hostility over their colonies in North and South America.[19] In addition to both sides dropping their claims for damages against each other, Spain agrees to pay the South Sea Company £100,000 for damage claims.
October 14 – The Louvre Museum is created in Paris four years after art critic Lafond de Saint-Yenne calls on the King to allow the display of the royal art collection to the general public. Abel-François Poisson, the Marquis de Marigny, arranges for the display of 110 of the Crown's paintings at the Palais du Luxembourg.[20]
December 29 – Two physicians in Jamaica, Dr. John Williams and Dr. Parker Bennet, fight a duel "with swords and pistols" after having had an argument the day before about the treatment of bilious fever. Both are mortally wounded during the fight.[24]
January 7 – The University of Pennsylvania, conceived 12 years earlier by Benjamin Franklin and its other trustees to provide non-denominational higher education "to train young people for leadership in business, government and public service".[28] rather than for the ministry, holds its first classes as "The Academy and Charitable School in the Province of Pennsylvania" in Philadelphia.[29]
January 13 – For the first time, the American colony in Georgia has an elected legislature after having been administered by a corporate Board of Trustees since its founding in 1732. The original Georgia Assembly meets in Savannah with 16 representatives as the colony prepares to become a British colonial province.[30] After electing Francis Harris as the Speaker of the unicameral Assembly, the delegates successfully ask the Trustees not to surrender control of Georgia to the neighboring Province of South Carolina.[31]
January 18 – In the aftermath of the Lhasa riot of 1750, Chinese General Ban Di arrives at the capital of Tibet on behalf of the Qianlong Emperor and the seven imprisoned leaders of the rebellion are turned over to his custody by the 7th Dalai Lama, Keizang Gyatzo. General Ban Di guides the interrogation under torture of rebel leader Lobsang Trashi and, after five days orders the beheading and dismemberment of the seven rebels.[32]
February 14 – At Lakkireddipalle in southeastern India, the new Nizam of Hyderabad, Subhadar Muzaffar Jang, leads an invasion of cavalry against the small kingdom of Kurnool and is confronted by its monarch, the Nawab Bahadur Khan. The Subhadar and the Nawab order their soldiers to stand down and then engage in hand-to-hand combat, during which the Nawab "thrust[s] a spear into the Subhadar's brain" before he is "himself hacked to pieces."[33]
March 25 – For the last time, New Year's Day is legally on March 25, in England and Wales and "in all his Majesty's Dominions in Europe, Asia, Africa and America"[36] due to the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750. The months of January 1751, February 1751 and most of March 1751 did not exist in British territories: those months were recorded as the last three of 1750 according to the Old Style dating system; the equivalent months a year later were recorded as the first three of 1752 under the New Style system.
April 5 – Sweden's King Frederick I dies at the age of 74 (March 25 on the Julian calendar, which remains in effect in Sweden and Finland until 1753), after a reign of 31 years, bringing an end to the rule of Sweden by the House of Hesse because he has no legitimate heirs. Prince Adolf Frederick of the House of Holstein-Gottorp, who had been elected as the crown prince in 1743, becomes the new King.
April 19 – the Qianlong Emperor of China visits the southern capital of Nanjing for the first time, bringing with him 3,000 staff and 6,690 horses and stays for four days [38]
April 20 – A month after the death of his father, 12-year old Prince George William Frederick is formally invested as the new Prince of Wales[39] Nine years later, Prince George becomes King George III upon the death of his grandfather, King George II.
April 29 – The sport of cricket is first played in the American colonies, as a team of New Yorkers plays against a team of Englishmen and defeats them, 167 to 80, in a match in Greenwich Village [40][41]
June 14 – The colony of South Carolina reverses a 10-year-old law that had imposed a tax of 100 pounds sterling on the purchase of imported African slaves, and reduces the tax to £10.[44] The move effectively restores the slave trade to the colony.
October 22 – William V, Prince of Orange, the three-year-old son of the late William IV, becomes the last Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic. During his minority, his mother, Princess Anne, acts as regent until her death in 1759. Upon becoming of age in 1766, he will have a corrupt reign as the Republic's head of state until the office is abolished on February 23, 1785.
Future United States President George Washington becomes seriously ill with smallpox while he and his older brother Lawrence are visiting the island of Barbados during an epidemic [48] Washington, 19 years old, survives the virus but is bedridden for almost a month.
The Pima Revolt begins in the area that now includes the Mexican state of Sonora and the U.S. state of Arizona, as Pima Indian leader Luis Oacpicagigua carries out the massacre of 18 Spanish settlers at Oacpicagigua's home in Sáric. The rebellion, which takes the lives of more than 100 Spaniards, is ended on March 18 after Governor Diego Ortiz Parilla permits the rebels to surrender for imprisonment.[49]
November 29 – The Cherokee nation signs a treaty with British colonial authorities at the close of the two-week Charlestown Conference in Charleston, South Carolina, with GovernorJames Glen signing an agreement with Cherokee war chiefs led by the "Old Skiagunsta" of Keowee, the Raven of Hiwasee, Old Caesar of Chatuga and Kittagusta of Joree.[50]
January 1 – The British Empire (except Scotland, which had changed New Year's Day to January 1 in 1600) adopts today as the first day of the year as part of adoption of the Gregorian calendar, which is completed in September: today is the first day of the New Year under the terms of last year's Calendar Act of the British Parliament.[52]
February 23 – Messier 83 (M83), the "Southern Pinwheel Galaxy" and the first to be cataloged outside the "Local Group" of galaxies nearest to Earth's galaxy, the Milky Way, is discovered by French astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille.[54] Lacaille, who observes M83 during a research voyage in the Southern Hemisphere, is the first to identify the body as a nebulous object rather than a star. M83, 15 million light-years away, is the most distant object to be identified up to that time.
March 14 – Shō Kei, the ruler of Okinawa Island and the Ryukyu Kingdom, dies at the age of 41 after a reign that began when he was 13 years old. He is succeeded by his 12-year-old son, Shō Boku, who reigns for 42 years.
March 18 – The electors of the Republic of Venice (which includes not only a large part of northern Italy around the city of Venice, but portions of Eastern Europe along the Adriatic Sea) elect Francesco Loredan as their new executive, the Doge. Loredan's election comes 11 days after the death of the previous Doge, Pietro Grimani, but is not announced until after Easter Sunday.
April 6 – Spanish Governor Tomás Vélez Cachupín of Santa Fe de Nuevo México, a province that now comprises most of the American state of New Mexico, begins the first peace negotiations with the indigenous Comanche tribe after inviting tribal representatives to his home in Taos.[57] As a sign of good faith, he unconditionally releases the four Comanche prisoners of war held at Taos. One of the released Comanches reports to his father, Chief Guanacante, about the hospitality extended to him during his imprisonment, and more meetings take place in July and in the autumn.
The Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Spain's Royal Academy of the Fine Arts, is formally established in Spain, eight years after first being proposed to King Fernando VI by Jeronimo Antonio Gil as a small school in Madrid. The foundation of the Royal Academy is considered by historians to be "an essential step in modernizing Spain" during the Spanish Enlightenment.[59]
April 13 – The oldest property insurance company in the United States, "Philadelphia Contributionship for the Insurance of Houses from Loss by Fire", holds its organizational meeting at the courthouse in Philadelphia to elect a board of directors, largely through the efforts of Benjamin Franklin. Franklin's newspaper, The Pennsylvania Gazette, has been advertising the meeting since February 18, with a notice that "All persons inclined to subscribe to the articles of insurance of houses from fire, in or near this city, are desired to appear at the Court-house, where attendance will be given, to take in their subscriptions, every seventh day of the week, in the afternoon, until the 13th of April next, being the day appointed by the said articles for electing twelve directors and a treasurer." [60][61] The property insurance company is still in existence more than 250 years later.
April 22 – Adam Smith, appointed the year before as a professor of logic, is unanimously elected by the faculty of the University of Glasgow to be the new Professor of Moral Philosophy "on the express condition that he would content himself with the emoluments of the Logic Professorship until 10 October",[62] in that the 1751-1752 salary budgeted for the job has already been distributed to faculty members who had substituted for the previous moral philosophy professor, Thomas Craigie; from April to October, Smith's remuneration for teaching moral philosophy is limited to fees paid directly to him by his students (a half guinea per semester for the public class, and a guinea per semester for the private class). Smith's lectures on ethics are first published in 1759 in his work The Theory of Moral Sentiments.
June – Benjamin Franklin reportedly carries out his famous kite experiment, duplicating experiments that show that lightning and electricity are the same. According to Franklin, lightning strikes the kite that he is flying during a thunderstorm and produces sparks identical to what he has previously generated artificially in a Leyden jar. However, the report of his experiment is not made until October 19, in Franklin's newspaper, The Pennsylvania Gazette, leading 20th century researchers to doubt that he conducted the experiment, if at all, until sometime after September 28, when he had written in the Gazette about other such experiments, and that he was making a claim that he had conceived the experiment independently.[63]
June 3 – A fire destroys 13,000 houses in Moscow in the Russian Empire, only 11 days after a May 23 fire destroyed 5,000 homes; by June 6, two-thirds of the city has been damaged or destroyed.[64]
July 30 – The first of the Kronstadt canals, conceived by Peter the Great and designed to link two of the harbors of the Russian city, is completed and opened to maritime traffic.[67]
August 3 – Edward Cornwallis, the British Governor of Nova Scotia, is recalled to Britain after being unsuccessful in pressuring Nova Scotia's Acadian population to take an oath of allegiance to the Crown or to face expulsion. His replacement, Peregrine Hopson, is more lenient with the Acadians but is reassigned less than two years later.[68]
August 25 – The first group of the United Brethren church, commonly called the Moravians, leaves Bethlehem, Pennsylvania on a mission to find 100,000 acres (40,000 ha) of land on which to build "Villages of the Lord" for German emigres to settle upon in America; after a 450-mile (720 km) journey, they arrive in Edenton, North Carolina on September 10 and eventually purchase the Wachovia Tract, a set of lands in the western North Carolina colony.[70]
September 2 of Julian calendar (Wednesday) (September 13 "New Style") – Great Britain and the British Empire use the Julian calendar for the last time and adopt the Gregorian calendar, making the next day Thursday, September 14 in the English-speaking world. A newspaper at the time notes the next day that "Altho' we have more than once, for the Information of our Readers, publish'd some Accounts of the Alteration of the Style, which took Place this Day, agreeable to a late Act of Parliament, in all his Majesty's Dominions in Europe, Asia, Africa and America" and notes that "The Supputation of the Year began on the first Day of January last, and for the future the first Day of that Month will be stiled the first Day of every Year in all Accounts whatsoever, which Supputation or Reckoning never took Place before this Year in any Courts of Law until the 25th Day of March", and adds, "This Day, had not this Act passed, would have been the 3rd of September, but is now reckoned the 14th, eleven nominal Days being omitted." [71]
October–December
October 19 — In his Philadelphia newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette, Benjamin Franklin first describes the performance, in Philadelphia of the kite experiment that he had proposed in his 1750 book. Although the original account makes no claim that he was the first to do the experiment (which had been done by other scientists (including Thomas-François Dalibard in May), nor that he conducted the test, and it does not give a date for the experiment, it becomes embellished as the story that Franklin "discovered electricity"; in 1766, the story first circulates that Franklin flew the kite in June, 1752, without specifying a date (as Franklin had done in other scientific accounts).[63]
November 3 – A hurricane destroys the Spanish settlement on Florida's Santa Rosa Island, leaving only two buildings standing;[72] the remaining residents decide to move from the barrier island on the Gulf of Mexico and to start a settlement on the nearby mainland and construct the Presidio San Miguel de Panzacola, which later forms the nucleus of the city of Pensacola, Florida.
November 22 – "Father Le Loutre's War", the war between the British Canadian colonists of Nova Scotia and the indigenous Mi'kmaq (Micmac) tribe halts temporarily when a peace treaty is signed between the warring parties at Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia.[74] Governor Hopson, accompanied by former Governor Cornwallis, signs on behalf of the British and Chief Kopit (Jean-Baptiste Cope), the Sakamaw of the Mi'kmaq, signs on behalf of his people.
January 29 – After a month's absence, Elizabeth Canning returns to her mother's home in London and claims that she was abducted; the following criminal trial causes an uproar.
