18th century

Published on Monday, March 12th 2007. Edited by Elf Illpetdub, Seoul, Korea, Republic of.

Millennium: 2nd millennium

Centuries: 17th century · 18th century · 19th century

Decades: 1700s 1710s 1720s 1730s 1740s 1750s 1760s 1770s 1780s 1790s

Categories: Births – Deaths Establishments – Disestablishments

The 18th century lasted from 1701 to 1800 in the Gregorian calendar, in accordance with the Anno Domini era numbering system.

Historians sometimes specifically define the 18th century otherwise for the purposes of their work. For example the “short” 18th century may be defined as 1715-1789, denoting the period of time between the death of Louis XIV of France and the start of the French Revolution, while the “long” 18th century may run from the Glorious Revolution of 1688 to the battle of Waterloo in 1815 or even later.

Emanuel Leutze’s stylized depiction of Washington Crossing the Delaware (1851) is an iconic image of heroic action by Washington.

The storming of the Bastille, July 14, 1789, an iconic event of the French Revolution.

Events

1700s

John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, English general

1712-21: Russia supplants Sweden as the dominant Baltic power after the Great Northern War.
1701-1714: War of the Spanish Succession was a conflict which involved most of Europe.
1702-1715: Camisard Rebellion in France.
1703: Saint Petersburg founded by Peter the Great. Russian capital until 1918.
1703-1711: The Rákóczi Uprising against the Habsburg Monarchy.
1707: Act of Union passed merging the Scottish and the English Parliaments, thus establishing The Kingdom of Great Britain.
1707: After Aurangzeb’s death, the Mughal Empire enters a long decline.
1708-1709: Famine killed one-third of East Prussia’s population.

1710s

1715: First Jacobite Rebellion breaks out
1715: Louis XIV died leaving France deep in debt.
1718: City of New Orleans founded by the French in North America
1718: Blackbeard is killed by Robert Maynard in a North Carolina inlet on the inner side of Ocracoke Island

1720s

1720: The South Sea Bubble
1720-1721: The Great Plague of Marseille
1721: Robert Walpole became the first Prime Minister of Great Britain (de facto).
1721: Treaty of Nystad signed, ending the Great Northern War.
1722-23: Russo-Persian War
1722: Afghans conquered Iran, ending the Safavid dynasty.
1722: Kangxi Emperor of China died.
1722: Bartholomew Roberts is killed in a sea battle off the African coast.
1723: Slavery abolished in Russia. Peter the Great converted the household slaves into house serfs.
1723-1730: The “Great Disaster” – an invasion of Kazakh territories by the Dzungars.
1725: The Fulani nomads took complete control of Fuuta Jallon and set up the first of many Fulani jihad states to come.
1726: The enormous Chinese encyclopedia Gujin Tushu Jicheng of over 100 million written Chinese characters in over 800,000 pages is printed in 60 different copies using copper-based Chinese movable type printing.

1730s

Qianlong Emperor

1732-1734: Crimean Tatar raids into Russia.
1733-38: War of the Polish Succession.
1735-39: Russo-Turkish War.
1735-99: The Qianlong Emperor of China oversaw a huge expansion in territory.
1736: Nadir Shah assumed title of Shah of Persia and founded the Afsharid dynasty. Ruled until his death in 1747.
1736: Qing Dynasty Chinese court painters recreate Zhang Zeduan’s classic panoramic painting, Along the River During Qingming Festival.
1738-1756: Famine across the Sahel, half the population of Timbuktu died.
1739: Nadir Shah defeated the Mughals and sacked Delhi.

1740s

1740: Frederick the Great comes to power in Prussia.
1740-1741: Famine in Ireland killed ten per cent of the population.
1740-48: War of the Austrian Succession
1741: Russians began settling the Aleutian Islands.
1744: The First Saudi State is founded by Mohammed Ibn Saud.
1745: Second Jacobite Rebellion began in Scotland.
1747: Ahmed Shah Durrani founded the Durrani Empire in modern day Afghanistan.

