1720s

This is a list of events occurring in the 1720s, ordered by year.

1720

January–June

• February 11 – Sweden and Prussia sign the Treaty of Stockholm (Great Northern War).
• February 17 – Treaty of The Hague signed between Spain, Britain, France, Austria and the Dutch Republic, ending the War of the Quadruple Alliance.^[1]
• February 29 – Queen Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden resigns to let her husband Frederick I take over as king of Sweden. She had desired a joint rule, in a similar manner to William and Mary in Britain, but as the Swedish Riksdag of the Estates refuses this, she abdicates in her husband's favour instead.
• March 24 – The Riksdag of the Estates elects Frederick I new King of Sweden.
• April – "South Sea Bubble" in England: A scheme for the South Sea Company to take over most of the unconsolidated national debt of Britain massively inflated share prices.

July–December

• July 12 – The Lords Justice in Great Britain attempt to curb some of the excesses of the stock markets during the "South Sea Bubble". They dissolve a number of petitions for patents and charters, and abolish more than 80 joint-stock companies of dubious merit, but this has little effect on the creation of "Bubbles", ephemeral joint-stock companies created during the hysteria of the times.^[2]
• September – "South Sea Bubble": The English stock market crashes with dropping prices for stock in the South Sea Company.
• November 16 – Pirate "Calico Jack" Rackham is brought to trial at Spanish Town in Jamaica; he is hanged at Port Royal two days later.

Date unknown

• Tuscarora people leave North Carolina as a result of European colonization.
• The Town on Queen Anne's Creek, North Carolina is renamed Edenton in honor of North Carolina Governor Charles Eden; it is incorporated in 1722.
• The Kangxi Emperor announces that all western businessmen in China can trade only in Guangzhou.
• Edmond Halley is appointed as Astronomer Royal for England.
• The Academia Real da Historia is founded in Lisbon, Portugal.
• Jonathan Swift begins Gulliver's Travels.
• Il teatro alla moda, a satirical pamphlet by Benedetto Marcello, is published anonymously in Venice.
• The first yacht club in the world, the Royal Cork Yacht Club, is founded in Ireland.

1721

January–June

• January 6 – The Committee of Inquiry on the South Sea Bubble in England publishes its findings.
• March 24 – Johann Sebastian Bach's Brandenburg concertos completed and dedicated to Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg-Schwedt.
• April – Pirates John Taylor and Olivier Levasseur capture the 700-ton Portuguese galleon Nossa Senhora do Cabo at Réunion. The total value of treasure on board (from Goa) is estimated as between £100,000 and £875,000, one of the largest pirate hauls ever.^[3]
• April 4 – Robert Walpole becomes the first Prime Minister of Great Britain (although this is more a term of disparagement at this time).^[4]
• May 8 – Pope Innocent XIII succeeds Pope Clement XI as the 244th pope.

July–December

• September 10 – The Treaty of Nystad is signed, ending the Great Northern War.
• November 2 – Peter I is proclaimed the first Emperor of All the Russias. This replaces the 176-year-long Tsardom of Russia with the Russian Empire. It collapses in 1917.
• December 22 – Philip V of Spain signs in Lerma a Royal Decree transforming the Seminary of Saint Rose of Lima in Caracas into the Universidad Real y Pontificia de Caracas.

Date unknown

• José de Azlor y Virto de Vera, Marquis of San Miguel de Aguayo and governor of Spanish Texas, establishes the fort of Presidio La Bahía at its original location on the ruins of the failed French Fort Saint Louis.
• Regular mail service between Long Island and New England is established.^[5]
• A suggestion box is developed under the eighth shogun of Japan, Yoshimune Tokugawa.

1722

January–June

Ahu Akivi, Easter Island.

• March 8 – Battle of Gulnabad in Persia: Pashtun people of Afghanistan led by Mahmud Hotak decisively defeat forces of the Persian Safavid dynasty, precipitating its fall.
• April 5 (Easter Sunday) – Dutch admiral Jacob Roggeveen lands on what is now Easter Island.
• May 5 – Pennsylvania colony enacts a statute requiring all persons importing any person previously convicted of sodomy to pay £5 for each such incoming person.
• June 2 – Wapping, a male Negro slave owned by a Mr. Heale, is hanged for murder in the colony of Virginia.