February 17 – The concept of electrical telegraphy is first published in the form of a letter to Scots' Magazine from a writer who identifies himself only as "C.M.". Titled "An Expeditious Method of Conveying Intelligence", C.M. suggests that static electricity (generated by 1753 from "frictional machines") could send electric signals across wires to a receiver. Rather than the dot and dash system later used by Samuel F.B. Morse, C.M. proposes that "a set of wires equal in number to the letters of the alphabet, be extended horizontally between two given places" and that on the receiving side, "Let a ball be suspended from every wire" and that a paper with a letter on it be underneath each wire.[76]
August 6 – Russian scientist Georg Richmann becomes the first person to be electrocuted by his own equipment after he uses an insulated, but improperly grounded, lightning rod in an attempt to gather data on a thunderstorm. Richmann also becomes the first victim of ball lightning during his scientific experiment, in an attempt to replicate the experiments of American Benjamin Franklin.[80]
August 21 – After receiving a series of warnings about incursions into land claimed by the Crown Colony of Virginia (from the colony's Lieutenant Governor, Robert Dinwiddie), the cabinet of British Prime Minister Henry Pelham votes to send a warning to Britain's colonial governors "to prevent, by Force, These and any such attempts" to encroach on their lands "that may be made by the French, or by the Indians in the French interest."[82] Britain's Secretary of State for the Southern Department, the Earl of Holderness, sends the circular order on August 28.[83]
September 3 – Tanacharison, a chief of the Oneida people tribe that is one of the "Six Nations" of the Iroquois Confederacy, meets with French officers who have come into the Ohio and Allegheny region and warns them not to advance further into the Iroquois territory.[84]
September 18 – Britain's Board of Trade sends a directive to the colonial and provincial governors of Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania ordering them to send delegates to a summit meeting with the Iroquois Confederacy. The message instructs the governors that King George II has ordered "a Sum of Money to be issued for Presents to the Six Nations of Indians" and ordering New York's Governor George Clinton "to hold an Interview with them for delivering these Presents, for burying the Hatchet, and for renewing the Covenant Chain with them."[85]
November 12 – Spain's King Fernando VI issues a set of 25 regulations and restrictions for theatrical performances, including a requirement that the directors of the acting troupes "take the greatest care that the necessary modesty is preserved" and that the actors should be reminded that chastity requires that "indecent and provocative" dances should be avoided.[86]
November 25 – The Russian Academy of Sciences announces a competition among chemists and physicists to provide "the best explanation of the true causes of electricity including their theory", with a deadline of June 1, 1755 (on the Julian calendar used in Russia, June 12 on the Gregorian calendar used in Western Europe and the New World).[89]
December 11 – Major George Washington and British guide Christopher Gist arrive at Fort Le Boeuf (near modern-day Waterford, Pennsylvania and the city of Erie), a French fortress built in territory claimed by the British Crown Colony of Virginia. Washington presents the fort's commander, French Army Captain Jacques Legardeur de Saint-Pierre, a message from Virginia's Lieutenant Governor Dinwiddie advising that "The lands upon the Ohio River are so notoriously known to be the property of the Crown of Great Britain that it is a matter of equal concern and surprise... to hear that a body of French fortresses and making settlements upon that river, within His Majesty's dominions," adding that "It becomes my duty to require your peaceable departure." Captain Legardeur provides a reply for Washington to take to Dinwiddie, declaring that the rights of France's King Louis XV to the land "are incontestable", and refuses to back down, leading to beginning of the French and Indian War in 1754.[90]
Robert Wood publishes The ruins of Palmyra; otherwise Tedmor in the desart in English and French, making the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra known to the West.
The Cramer family starts a brewing operation at Warstein in North Rhine-Westphalia, originating the Warsteiner brand.
February 22 – Expecting an attack by Portuguese-speaking militias in the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, the indigenous Guarani people residing in the Misiones Orientales stage an attack on a small Brazilian Portuguese settlement on the Rio Pardo in what is now the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. The attack by 300 Guarani soldiers from the missions at San Luis, San Lorenzo and San Juan Bautista is repelled with a loss of 30 Guarani and is the opening of the Guarani War[91]
February 25 – Guatemalan Sergeant Major Melchor de Mencos y Varón departs the city of Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala with an infantry battalion to fight British pirates that are reportedly disembarking on the coasts of Petén (modern-day Belize), and sacking the nearby towns.[92]
April 30 – Battle of San Felipe and the Cobá Lagoon: Guatemalan Sergeant Mayor Melchor de Mencos y Varón and his troops defeat the British pirates.[93]
July 10 – The Albany Plan of Union is given official approval by the delegates from New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, with Connecticut opposing. The plan approved at the meeting in Albany, New York is based on Benjamin Franklin's suggestions of "a general union of the British colonies on the continent" for a common defense policy. As amended at the assembly, the proposed union calls for the British Parliament to approve the arrangement, which would encompass all of the British North American colonies except for Georgia and Nova Scotia. The plan, to be considered by the individual colonies for ratification, provides for an inter-colonial legislature (the Grand Council) composed of between two and seven representatives for each colony, depending on population. It also provides for a "President General" who can veto Grand Council legislation, a common defense budget with colonies contributing proportionately to their representation, and an inter-colonial army whose officers would be selected by the Grand Council.[94]
August 6 – The British North American Province of Georgia is created. Originally established in 1732 as a place for impoverished English citizens and debt prison parolees to make a new life, is given its first royal government. Administered for 22 years by the Board of Trustees for the Establishment of the Colony of Georgia in America, chaired by philanthropist James Oglethorpe, the colony is transferred by the Trustees to the British crown's Board of Trade and Plantations. King George II, for whom the colony was named, follows the Board's recommendation by proclaiming Georgia a royal province, and appointing Royal Navy Captain John Reynolds as the first Royal Governor.[96] Reynolds arrives in Savannah on October 29 to take office.[97]
August 17 – Pennsylvania becomes the first of the British colonies to address Benjamin Franklin's Albany Plan for an inter-colonial union. With Franklin absent from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania's House of Representatives votes against to not consider the Plan at all, and to not refer it to the next legislative session for debate.[94]
August 19 – Lieutenant Colonel George Washington is forced to confront his first mutiny as 25 members of his Virginia militia refuse to obey orders from their officers. Washington, who is attending church services at the time, quickly suppresses the rebellion and the mutineers are imprisoned before more join.[98]
August 30 – New Hampshire settlers Susannah Willard Johnson and her family are taken hostage by the Abenaki Indians during an attack near Charlestown. Nine months pregnant at the time of their capture, Johnson gives birth two days later to a child, whom she names Elizabeth Captive Johnson. For the next two years, the family is held for ransom in Canada before she is released. In 1796, she will recount the story in a popular memoir, A Narrative of the Captivity of Mrs. Johnson.[99]
September 2 – A powerful earthquake strikes Constantinople shortly after 9 o'clock in the evening. A Scottish physician, Mordach Mackenzie, reports in a letter that the tremor damaged or destroyed numerous buildings and comments, "Some say there were 2000 people destroyed by this calamity, in the town and suburbs; some 900; and others reduce them to 60, who, by what I have seen, are nearer the truth."[100]
October 24 – China's Qianlong Emperor reverses a longstanding policy that barred Chinese subjects from ever returning to China if they remained out of the country for more than three years.[102]
October 31 – What will become Columbia University is chartered as "a College in the Province of New York... in the City of New York in America... named King's College", with the charter submitted by New York's colonial governor, James De Lancey.[95]
November 28 – Denmark establishes the Renteskirverkontor, an office within the Chamber of Finance, to oversee the colonial affairs of the Danish West Indies (Dansk Vestindien).[103] Peder Mariager, who had been a minor official of the Danish West Indies Company, becomes the first administrator. The colony, consisting of the islands of Saint Thomas, Saint John and Saint Croix later is purchased by the United States from Denmark and is now the U.S. Virgin Islands.