1750s

1750: Peak of the Little Ice Age
1754–1763, The French and Indian War, Fought in the U.S. and Canada mostly between the French and French allies and the English and English allies. The North American chapter of the Seven Years' War.
1755: The Lisbon earthquake
1756–63: Seven Years' War fought among European powers in various theaters around the world.
1757: Battle of Plassey signaled the beginning of British rule in India.

Frederick II the Great, King of Prussia.

1760s

1760: George III became King of Britain.
1762–96: Reign of Catherine the Great of Russia.
1766–99: Anglo-Mysore Wars
1767: Burmese conquered the Ayutthaya kingdom.
1768: Gurkhas conquered Nepal.
1768–1774: Russo-Turkish War
1769: Spanish missionaries established the first of 21 missions in California.
1769–73: The Bengal famine of 1770 killed one third of the Bengal population.

1770s

1770–1771: Famine in Czech lands killed hundreds of thousands.
1771: The Plague Riot in Moscow.
1772–1795: The Partitions of Poland ended the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and erased Poland from the map for 123 years.
1772: Gustav III of Sweden stages a coup d'état and takes big political power, becoming almost an absolute monarch.
1773–1775: The Pugachev’s Rebellion was the largest peasant revolt in Russia’s history.
1775 John Harrison H4 and Larcum Kendall K1 Marine chronometers are used to measure longitude by James Cook on his Second voyage (1772-1775)
1775–1782: First Anglo-Maratha War
1775–1783: American Revolutionary War
1779–1879: Xhosa Wars between British and Boer settlers and the Xhosas in South African Republic

Scottish engineer and inventor James Watt.

1780s

1781: Spanish settlers founded Los Angeles.
1781–1785: Serfdom abolished in the Austrian monarchy (first step; second step in 1848)
1783: Famine in Iceland caused by Laki (volcano) eruption.
1783: Russian Empire annexed the Crimean Khanate.
1785–1791: Imam Sheikh Mansur, a Chechen warrior and Muslim mystic, led a coalition of Muslim Caucasian tribes from throughout the Caucasus in a holy war against the Russian invaders.
1785–95: Northwest Indian War between the United States and Native Americans
1787: Freed slaves from London founded Freetown in present-day Sierra Leone.
1787–1792: Russo-Turkish War
1788: First European settlement established in Australia at Sydney.
1789: George Washington elected President of the United States. Served until 1797.
1789–99: The French Revolution

1790s

1791–1804: The Haitian Revolution
1792–1815: The Great French War started as the French Revolutionary Wars which lead into the Napoleonic Wars.
1792: New York Stock & Exchange Board founded.
1793: Upper Canada bans slavery.
1793: The largest yellow fever epidemic in American history killed as many as 5,000 people in Philadelphia—roughly 10% of the population.
1793–1796: Revolt in the Vendée against the French Republic at the time of the Revolution.
1794: Polish revolt
1795: Pinckney’s Treaty between the United States and Spain granted the Mississippi Territory to the US.
1795: The Marseillaise officially adopted as the French national anthem.
1795: Kamehameha I of the Island of Hawaii defeats the Oahuans at the Battle of Nu'uanu.

The Battle of New Ross took place in Ireland, during the Irish Rebellion of 1798.

1796: Edward Jenner administers the first smallpox vaccination. Smallpox killed an estimated 400,000 Europeans each year during the 18th century (including five reigning monarchs).
1796: Battle of Montenotte. Engagement in the War of the First Coalition. Napoleon Bonaparte’s first victory as an army commander.
1796: British ejected Dutch from Ceylon.
1796: Mungo Park, backed by the African Association, is the first European to set eyes on the Niger River in Africa.
1796–1804: The White Lotus Rebellion against the Manchu Dynasty in China.
1797: Napoleon’s invasion and partition of the Republic of Venice ended over 1,000 years of independence for the Serene Republic.
1798: The Irish Rebellion failed to overthrow British rule in Ireland.
1798–1800: Quasi-War between the United States and France.
1799: Napoleon staged a coup d'état and became dictator of France.
1799: Dutch East India Company is dissolved.
1799: The assassination of the 14th Tu'i Kanokupolu, Tukuʻaho, plunges Tonga into half a century of civil war.