July–December

• July – Russo-Persian War (1722–23) begins with Peter the Great's Persian campaign.
• July 25 – Father Rale's War (1722–25) begins along the Maine and Massachusetts border.
• August 15 – William Battin, 17, is hanged for arson and murder in the colony of Pennsylvania.
• October 23 – The six-month-long Siege of Isfahan ends when the Safavid capital Isfahan capitulates to the Afghan rebels. Safavid Sultan Husayn abdicates and acknowledges Mahmud Hotak as the new Shah of Persia.
• December 20 – After the longest reign by a Chinese Emperor in history (61 years), the Kangxi Emperor dies and is succeeded by his son Yinzhen as Yongzheng Emperor.

Date unknown

• The Silence Dogood letters appear, written by Benjamin Franklin.
• Edenton is incorporated as the county seat of Chowan County, North Carolina. The governor and assembly of North Carolina move to Edenton, making it the de facto capital of North Carolina until 1746, when the government is moved to New Bern.
• Peter the Great of Russia creates the Table of Ranks.
• A small group of Bohemian Brethren (the "Hidden Seed") from northern Moravia are allowed to settle in a new village, Herrnhut, on the Berthelsdorf estate of the pietist Count Nicolaus Zinzendorf in Upper Lusatia (Saxony), forming the Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine, seed of the Moravian Church's renewal.
• Foundation ot the first public theatre in Denmark, Lille Grønnegade Theatre in Copenhagen.
• Modern music theory finds definition in Jean-Philippe Rameau's Traité de l'harmonie réduite à ses principes naturels ("Treatise on Harmony"), published in Paris.
• Johann Sebastian Bach composes The Well-Tempered Clavier.

1723

January–June

• February 16 – Louis XV of France attains his majority.
• March 9 – Mapuche Uprising of 1723 begins in Chile.

July–December

• July – The Russian army, under Matyushkin, captures Baku.
• July 12 - Christian von Wolff Wolff held a lecture for students and the magistrates at the end of his term as a rector,^[6] as a result of which he is banned from Prussia on a charge of atheism.
• August – The Peterhof Palace opens just outside Saint Petersburg.
• September 1 – The Treaty of St. Petersburg is signed.
• November 23 – The Province of Carolina incorporates New Bern as Newbern (the town later becomes the capital of North Carolina).
• December 26 – Darzu ist erschienen der Sohn Gottes, BWV 40 by Johann Sebastian Bach is first performed in Leipzig.

Date unknown

• The Province of Carolina incorporates Beaufort, North Carolina, as the "Port of Beaufort", making it the third incorporated town in the province.
• The Four Seasons, a set of violin concertos by Antonio Vivaldi, was composed.

1724

January–June

• January 14 – King Philip V of Spain abdicates the throne in favour of his 16-year old son Louis I.
• January 22 – Bruno Mauricio de Zabala, Spanish Captain general of the Río de la Plata, forces the Portuguese to abandon their fortified settlement at what will become the city of Montevideo in Uruguay.
• January 28 – Saint Petersburg State University is established.
• February 8 – Catherine I of Russia is officially named czarina by her husband, Peter the Great.
• February 20 – The premiere of Giulio Cesare, an Italian opera by George Frideric Handel, takes place in London.
• April 7 – Premiere performance of the St John Passion (BWV 245) of Johann Sebastian Bach at St. Nicholas Church, Leipzig.
• May 29 – Pope Benedict XIII, born Pierro Orsini, succeeds Pope Innocent XIII as the 245th pope.

Blenheim Palace completed.

• June 23 – Treaty of Constantinople is signed, partitioning Persia between the Ottoman Empire and Russia.

July–December

• July 27 – 'Peter the Wild Boy' is captured near Helpensen in Hanover.
• August 31 – Louis I of Spain dies of smallpox aged 17 after a reign of 7 months and his father Philip V resumes the throne.
• November 11 – Joseph Blake (alias Blueskin), highwayman, is hanged in London.
• November 16
  • Jack Sheppard, highwayman and partner of crime of "Blueskin", is hanged in London.
  • Willem Mons, lover of Catherine I of Russia, is executed and his head preserved in alcohol.