December 26 – Massachusetts becomes the third colony (after Pennsylvania and Connecticut) to reject the Albany Plan for an inter-colonial union, voting 48 to 31 to postpone consideration of the union question indefinitely.[94]
Date unknown
Surveyor William Churton lays out what will become the seat of Orange County, North Carolina. The town is named Corbin Town for Francis Corbin, a member of the North Carolina governor's council. Corbin Town is renamed Childsburgh in 1759, and finally Hillsborough in 1766.
March 12 – A steam engine is used in the American colonies for the first time as New Jersey copper mine owner Arent Schuyler installs a Newcomen atmospheric engine to pump water out of a mineshaft.[105]
March 22 – Britain's House of Commons votes in favor of £1,000,000 of appropriations to expand the British Army and Royal Navy operations in North America.[106]
March 26 – General Edward Braddock and 1,600 British sailors and soldiers arrive at Alexandria, Virginia on transport ships that have sailed up the Potomac River. Braddock, sent to take command of the British forces against the French in North America, commandeers taverns and private homes to feed and house the troops.[107]
May 3 – France dispatches 3,600 troops to protect its Canadian colonies in Quebec from a British invasion, dispatching 2,400 to Quebec city and 1,200 to Louisbourg in Nova Scotia, unaware that a squadron of 11 fully armed warships from Britain's Royal Navy had sailed toward Canada on April 27.[108]
May 17 – Spanish missionary Tomas Sanchez and three families establish a settlement on the north side of the Rio Grande in New Spain. Sanchez names it Villa de Laredo. The new settlement is the northernmost part of the colony of Nuevo Santander, founded by José de Escandón, 1st Count of Sierra Gorda, which now comprises parts of the Mexican state of Tamaulipas and the U.S. state of Texas. The portion of Villa de Laredo north of the river later becomes Laredo, Texas; the remaining portion south of the river is later renamed Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas.[109]
May 19 – General Braddock hosts Iroquois leaders Scaroyady, Kaghswaghtaniunt and Silver Heels at Fort Cumberland, the British Army base in the colony of Maryland. The three chiefs pledge their alliance with the British in advance of Braddock's expedition into the Ohio Country.[110]
May 24 – France completes the construction of Fort Duquesne, its new base to the west of the British colony of Pennsylvania. The British capture the fort during the French and Indian War and rename it Fort Pitt. The site, at the junction of the Allegheny River and the Monongahela River, is now Pittsburgh.[112]
May 30 – General Braddock's troops begin a difficult trek across the heavily wooded Allegheny Mountains from western Maryland into the Ohio country.[113]
Scottish chemist Joseph Black describes his discovery of carbon dioxide (fixed air) and magnesium, in a paper to the Medical Society of Edinburgh. The paper is published in 1756 with the title Experiments upon Magnesia alba, Quicklime, and some other alkaline Substances.[114]
At the entrance of the Saint Lawrence River, a squadron of Royal Navy ships, under the command of British Admiral Edward Boscawen, intercepts the nine French ships dispatched to save Canada; seven of the nine ships are concealed by fog and are able to reach their destination; another of the transports escapes.[108]
July 17 – In a convoy of ships from Great Britain, returning to India for the East India Company, the lead ship Doddington (on her third voyage) wrecks in Algoa Bay near modern-day Port Elizabeth in South Africa, losing 247 of its 270 passengers and crew, together with a chest of gold coins from Robert Clive worth £33,000. In 1998, 1,400 coins from the wreck site are offered for sale, and in 2002 a portion is given to the South African government. Around twenty survivors of the wreck are eventually able to make safety after an open boat voyage.[116][117]
July 25 – The decision to deport the Acadians is made, during meetings of the Nova Scotia Council meeting in Halifax. From September 1755-June 1763, the vast majority of Acadians are deported to one of the following British Colonies in America: Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. Contrary to popular belief, no Acadians are sent to Louisiana. Those sent to Virginia are refused and then sent on to Liverpool, Bristol, Southampton and Penryn in England. In 1758 the Fortress of Louisbourg falls and all of the civilian population of Isle Royal (Cape Breton Island) and Isle St. Jean (Prince Edward Island) are repatriated to France. Among them were several thousand Acadians, who had escaped the deportation by fleeing into those areas. Very few Acadians successfully escape the deportation and do so only by fleeing into some of the northern sections of present day New Brunswick. The event inspires Longfellow to write the epic poem Evangeline.
September 2 – A powerful hurricane strikes the east coast of the British colony of North Carolina, killing 150 people and sinking five British and colonial merchant ships at Portsmouth Island.[118]
September 6 – The Russian Academy of Sciences awards its prize for "the best explanation of the true causes of electricity including their theory" to Switzerland's Johann Euler for his paper Disquisitio de causa physica electricitatis.[119]
September 16 – Sir Charles Hanbury-Williams, the new British Minister to Russia, secures an alliance signed by Empress Catherine the Great. The Russian Empire agrees to provide up to 55,000 troops to defend the Electorate of Hanover against invasion by Prussia. At the time, King George II of Great Britain is also the ruler of the German duchy; the Russian troops are provided in return for an annual payment of £600,000.[122]
September 17 – Jean-Marc Vacheron founds his watch-making company Vacheron Constantin. To this day, Vacheron Constantin is the oldest watchmaker in the world with an uninterrupted watchmaking history since its foundation.[123]
October 12 – Having completed the Expulsion of the Acadians from St. John's Island (now Prince Edward Island), the British colonial Governor of Nova Scotia, Charles Lawrence, issues a proclamation that his office will receive proposals from English settlers "for the peopling and cultivating as well of the lands vacated by the French, as every other part of this valuable province."[127]
October 17 – The Mount Katla volcano erupts in Iceland and continues ejecting ash for the next 120 days, finally ceasing on February 13. An estimated 1.5 cubic kilometers (1.5 billion cubic meters or 53 billion cubic feet) of tephra is discharged by the volcano.[129]
November 1 – More than 40,000 people are killed by the 8.5 magnitude earthquake in Lisbon, Portuguese Empire. The tremor begins at 9:40 in the morning local time off of the Atlantic coast of Portugal and sends a tsunami that strikes the coasts of Portugal, Spain and Morocco.
December 17 – Anton, Patriarch of the Georgian Orthodox Church, is dismissed by his opponents on the Ecclesiastical Council and briefly imprisoned for 18 months before being allowed to move to Russia; in 1764, Anton is again made the Georgian Orthodox Church's leader.