Significant people

Ahmad Shah Abdali, Afghan King
John Adams, American statesman
Samuel Adams American statesman
Ethan Allen, American Revolutionary Army
Queen Anne, British monarch
Aurangzeb, Mughal Emperor
Catherine the Great, Russian Tsaritsa
Charles III of Spain, Spanish monarch
James Cook, British navigator
Charlotte Corday, killed Jean-Paul Marat
Georges Danton, French revolutionary leader
Benjamin Franklin, American leader, scientist and statesman

Benjamin Franklin

Frederick the Great, Prussian monarch
King George III, British monarch
Alexander Hamilton, American statesman
Patrick Henry, American statesman
Thomas Jefferson, American statesman
John Paul Jones, American naval commander
Joseph II, Austrian Emperor
Kangxi Emperor, China

Peter the Great

Paul Revere by John Singleton Copley

Marquis de Lafayette, Continental Army officer
Alphonsus Liguori, Italian bishop, founder of Redemptorists, Saint
Louis XV of France, French monarch
Louis XVI of France, French monarch
James Madison, American statesman
Alessandro Malaspina, Spanish explorer
Jean-Paul Marat, Influential French journalist
Maria Theresa of Austria, Austrian Empress
Marie Antoinette, Austrian-born Queen of France
Michikinikwa, Miami tribe chief and war leader
Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu, French thinker
José Moñino y Redondo, Count of Floridablanca, Spanish statesman
Nadir Shah, Persian King
Thomas Paine, British intellectual
Peter I of Russia (Peter the Great), Russian Tsar
Philip V of Spain, Spanish monarch
Pius VI, Roman Pope
Marquis of Pombal, Portuguese Prime Minister
Chief Pontiac, Ottawa warrior
Qianlong Emperor, China
Francis II Rákóczi, prince of Hungary and Transylvania, Revolutionary leader
Bartolomeo Rastrelli, Italian-born Russian architect
Paul Revere, American patriot, silversmith
Maximilien Robespierre, French revolutionary leader
Betsy Ross, American flag maker
John Small, English cricketer
Edward “Lumpy” Stevens, English cricketer
Alexander Suvorov, Russian military leader
Toussaint L'Ouverture, Haitian revolutionary leader

George Washington

Túpac Amaru II, Peruvian revolutionary
Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab, Arab Islamic theologian and founder of Wahhabism
Robert Walpole, British Prime Minister
George Washington, American general and first President of The United States
John Wesley, British churchman, founder of Methodism
Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, German religious writer and bishop

Show business and Theatre

Barton Booth, actor
Colley Cibber, actor, poet, playwright
Thomas Doggett, actor
David Garrick, actor
Charles Johnson
Charles Macklin, actor
Anne Oldfield, actress
Hester Santlow, actress, ballerina, dancer
Richard Brinsley Sheridan, playwright
Robert Wilks, actor

Musicians, composers

Johann Sebastian Bach

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin

Tomaso Albinoni, Italian composer
Johann Sebastian Bach, German composer
François Couperin, French composer
Christoph Willibald Gluck, German composer
Francesco Geminiani, Italian violinist, composer, and music theorist.
George Frideric Handel, German-English composer
Joseph Haydn, Austrian composer
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Austrian composer
Johann Pachelbel, German composer, teacher
François-André Danican Philidor, French composer and chess master
Jean-Philippe Rameau, French composer
Domenico Scarlatti, Italian composer.
Antonio Stradivari, Italian violin maker
Antonio Vivaldi, Italian composer

Visual artists, painters, sculptors, printmakers

William Blake, English artist and poet
Edmé Bouchardon, French sculptor
François Boucher, French painter
Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, French painter
John Singleton Copley, American painter
Jacques-Louis David, French painter
Étienne Maurice Falconet, French sculptor
Jean-Honoré Fragonard, French painter
Thomas Gainsborough, English painter
Francisco de Goya, Spanish painter
Jean-Baptiste Greuze, French painter
William Hogarth, English painter and engraver
Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, French sculptor, student of his father
Jean-Louis Lemoyne, French sculptor
Robert Le Lorrain, French sculptor
Sir Joshua Reynolds, British painter
Gilbert Stuart, American painter
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Venetian painter
Jiang Tingxi, Chinese artist and scholar
Kitagawa Utamaro, Japanese printmaker and painter
Antoine Watteau, French painter