Date unknown

• China expels foreign missionaries.
• Blenheim Palace construction is completed in England. It is presented as a gift from the nation to the Duke of Marlborough for his involvement in the Battle of Blenheim in 1704.
• The Austrian Netherlands agree to the Pragmatic Sanction.
• Shah Mahmud Hotaki of Afghanistan goes insane.
• Longman, the oldest surviving publishing house in England, is founded.

1725

January–June

• February 8 – Catherine I becomes Empress of Russia on the death of her husband, Peter the Great.
• February 20 – The first reported case of white men scalping Native Americans takes place in New Hampshire colony.
• March 2 – In London, a night watchman finds a severed head by the Thames; it is later recognized to be that of the husband of Catherine Hayes. She and one accomplice are later executed.
• March 30 – 2nd performance of Johann Sebastian Bach's St John Passion, BWV 245 (including 5 movements from his Weimarer Passion), at St. Thomas Church, Leipzig.
• April 30 – Emperor Charles VI of Austria and King Philip V of Spain sign the Treaty of Vienna.
• May 21 – The Order of Alexander Nevsky is instituted in Russia by Empress Catherine I.
• May 24 – Jonathan Wild, fraudulent "Thief-Taker General", is hanged at Tyburn in London for actually aiding criminals.
• June 24 – First recorded meeting of the Grand Lodge of Ireland in Dublin, making it the second most senior Grand Lodge in world Freemasonry, and the oldest in continuous existence.^[7]

July–December

• September 16 – The Treaty of Hanover is signed between Great Britain, France and Prussia.

Date unknown

• The Black Watch is founded in Scotland.
• A fire in Wapping, England destroys 70 houses.
• In Qing Dynasty China 66 copies of a 5,020 volume long encyclopedia, the Gujin Tushu Jicheng (Complete Collection of Illustrations and Writings from the Earliest to Current Times) are printed, necessitating the crafting of 250,000 movable type characters cast in bronze.
• 1725-1730 - Freemasonry is established in France as an English import.

1726

January–June

• February 8 – Supreme Privy Council is established in Russia
• April 15 – Isaac Newton tells William Stukeley the story of how he developed his theory of gravity.
• May 1 – Voltaire begins exile in England.

July–December

• July 11 – André-Hercule Cardinal de Fleury, recalled from exile by King Louis XV of France, banishes Louis Henri, Duke of Bourbon, and Madame de Prie from court.
• August 7 – Pirate Nicholas Brown captured near Xtabi, Jamaica
• October 26 – Jonathan Swift's satirical novel Gulliver's Travels is first published (anonymously) in London; it sells out within a week.
• November – Mary Toft allegedly gives birth to 16 rabbits in England; the story is later revealed to be a hoax.
• December 24 – The city of Montevideo is founded by the Spaniards.

Date unknown

Gullivers Travels by Jonathan Swift

• The Supreme Privy Council is established in Imperial Russia.
• The Gujin Tushu Jicheng, an immense Chinese encyclopedia, is printed using copper-based movable type printing.
• Muhammad bin Saud becomes head of the House of Saud.
• The remaining ruins of Liverpool Castle in England are finally demolished.

1727

January–June

Siege of Gibraltar

• February – Spain besieges Gibraltar in order to recapture the territory.^[1]
• February 2 – Première of Johann Sebastian Bach's solo cantata Ich habe genug, BWV 82, in Leipzig.
• February 20 – The German composer George Frideric Handel becomes a British subject.^[1]
• April 11 – Première of Johann Sebastian Bach's St Matthew Passion (BWV 244b) at St. Thomas Church, Leipzig.
• May 12 – History of the Moravian Church: The 18th century renewal: Brotherly Agreement adopted by the Moravian Church community at Herrnhut under the influence of Count Nicolaus Zinzendorf, the beginning of the Church's renewal.
• May 31 – The Royal Bank of Scotland is founded by Royal Charter in Edinburgh.^[8]
• June 11 – George, Prince of Wales, becomes King George II of Great Britain on the death of his father.^[8]
• June 27 – Uxbridge, Massachusetts, is incorporated as a town.