Date unknown
Wolsey, the clothes manufacturer, is established in Leicester, England; the business celebrates its 250th anniversary in 2005.
February 10 – The massacre of the Guaraní rebels in the Jesuit reduction of Caaibaté takes place in Brazil after their leader, Noicola Neenguiru, defies an ultimatum to surrender by 2:00 in the afternoon.[133] On February 7, Neenguiru's predecessor Sepé Tiaraju has been killed in a brief skirmish. As two o'clock arrives, a combined force of Spanish and Portuguese troops makes an assault on the first of the Seven Towns established as Jesuit missions. Defending their town with cannons made out of bamboo, the Guaraní suffer 1,511 dead, compared to three Spaniards and two Portuguese killed in battle.[134]
February 14 – Battle of Vijaydurg: The Maratha Navy, that has controlled the western coast of India for the Maratha Empire for more than a century, is destroyed by British attackers fighting for the East India Company. On orders of Royal Navy Admiral Charles Watson, the British capture a Maratha ship (the former British warship HMS Restoration), set it on fire, and then float the burning vessel into the Vijaydurg Port where most of Maratha Admiral Tulaji Angre's ships are anchored. The fire soon spreads to the other ships, destroying one large warship armed with 74 cannons, eight gurabs of 200 tonnes apiece, and sixty galbat ships.[135]
September 2 – Abu l-Hasan Ali I, Bey of Tunis is forcibly removed after 23 years as the ruler of the North African emirate by his cousins, who are avenging the overthrow and execution of their father, Husayn in 1735. Hasan Ali surrenders to the rebels and is imprisoned in Algiers, then executed on September 22 on orders of the new Bey of Tunis, Muhammad I ar-Rashid.
December 14 – The play Douglas is performed for the first time in Edinburgh, with overwhelming success, in spite of the opposition of the local church presbytery, who summon Alexander Carlyle to answer for having attended its representation. However, it fails in its early promise to set up a new Scottish dramatic tradition.
January 5 – Robert-François Damiens makes an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Louis XV of France, who is slightly wounded by the knife attack. On March 28 Damiens is publicly executed by burning and dismemberment, the last person in France to suffer this punishment. [141]
February 2 – At Versailles in France, representatives of the Russian Empire and the Austrian Empire enter into an alliance against Prussia, with each nation pledging 80,000 troops. [143] Other clauses to the treaty, not disclosed to the public, commit Austria to pay Russia one million rubles per year during the war to pay for the expenses of 24,000 of the Russian troops, and two million rubles upon the conquest of Silesia (a Prussian province that had been seized from Austria in 1746). [144]
February 3 – French artist Robert Picault begins the rescue of the frescoes at the King's Chamber of the Palace of Fontainebleau before architect Ange-Jacques Gabrel begins renovations. [145]
February 5 – The Nawab of Bengal, Siraj ud-Daulah, leads an attempt to retake Calcutta from the British. With just 1,900 soldiers and sailors, but superior cannon power, General Robert Clive forces the Nawab's much larger force into a retreat. The British sustain 194 casualties, but the Bengalis suffer 1,300. [146]
February 9 – The Nawab and General Clive sign the Treaty of Alinagar, with Bengal compensating the British East India Company for its losses and pledging respect for British control of India. [146]
February 23 – A revolt against the government of King Joseph I of Portugal takes place in the city of Oporto. After the riot's suppression, King Joao's minister, the Marquis of Pombal (Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo), orders a harsh punishment against the perpetrators. Of 478 people arrested, 442 of them (including 50 women and young boys) are condemned to various sentences carried out in October. [148]
March 14 – British Royal Navy Admiral John Byng is executed by firing squad on board ship after his court martial conviction for failing in the Battle of Minorca (1756) to save British troops who had been besieged by a numerically superior French force in the Siege of Fort St Philip (1756).[149] General Edward Cornwallis, the ranking British Army officer at the battle, is exonerated of charges of dereliction of duty, but his career is ruined. Byng's execution is the origin of the phrase "In this country, it is wise to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others", coined by Voltaire in his novel Candide.
March 21 – Sweden signs an alliance treaty with France and Austria in the multinational effort to remove King Frederick the Great, even though Queen Consort Ulrika of Sweden is Frederick's sister. Sweden agrees to contribute 25,000 troops to the French and Austrian force. [144]
April 6 – William Pitt is dismissed from the government, following several military reverses in Britain's fight against France in America. After a public outcry, Pitt is called back to conduct Britain's foreign and military affairs and given greater control. [153]
In the wake of public unrest in France, the King's Council issues a decree that bars anyone from writing, printing anything that would tend toward émouvoir les esprits (stir up popular sentiment) against the government, with violations punishable by death. [155]
April 29 – Inside a house at Stratford-upon-Avon in England, a bricklayer, identified only as "Mosely", discovers the testament of John Shakespeare, father of William Shakespeare, more than 150 years after the elder's death. The finding, done while Mosely is re-tiling the roof of what is now called Shakespeare's Birthplace, starts "what remains one of the most controversial topics in Shakespeare studies" because of disagreements over its authenticity. [157]
May 1 – France and Austria sign a second treaty of alliance at Versailles, committing France to sending an additional 105,000 troops to the war against Prussia, and to pay expenses to Austria at the rate of 12 million florins annually. [144]
The 1755 rebellion against the Chinese Empire by Mongolian Oirat Prince Amursana is met by a Chinese army of 10,000 attackers against Amursana's 2,500 man force at their capital at Bor Tal. The rebels are able to hold out for 17 days before being routed. [158]
July 17 – Amursana's Mongolian rebellion against the Chinese Empire is crushed after a battle of 17 days, and the survivors flee to Russia, where Amursana unsuccessfully seeks Russian aid. [158]
September 6 – The life of Najib ad-Dawlah is spared by Raghunathrao upon the intercession of General Malhar Rao Holkar. Najib and his family are permitted to leave the Fort along with most of their property, and the Emperor Alamgir II is restored to the Mughal throne as a nominal ruler. [159]
September 13 – Pomeranian War: a column of troops from Sweden begins the surprise invasion of Prussia, setting up a pontoon bridge across the Peene River that marks the boundary between Swedish Pomerania and northern Prussia. After crossing at Loitz in the early morning hours, the troops march 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) and begin the occupation of the undefended Prussian town of Demmin. Hours later, another Swedish infantry regiment charges across the border into the Prussian town of Anklam, where the city gate had been left open. [162]
October 4 – Bearing British flags, two French privateers sail up the Gambia River and attempt to capture the British fort on James Island, but their ruse is discovered the next day before they can stage their attack. The two ships are captured by the Royal Navy after retreating [164]
October 14 – Of the 442 men, women and children who are convicted for their roles in the Oporto riot in February, 13 men and one woman are hanged; afterward, their bodies are then quartered and the severed limbs are publicly displayed on spikes. Another 49 men and 10 women are exiled at Portuguese colonies in Africa and India, and the others are either flogged, imprisoned or pressed into service rowing galley ships. [148]
October 24 – 1757 Hajj caravan raid: Led by Bedouin warriors of the Beni Sakhr tribe conducts a massive assault against a caravan of thousands of Muslim travelers who are on their way back to Damascus after the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. The attack, made at Hallat Ammar after the group has been resupplied at Tabuk, leads to the annihilation of 20,000 of the pilgrims. Those who are not killed outright die later in the desert from thirst and starvation. [165] According to one Arabic source, the largest attack takes place on 10 Safar 1171 A.H. (October 24, 1757)
December 5 – Seven Years' War – Battle of Leuthen: Frederick defeats Prince Charles's Austrian army, in what is generally considered the Prussian king's greatest tactical victory.