Writers, poets

Samuel Johnson

Ueda Akinari, Japanese writer
Pierre Beaumarchais, French writer
Robert Burns, Scottish poet
Giacomo Casanova, Venetian adventurer, writer and womanizer
Denis Diderot, French writer and philosopher
Henry Fielding British novelist
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German writer
Eliza Haywood, English writer
Samuel Johnson, British writer and literary critic
Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, Spanish writer
Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, French writer
Yuan Mei, Chinese poet, scholar and artist
Honoré Mirabeau French writer and politician
Alexander Pope, British poet
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, French writer and philosopher
Marquis de Sade, French writer and philosopher
Friedrich Schiller, German writer
Charlotte Turner Smith, English writer
Laurence Sterne, British writer
Jonathan Swift, Anglo-Irish satirist
Voltaire, French writer and philosopher
Mary Wollstonecraft, British writer and feminist
Cao Xueqin, Chinese writer

Scientists and philosophers

Edward Jenner

Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Italian mathematician
Jean le Rond d'Alembert, French mathematician, physicist and encyclopedist
Laura Bassi, Italian scientist, the first European female college teacher
George Berkeley, Irish empiricist philosopher
Jeremy Bentham, English philosopher and reformer
Daniel Bernoulli, Swiss mathematician and physicist
Edmund Burke, British statesman and philosopher
Alexis Clairault, French mathematician
Eugenio Espejo, Ecuadorian scientist
Leonhard Euler, Swiss mathematician
David Hume, Scottish philosopher
Edward Jenner, English inventor of vaccination
Carl Friedrich Gauss, German mathematician, physicist and astronomer
Immanuel Kant, German philosopher

Emanuel Swedenborg

Joseph Louis Lagrange, Italian-French mathematician and physicist
Pierre Simon Laplace, French physicist and mathematician
John Law, Scottish economist
Mikhail Lomonosov, Russian scientist
Antoine Lavoisier, French chemist
Adrien-Marie Legendre, French mathematician
Carolus Linnaeus (Carl von Linné), Swedish biologist
Adam Smith, Scottish economist and philosopher
Emanuel Swedenborg, Swedish scientist, thinker and mystic
Antonio de Ulloa, Spanish scientist and explorer
James Watt, Scottish scientist and inventor

Inventions, discoveries, introductions

The Spinning Jenny

1709: The first piano was built by Bartolomeo Cristofori
1712: Steam Engine invented by Thomas Newcomen.
1717: The diving bell was successfully tested by Edmond Halley, sustainable to a depth of 55 ft.
c. 1730: The octant navigational tool was developed by John Hadley in England, and Thomas Godfrey in America
1736: Europeans discovered rubber – the discovery was made by Charles-Marie de la Condamine while on expedition in South America. It was named in 1770 by Joseph Priestly
c. 1740: Modern steel was developed by Benjamin Huntsman
1741: Vitus Bering discovered Alaska
1745: The Leyden jar invented by Ewald von Kleist was the first electrical capacitor
1751 – 1785: The French Encyclopédie
1755: The English Dictionary by Samuel Johnson
1755: The tallest wooden Bodhisattva statue in the world is erected at Puning Temple, Chengde, China.
1764: The Spinning Jenny created by James Hargreaves brought on the Industrial Revolution
1765: James Watt enhances Newcomen’s steam engine, allowing new steel technologies
1761: The problem of Longitude was finally resolved by the fourth chronometer of John Harrison
1768–1779: James Cook mapped the boundaries of the Pacific Ocean and discovered many Pacific Islands
1771: The enormous Putuo Zongcheng Temple complex of Chengde, China is completed
1773–1782: The Qing Dynasty huge literary compilation Siku Quanshu
1776: The Wealth of Nations, foundation of the modern theory of economy, was published by Adam Smith
1779: Photosynthesis was first discovered by Jan Ingenhousz of the Netherlands
1798: Edward Jenner publishes a treatise about smallpox vaccination
1799: Rosetta stone discovered by Napoleon’s troops