Directory

1714 CE

After being tricked into deserting a battle against India's Mughal Empire by the rebel Sayyid brothers, Prince Azz-ud-din Mirza is blinded on orders of the Emperor Farrukhsiyar as punishment. The city of Kassel in Germany inaugurates the summer tradition of the "water stairs" or "great cascades" (Grossen Kaskaden) emptying from the base of the Hercules monument down to the Wilhelmshöhe castle. George I, the new King of Great Britain and Ireland, arrives in Britain for the first time in his life, after having departed Hannover and sailing from the Netherlands.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • March 7 – The Treaty of Rastatt is signed between Austria and France, concluding the War of the Spanish Succession between them. Austria receives the Spanish territories in Italy (the Kingdom of Naples, Duchy of Milan and Kingdom of Sardinia), as well as the Southern Netherlands; and from France, Freiburg and Landau. The Austrian Habsburg Empire reaches its largest territorial extent yet, with Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor succeeding Philip V of Spain, as ruler in the ceded territories.source
  • April 11 – France signs five separate treaties— with Great Britain, the Netherlands, Portugal, Prussia and Savoy— to end hostilities in the War of the Spanish Succession following the negotiations of the Peace of Utrecht.source
  • June 26 – Spain and the Netherlands sign a peace treaty to end hostilities between those two nations in the War of the Spanish Succession.source
  • September 18 – George I, the new King of Great Britain and Ireland, arrives in Britain for the first time in his life, after having departed Hannover and sailing from the Netherlands.source
  • October 24 – Four Dutch investors, led by brothers Nicolaas and Hendrik van Hoorn, purchase the South American colony of Berbice from French mercenary Jacques Cassard, who had captured the colony from the Van Peere family. A century later, in 1815, the land is ceded to Great Britain and later merged with neighboring colonies to form what is now Guyana.source
  • November 30 – King Philip V of Spain issues a decree reorganizing the Spanish government to create four ministries, with the Secretary of State being the chief minister, predecessor to the office of Prime Minister of Spain. José de Grimaldo becomes the first person to have the chief ministry.source

Conflict & Security

  • January 21 – After being tricked into deserting a battle against India's Mughal Empire by the rebel Sayyid brothers, Prince Azz-ud-din Mirza is blinded on orders of the Emperor Farrukhsiyar as punishment.source
  • February 7 – The Siege of Tönning (a fortress of the Swedish Empire and now located in Germany in the state of Schleswig-Holstein) ends after almost a year, as Danish forces force the surrender of the remaining 1,600 defenders. The fortress is then leveled by the Danes.source
  • March 2 – (February 19 old style) The Battle of Storkyro is fought between troops of the Swedish Empire and the Russian Empire, near what is now the village of Napue in Finland. The outnumbered Swedish forces, under the command of General Carl Gustaf Armfeldt, suffer 1,600 troops killed in action while the Russians led by General Mikhail Golitsyn lose 400 men.source
  • July 27 – The Imperial Russian Navy gains its first important victory against the Swedish Navy in the Battle of Gangut.source
  • September 11 – War of the Spanish Succession: Barcelona is taken after a year's siege, and Catalonia surrenders to Spanish and French Bourbon armies.source
  • September 29 – The Great Hatred: the Cossacks of the Tsardom of Russia kill about 800 people overnight on the Finnish island of Hailuoto.source
  • December 9 – Ottoman–Venetian War (1714–1718): The Ottoman Empire declares war on the Republic of Venice.source

Exploration & Expansion

  • April 12 – Italian Jesuit missionary Niccolò Gianpriamo is dispatched from Portugal on an evangelical trip to Asia starting with the Portuguese Indian colony of Goa, where he arrives after five months.source
  • July 8 – Longitude prize: The Parliament of Great Britain votes "to offer a reward for such person or persons as shall discover the Longitude" (£10,000 for any method capable of determining a ship's longitude within 1 degree; £15,000, within 40 minutes, and £20,000 within ½ a degree).source
  • Louis Juchereau de St. Denis establishes Fort St. Jean Baptiste, at the site of present day Natchitoches, Louisiana (the first permanent European settlement in the Louisiana Territory, after Biloxi (1699) and Mobile, Alabama (1702) were separated).source