Robert Wood publishes The ruins of Balbec, otherwise Heliopolis in Coelosyria in English and French, making the ancient city of Baalbek, Syria known to the West.
January 22 – Russian troops under the command of William Fermor invade East Prussia and capture Königsberg with 34,000 soldiers; although the city is later abandoned by Russia after the Seven Years' War ends, the city again comes under Russian control in 1945 during World War II and is now named Kaliningrad.[173]
February 22 – A fleet of 158 British Royal Navy warships, under the command of Admiral Edward Boscawen, departs from Plymouth toward North America in an effort to conquer the French Canadian territories of New France. Many of the sailors die of nutritional deficiencies along the way, including the scurvy that kills 26 of the crew of HMS Pembroke, captained by future world explorer James Cook on his first long voyage.[174]
February 23 – Jonathan Edwards, the famed English theologian who had assumed the presidency of what is now Princeton University only a week earlier, sets an example for students and faculty by publicly receiving an inoculation against smallpox.[175] Unfortunately, the vaccine contains live smallpox; Edwards develops the disease and dies on March 22 at the age of 54.
June 9–10 – Spanish-Barbary Wars – Battle of Cape Palos: a Spanish squadron of three ships of the line defeats a Barbary squadron made up of a ship of the line and a frigate.
Marquis Gabriel de Lernay, a French officer captured during the Seven Years' War, establishes a military lodge in Berlin, with the help of Baron de Printzen, master of The Three Globes Lodge at Berlin, and Philipp Samuel Rosa, a disgraced former pastor.
February 17 – "The greatest fleet that had ever put out for America"[182] departs from Portsmouth with 250 ships (including 49 Royal Navy warships under the command of Vice Admiral Charles Saunders, on a mission to capture French-controlled Quebec.[183] The ships bring 14,000 sailors, marines and British Army troops under the command of Major General James Wolfe, along with another 7,000 men in merchant service.
June 4 – After arriving at Canada, the Royal Navy fleet sails out of British-controlled Halifax toward the St. Lawrence River to prepare the invasion of French Quebec.[184]
June 15 – The first vascular surgery in history is performed by a Dr. Hallowell (whose first name has been lost) at Newcastle upon Tyne in England, who uses suture repair rather than a tying off with a ligature to repair an aneurysm on a patient's brachial artery. The case is reported in 1761 by Dr. Richard Lambert in the paper "A new technique of treating an aneurysm", published in the journal Medical Observations and Inquiries.[185] The new procedure of reconstructing a damaged artery replaces the practice of ligation that had risked the amputation of a limb or organ failure.[186]
June 26 – After their fleet finishes navigation of the St. Lawrence and arriving at the Île d'Orléans, British troops go ashore on France's North American territory and begin the siege of Quebec City.[183]
August 18 – Battle of Lagos: The British fleet of Edward Boscawen defeats a French force under Commodore Jean-François de La Clue-Sabran off the Portuguese coast.
September 10 – Battle of Pondicherry: An inconclusive naval battle is fought off the coast of India, between the French Admiral d'Aché and the British under George Pocock. The French forces are badly damaged and sail home, never to return.
Churton Town, the Orange County, North Carolina county seat laid out in 1754, is renamed Childsburgh, in honor of North Carolina attorney general Thomas Child. It is later renamed Hillsborough in 1766.
Madame du Coudray publishes Abrégé de l'art des accouchements (The Art of Obstetrics), and the French government authorizes her to carry her instruction "throughout the realm" and promises financial support.
Significant people
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^"Fires", in The New International Encyclopedia (Volume 8) (Dodd, Mead and Company, 1915 p604
^R. B. Cunninghame Graham, A Vanished Arcadia, being Some Account of the Jesuits in Paraguay (Haskell House Publishers, 1901, 1968) pp237-238
^Heather S. Nathans, Early American Theatre from the Revolution to Thomas Jefferson: Into the Hands of the People (Cambridge University Press, 2003) p30
^Henry P. Scalf, Kentucky's Last Frontier (The Overmountain Press, 2000) pp33-34
^"Antislavery Movements", by Marie-Annick Gournet, in France and the Americas, ed. by Bill Marshall (ABC-CLIO, 2005) p77
^Herbert Eugene Bolton, Texas in the Middle Eighteenth Century— Studies in Spanish Colonial History and Administration (University of California Press, 1915) p303
^A. J. B. Johnston, Endgame 1758: The Promise, the Glory, and the Despair of Louisbourg's Last Decade (University of Nebraska Press, 2007) p60
^"Child Abduction Panic", in Outbreak!: The Encyclopedia of Extraordinary Social Behavior, ed. by Hilary Evans and Robert E. Bartholomew (Anomalist Books, LLC, 2009) pp83-84
^Henri Martin, The Decline of the French Monarchy (Walker, Fuller and Company, 1866) p395
^Halldór Hermannsson, Islandica: An Annual Relating to Iceland and the Fiske Icelandic Collection in Cornell University Library (Cornell University Library, 1922) p23
^Kevin Hillstrom and Laurie Collier Hillstrom, The Industrial Revolution in America (ABC-CLIO, 2005) pp4-5
^Alcira Duenas, Indians and Mestizos in the "Lettered City" (University Press of Colorado, 2011)
^Cornelius Walford, ed., The Insurance Cyclopeadia: Being an Historical Treasury of Events and Circumstances Connected with the Origin and Progress of Insurance (C. and E. Layton, 1876) p52
^Christopher C. Meyers, The Empire State of the South: Georgia History in Documents and Essays (Mercer University Press, 2008) p113
^Ian S. Glass, Nicolas-Louis De La Caille, Astronomer and Geodesist (Oxford University Press, 2013) pp30-33
^Thomas Maclear, Verification and Extension of La Caille's Arc of Meridian at the Cape of Good Hope (Mowry and Barclay, 1838) p58
^"Crispus Attucks— First martyr of the American Revolution", by Lerone Bennett, Jr., Ebony magazine (July 1968) p87
^KaaVonia Hinton, The Story of the Underground Railroad (Mitchell Lane Publishers, 2010) p24
^Max Savelle, Empires to Nations: Expansion in America, 1713-1824 (University of Minnesota Press, 1974) p131
^"The First Transfer at the Louvre in 1750: Andrea del Sarto's La Charite", by Gilberte Emile-Male, in Issues in the Conservation of Paintings (Getty Publications, 2004) p278
^Weinreb, Ben; Hibbert, Christopher (1995). The London Encyclopaedia. Macmillan. p. 976. ISBN0-333-57688-8.