July–December

• July – History of the Ursulines in New Orleans: Seventeen Ursuline Sisters from France land in New Orleans, Louisiana, where they found the orphanage which is the predecessor of the Catholic Charities and the Ursuline Academy, making the latter the oldest continuously-operating school for girls and the oldest Catholic school in the United States.
• August 13 – History of the Moravian Church: The 18th century renewal: The Moravian Church community at Herrnhut undergoes a Pentecostalist experience.
• August 30 – Anne, eldest daughter of King George II of Great Britain, is given the title Princess Royal.
• September 8 – A barn fire during a puppet show in the village of Burwell, Cambridgeshire, England, kills 78 people, many of them children.
• October 11 – Coronation of George II of Great Britain. Handel's Coronation Anthems are composed for the event, including Zadok the Priest which has been played at every subsequent Coronation of the British monarch.^[1]
• November 9 – Spain, France and England sign the Treaty of Seville.
• November 18 – An earthquake in Tazriz, Persia kills 77,000.
• November 21 – The Netherlands signs the Treaty of Seville.
• November 27 – The foundation stone to the Jerusalem's Church in Berlin is laid.

Date unknown

• An old woman known as Janet (Jenny) Horne of Loth, Sutherland, becomes the last alleged witch in the British Isles to be executed when she is burned at the stake in Dornoch, Scotland.^[9][10] (Some sources give the date as June 1722.)^[11]
• The first Amish move to North America.
• 1727–1800 – Lt. Col. Francisco de Mello Palheta smuggles coffee seeds to Brazil in a bouquet, starting a coffee empire.

1728

January–June

• February 28 – At the Battle of Palkhed, Maratha Peshwa Baji Rao I defeats the Mughal Governor of Deccan, Nizam-ul-Mulk.
• March 14 – Jean-Jacques Rousseau leaves Geneva for the first time.

July–December

• July 14–August 14 – Vitus Bering sails northward from the Kamchatka Peninsula, through the Bering Strait, and round Cape Dezhnev.
• Late Summer – Voltaire ends his exile in England.
• August 29 city of Nuuk founded in Greenland as fort Godt-Haab by royal governor Claus Paarss.
• October 20–October 23 – The Copenhagen Fire of 1728 (the largest in the city's history) burns.

Date unknown

• The English astronomer James Bradley uses stellar aberration (first observed in 1725) to calculate the speed of light and observes nutation of the Earth's axis.^[12]
• The Real y Pontificia Universidad de San Gerónimo de la Habana, the oldest university in Cuba, is founded in Havana.
• Frederick, Prince of Wales, son of King George II of Great Britain, arrives in Britain for the first time, aged 21.

1729

January–June

• March 23 (evening) – Première performance of Johann Sebastian Bach's First Köthen Funeral music at St. James Church, Köthen in honor of the funeral of his former employer Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen.
• March 24 (morning) – Première performance of Johann Sebastian Bach's funeral cantata Klagt, Kinder, klagt es aller Welt, BWV 244a at St. James Church, Köthen for the same event as the previous day.
• April 15 – Repeat performance of Johann Sebastian Bach's St Matthew Passion, BWV 244b at St. Thomas Church, Leipzig.

July–December

• July 25 – Seven of the original eight Lords Proprietors sell their tracts within the Province of Carolina back to the British crown. The Province is permanently divided and reorganized into the Royal Colonies of North Carolina and South Carolina.
• July 30 – Baltimore, Maryland is founded.
• August 1 – The Comet of 1729, possibly the largest comet, with the highest apparent magnitude, on record, is discovered by Fr. Nicolas Sarabat, a professor of mathematics at Marseilles.
• September 29–October 5 – Battle of Damghan: The Persians under Nadir Shah defeat the Afghans and their allies.
• November – Completion of the first (wooden) Putney Bridge as the only fixed crossing of the River Thames between London Bridge and Kingston in England.
• November 9 – The Treaty of Seville is signed between Great Britain, France, Spain and the Dutch Republic.^[13]
• November 29 – Natchez revolt: The worst Indian massacre to take place on Mississippi soil occurs when Natchez people kill 138 Frenchmen, 35 French women, and 56 children at Fort Rosalie (near modern-day Natchez, Mississippi).

Date unknown

• The third oldest settlement in Mississippi, Port Gibson, is founded.
• A fire in Istanbul destroys 12,000 houses and kills 7,000 inhabitants.
• Jonathan Swift (anonymously) publishes his satire A Modest Proposal.^[1]

Significant people

Births

• September 27, 1722 – Samuel Adams, American statesman, political philosopher and Founding Father of the United States (d. 1803)

Deaths

References