Religion & Belief

  • June 20 – In France, Henri-Charles du Cambout de Coislin, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Metz, condemns the papal bull Unigenitus, issued by Pope Clement XI against the 1671 commentary by Pasquier Quesnel of the four Gospels and inflaming the Jansenist controversy.source
  • October 20 – The coronation of George I of Great Britain and Ireland takes place in Westminster Abbey, a little less than three months after George became the new British monarch.source
  • Archbishop Tenison's School, the world's earliest surviving mixed gender school, is established by Thomas Tenison, Archbishop of Canterbury, in Croydon, south of London, England.source
  • Worcester College, University of Oxford is founded (formerly Gloucester College, closed during the Dissolution of the monasteries).source

Technology & Infrastructure

  • June 3 – The city of Kassel in Germany inaugurates the summer tradition of the "water stairs" or "great cascades" (Grossen Kaskaden) emptying from the base of the Hercules monument down to the Wilhelmshöhe castle.source
  • The river Kander (Switzerland) is redirected into Lake Thun.source

Health & Medicine

  • February 28 – (February 17 old style) Russia's Tsar Peter the Great issues a decree requiring compulsory education in mathematics for children of government officials and nobility, applying to children between the ages of 10 and 15 years old.source
  • May 19 – Anne, Queen of Great Britain, refuses to allow members of the House of Hanover to settle in Britain during her lifetime.source

Culture & Society

  • May 20 – Johann Sebastian Bach leads the first performance of his cantata for Pentecost, Erschallet, ihr Lieder, BWV 172, at the chapel of Schloss Weimar.source

Births

  • January 21 – Anna Morandi Manzolini, internationally known Italian anatomist and anatomical wax modeler (d. 1774)source
  • February 25 – René Nicolas Charles Augustin de Maupeou, Chancellor of France (d. 1792)source
  • March 8 – Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, German Classical composer (d. 1788)source
  • March 21 – Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden, British judge (d. 1794)source
  • April 1 – Jean-François de Neufforge, Flemish architect and engraver (d. 1791)source
  • July 2 – Christoph Willibald Gluck, German composer (d. 1787)source
  • July 8 – Pieter van Reede van Oudtshoorn, Dutch administrator of the Cape Colony (d. 1773)source
  • July 17 – John Forbes (Royal Navy officer), British admiral of the fleet (d. 1796)source
  • August 1 – Richard Wilson (painter), Welsh landscape painter (d. 1782)source
  • August 27 – Angélique du Coudray, pioneering French midwife (d. 1794)source
  • September 24 – Alaungpaya, King of Burma (d. 1760)source
  • October 14 – Christoph Anton Migazzi, Austrian Catholic bishop (d. 1803)source
  • October 25 – James Burnett, Lord Monboddo, Scottish judge, scholar of language evolution and philosopher (d. 1799)source
  • December 16 – George Whitefield, English Anglican priest (d. 1770)source

Deaths

  • February 21 – Eugen Alexander Franz, 1st Prince of Thurn and Taxis (b. 1652)source
  • February 24 – Edmund Andros, English governor in North America (b. 1637)source
  • March 13 – John Talbot of Lacock, British politician and general (b. 1630)source
  • March 27 – Anthony Ulrich, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (b. 1633)source
  • March 27 – Charlotte Amalie of Hesse-Kassel, Queen Consort of Denmark (1670–1699) (b. 1650)source
  • April 10 – Samuel Carpenter, Deputy Governor of colonial Pennsylvania (b. 1649)source
  • May 5 – Charles, Duke of Berry, grandson of Louis XIV of France (b. 1686)source
  • May 15 – Roger Elliott, British general and Governor of Gibraltar (b. c. 1665)source
  • June 22 – Matthew Henry, English non-conformist minister (b. 1662)source
  • August 26 – Constantin Brâncoveanu, Prince of Wallachia (b. 1654)source
  • October 10 – Pierre Le Pesant, sieur de Boisguilbert, French economist (b. 1646)source
  • October – Raja Sitaram Ray, autonomous king, vassal of the Mughal Empire (b. 1658)source
  • November 5 – Bernardino Ramazzini, Italian physician (b. 1633)source
  • November 7 – Charles Davenant, English economist, politician and pamphleteer (b. 1656)source