^John Kenrick, Musical Theatre: A History (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017) p36
^"In a Porcelain Mirror: Reflections of Russia from Peter I to Empress Elizabeth", by Lydia Liackhova, in Fragile Diplomacy: Moisson Porcelain for European courts ca. 1710-63 (Yale University Press, 2007) p74
^Fielding H. Garrison, An Introduction to the History of Medicine: With Medical Chronology, Suggestions for Study and Bibliographic Data (W.B. Saunders Company, 1913) p394
^Clear, Todd R.; Cole, George F.; Resig, Michael D. (2006). American Corrections (7th ed.). Thompson.
^James Van Horn Melton, Religion, Community, and Slavery on the Colonial Southern Frontier (Cambridge University Press, 2015) p. 232
^Charles E. Cobb Jr., On the Road to Freedom: A Guided Tour of the Civil Rights Trail (Algonquin Books, 2008) p. 156
^Benjamin Franklin. Nathan G. Goodman; Peter Conn (eds.). The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin: Penn Reading Project Edition. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 92.
^James L. Chen; Adam Chen (2015). A Guide to Hubble Space Telescope Objects: Their Selection, Location, and Significance. Springer. p. 53. Bibcode:2015ghst.book.....C.
^Elizabeth A. H. John, Storms Brewed in Other Men's Worlds: The Confrontation of Indians, Spanish, and French in the Southwest, 1540-1795 (University of Oklahoma Press, 1996) p324
^"Afghan-Sikh Wars (Durrani-Sikh Wars)", by Melodee M. Baines, in Afghanistan at War: From the 18th-Century Durrani Dynasty to the 21st Century, ed. by Tom Lansford (ABC-CLIO, 2017) p20
^Kelly Donahue-Wallace, Jerónimo Antonio Gil and the Idea of the Spanish Enlightenment (University of New Mexico Press, 2017) p38
^Ian Simpson Ross, The Life of Adam Smith (Oxford University Press, 2010)
^ abcTom Tucker, Bolt Of Fate: Benjamin Franklin And His Fabulous Kite (PublicAffairs, 2009) p135-140
^"Fires, Great", in The Insurance Cyclopeadia: Being an Historical Treasury of Events and Circumstances Connected with the Origin and Progress of Insurance, Cornelius Walford, ed. (C. and E. Layton, 1876) p52
^Alan Axelrod, A Savage Empire: Trappers, Traders, Tribes, and the Wars That Made America (Macmillan, 2011) p131
^"A. P. Gannibal: On the Occasion of the Three Hundredth Anniversary of the Birth of Alexander Pushkin's Great-Grandfather", by N. K. Teletova, in Under the Sky of My Africa: Alexander Pushkin and Blackness, ed. by Catharine Theimer Nepomnyashchy, et al. (Northwestern University Press, 2006) p69
^William Arceneaux, No Spark of Malice: The Murder of Martin Begnaud (Louisiana State University Press, 2004) p56
^Christine Clepper Musser, Images of America: Silver Spring Township (Arcadia Publishing, 2014) p31
^Beverly Hamel, American Chronicles: Bethania— The Village by the Black Walnut Bottom (Arcadia Publishing, 2009)
^Jay Barnes, Florida's Hurricane History (University of North Carolina Press, 2012) p47
^Dianne Marshall, Heroes of the Acadian Resistance: The Story of Joseph Beausoleil Broussard and Pierre II Surette 1702-1765 (Formac Publishing, 2011) p105
^"Aboriginal Rights v. Government Legislation", by Graydon Nicholas, in The Maritimes: Tradition, Challenge, ed. by George Peabody, et al. (Maritext, Ltd., 1987) p257
^"Shylock as the American Capitalist", by Elaine Brousseau, in Merchants, Barons, Sellers and Suits: The Changing Images of the Businessman through Literature, ed. by Christa Mahalik (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010) p95
^Anton A. Huurdeman, The Worldwide History of Telecommunications (John Wiley & Sons, 2003) p48
^ abDana Y. Rabin, Britain and its internal others, 1750-1800: Under rule of law (Oxford University Press, 2017)
^Cobbett's Parliamentary History of England: From the Norman Conquest, in 1066, to the Year, 1803, Volume 15, p86
^Johanna Miller Lewis, Artisans in the North Carolina Backcountry (University Press of Kentucky, 2015) p28
^Fred Anderson, Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766 (Vintage Books, 2000) p37
^"French and Indian War", by Matt Schumann, in The Encyclopedia of North American Indian Wars, 1607–1890: A Political, Social, and Military History, ed. by Spencer Tucker, et al. (ABC-CLIO, 2011) p310
^Darrell Fields and Lorrie Fields, The Seed of a Nation: Rediscovering America (Morgan James Publishing, 2007)
^William R. Nester, The Great Frontier War: Britain, France, and the Imperial Struggle for North America, 1607-1755 (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2000) p42
^Maurice Esses, Dance and Instrumental Diferencias in Spain During the 17th and Early 18th Centuries: History and background, music and dance (Pendragon Press, 1992) pp535-536
^"Fires, Great", in The Insurance Cyclopeadia: Being an Historical Treasury of Events and Circumstances Connected with the Origin and Progress of Insurance, Cornelius Walford, ed. (C. and E. Layton, 1876) p52
^David Marley, Wars of the Americas: A Chronology of Armed Conflict in the Western Hemisphere, 1492 to the Present (ABC-CLIO, 2008) p389
^"Hallerstein and Gruber's Scientific Heritage", by Stanislav Joze Juznic, in The Circulation of Science and Technology: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference of the European Society for the History of Science (Societat Catalana d'Història de la Ciència i de la Tècnica, 2012) p358
^John Hrastar, Breaking the Appalachian Barrier: Maryland as the Gateway to Ohio and the West, 1750–1850 (McFarland, 2018) p96
^Barbara Anne Ganson, The Guarani Under Spanish Rule in the Rio de la Plata (Stanford University Press, 2005) p104
^ abcAlan Rogers, Empire and Liberty: American Resistance to British Authority, 1755-1763 (University of California Press, 1974) pp13-19
^ abRobert McCaughey, Stand, Columbia: A History of Columbia University (Columbia University Press, 2003) p21
^Farris W. Cadle, Georgia Land Surveying History and Law (University of Georgia Press, 1991) p29
^Edward J. Cashin, Governor Henry Ellis and the Transformation of British North America (University of Georgia Press, 2007) p61
^John A. Nagy, George Washington's Secret Spy War: The Making of America's First Spymaster (St. Martin's Press, 2016) p37
^"Johnson, Susannah", by Marcia Schmidt Blaine, in An Encyclopedia of American Women at War: From the Home Front to the Battlefields, ed. by Lisa Tendrich Frank (ABC-CLIO, 2013) pp332-333
^Charles Hutton, et al., The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, from Their Commencement, in 1665, to the Year 1800, Volume X: From 1750 to 1755 (C. and R. Baldwin, 1809) p549
^Andrew Hempstead, Canadian Rockies: Including Banff & Jasper National Parks, Moon Handbooks (Avalon Publishing, 2016)
^Philip A. Kuhn, Chinese Among Others: Emigration in Modern Times (Rowman & Littlefield, 2009) p94
^Isaac Dookhan, A History of the Virgin Islands of the United States (Caribbean Universities Press, 1974, reprinted by Canoe Press, 1994) p200
^Kaveh Farrokh, Iran at War: 1500-1988 (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2011)
^Paul R. Wonning, Colonial American History Stories, 1753–1763: Forgotten and Famous Historical Events (Mossy Feet Books, 2017)
^Rodney Bruce Hall, National Collective Identity: Social Constructs and International Systems (Columbia University Press, 1999) p116
^Philip Smucker, Riding with George: Sportsmanship & Chivalry in the Making of America's First President (Chicago Review Press, 2017)
^ abcJonathan R. Dull, The Miracle of American Independence: Twenty Ways Things Could Have Turned Out Differently (University of Nebraska Press, 2015) p22
^Federal Writers' Project, The WPA Guide to Texas: The Lone Star State (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1934, reprinted by Trinity University Press, 2013)
^David L. Preston, Braddock's Defeat: The Battle of the Monongahela and the Road to Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2015) p112
^Frank Basil Tracy, The Tercentenary History of Canada: From Champlain to Laurier, MDCVIII-MCMVIII, Volume II (P. F. Collier & Son, 1908) p387
^Stuart P. Boehmig, Images of America: Downtown Pittsburgh (Arcadia Publishing, 2007) p13
^Phillip Papas, Renegade Revolutionary: The Life of General Charles Lee (New York University Press, 2014) p30
^"Black (Joseph)", in Bibliotheca Osleriana: A Catalogue of Books Illustrating the History of Medicine and Science by Sir William Osler (McGill-Queen's University Press, 1969) p116
^"North Carolina", in Encyclopedia of Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones, by David Longshore (Infobase Publishing, 2010) p330
^"Hallerstein and Gruber's Scientific Heritage", by Stanislav Joze Juznic, in The Circulation of Science and Technology: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference of the European Society for the History of Science (Societat Catalana d'Història de la Ciència i de la Tècnica, 2012) p358
^David R. Starbuck, The Legacy of Fort William Henry: Resurrecting the Past (University Press of New England, 2014)
^Alfred A. Cave, The French and Indian War (Greenwood, 2004) p115
^Ian Grey, Catherine the Great (New Word City, 2016)
^'Treasures of Vacheron Constantin: A Legacy of Watchmaking since 1755'
by Julien Marchenoir
^"Periphery as Center: Slavery, Identity, and the Commercial Press in the British Atlantic, 1704-1755", by Robert E. Desrochers, Jr., in British North America in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, ed. by Stephen Foster (Oxford University Press, 2016)
^Dee Morris and Dora St. Martin, Somerville, Massachusetts: A Brief History (Arcadia Publishing, 2008)
^Harvey M. Feinberg, Africans and Europeans in West Africa: Elminans and Dutchmen on the Gold Coast During the Eighteenth Century (American Philosophical Society, 1989) p108
^Naomi Griffiths, Mason Wade, Acadia and Quebec (McGill-Queen's University Press, 1991) p110
^Kevin Kenny, Peaceable Kingdom Lost: The Paxton Boys and the Destruction of William Penn's Holy Experiment (Oxford University Press, 2011) p71
^Helgi Björnsson, The Glaciers of Iceland: A Historical, Cultural and Scientific Overview (Springer, 2016) pp244-245
^Reiter, Frederick J. (1995). They built Utopia: the Jesuit missions in Paraguay, 1610-1768. Potomac, Md.: Scripta Humanistica. p. 194. ISBN1-882528-11-5. OCLC32427398.
^Marley, David (2008). Wars of the Americas: A Chronology of Armed Conflict in the Western Hemisphere, 1492 to the Present. ABC-CLIO. p. 414.
^Ganson, Barbara (2005). The Guaraní Under Spanish Rule in the Río de la Plata. Stanford University Press. pp. 107–108.
^Athale, Col. Anil (April–June 2017). "Anglo-Maratha Struggle for Empire: The Importance of Maritime Power". Indian Defence Review.
^"History". Marine Society. Archived from the original on 2012-01-21. Retrieved 2012-01-06.
^"Danish Business Delegation to Turkey"(PDF). Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2011-06-01. Retrieved 2010-12-11. Trade between our two countries can be dated centuries back. In 1756 Denmark and The Ottoman Empire signed a treaty on commerce and friendship, which paved the way for closer ties both human and commercial between our two people...
^Gordon Carruth, ed., The Encyclopedia of American Facts and Dates 3rd Edition (Thomas Y. Crowell, 1962) p72
^Newman, Frank G. (January 1965). "The Acquisition of a Life Insurance Company". The Business Lawyer. 20 (2). American Bar Association: 411–416. Retrieved 2016-04-04. The first life insurance company in America was organized in 1759 under the corporate title 'The Corporation for Relief of Poor and Distressed Presbyterian Ministers, and of the Poor and Distressed Widows and Children of Presbyterian Ministers'.
^ "Fires, Great", in The Insurance Cyclopeadia: Being an Historical Treasury of Events and Circumstances Connected with the Origin and Progress of Insurance, Cornelius Walford, ed. (C. and E. Layton, 1876) p53
^Royal Observatory Greenwich souvenir guide. National Maritime Museum. 2012. pp. 34–35. ISBN978-1-906367-51-0. the first precision watch and considered by many today as the most important timekeeper ever.