Directory

1717 CE

Count Carl Gyllenborg, the Swedish ambassador to Great Britain, was arrested in London for a plot to assist the Pretender to the British throne, James Francis Edward Stuart. Water Music by George Frederick Handel is first performed, on a Thames barge in London. Guatemala earthquake: A 7.4 magnitude earthquake strikes Antigua Guatemala, destroying much of the city, and making authorities consider moving the capital of Guatemala to a different location.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • January 4 (December 24, 1716 Old Style) – The kingdoms of Great Britain, France and the Dutch Republic sign the Triple Alliance, in an attempt to maintain the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), Britain having signed a preliminary alliance with France on November 28 (November 17) 1716.source
  • May 27 – Spain creates the Viceroyalty of New Granada in South America from the northern section of the Viceroyalty of Peru. The viceroyalty, with a capital at Bogotá, later declares independence and splits up into what become the nations of Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela.source
  • Murshid Quli Khan declares himself the first Nawab of the Bengal Subah. The Nawabs of Bengal will effectively function as near-sovereign rulers of Bengal while being nominally loyal to the Mughal Empire.source

Conflict & Security

  • February 1 – The Silent Sejm, in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, marks the beginning of the Russian Empire's increasing influence and control over the Commonwealth.source
  • August 17 – The month-long Siege of Belgrade ends, with Prince Eugene of Savoy's Austrian troops capturing the city from the Ottoman Empire.source
  • August 22 – Spanish troops arrive on the island of Sardinia, at this time a part of the Holy Roman Empire, beginning the conquest of the island, completed by October 30.source
  • September 5 – King George I of Great Britain issues the "Proclamation for Suppressing of Pirates in the West Indies", an offer of amnesty to pirates, declaring that any pirates who surrender themselves to the government of Britain or one of its overseas territories, on or before September 5, 1718, "shall have Our Gracious Pardon of and for his or their Piracy or Piracies" committed before January 5, 1718. The amnesty is later extended to July 1, 1719.source
  • October 30 – The Spanish conquest of Sardinia, at this time part of the Holy Roman Empire, is finished two months after Spanish forces had landed on the island on August 22, as the last Sardinian outpost, Castelsardo, surrenders.source
  • The Charleville musket enters service in France.source
  • The 1717 Omani invasion of Bahrain removes the control of Persia over the Arabian kingdom of Bahrain.source
  • The Tatar invasions in Transylvania devastate many towns, including Cavnic, Sighet and Dej.source

Exploration & Expansion

  • The Casa de Contratación (House of Trade) is set up in Cádiz.source

Religion & Belief

  • February 6 – Following the treaty between France and Britain, the Pretender James Stuart leaves France, and seeks refuge with Pope Clement XI.source
  • March 31 – Benjamin Hoadly, Bishop of Bangor, brings the Bangorian Controversy within the Church of England into the open by delivering a sermon to, and supposedly at the request of, King George I of Great Britain, on The Nature of the Kingdom of Christ with the text "My kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36), concluding there is no Biblical justification for church government.source
  • Maharaja Pamheiba of Manipur is converted to Hinduism by Shantidas Goswami, and decrees it to be the official religion of his state.source

Science & Discovery

  • Thomas Fairchild, a nurseryman at Hoxton in the East End of London, becomes the first person to produce a successful scientific plant hybrid, Dianthus Caryophyllus barbatus, known as Fairchild's Mule.source

Health & Medicine

  • October 9 – King Philip V of Spain orders the closure of all universities in Catalonia, including the historic Estudi General de Lleida.source
  • Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, wife of the British ambassador to Istanbul, has her son inoculated.source

Crime & Justice

  • January 1 – Count Carl Gyllenborg, the Swedish ambassador to Great Britain, was arrested in London for a plot to assist the Pretender to the British throne, James Francis Edward Stuart.source
  • October 18 – Trial begins in Boston for six pirates who had survived the April 26 wreck of Samuel Bellamy's ships Whydah and the Mary Anne. Five of them (John Brown, Hendrick Quintor, Thomas Baker, Peter Cornelius Hoof and John Shuan) are convicted on October 22 of piracy and robbery and hanged on November 15.source
  • November 28 – Pirates led by Edward "Blackbeard" Teach and Benjamin Hornigold capture the French slave transport Concorde near island of Saint Vincent the West Indies. Blackbeard renames the vessel Queen Anne's Revenge, adds to its armaments, and makes it his flagship. Hornigold soon accepts a British amnesty for all pirates, and Blackbeard teams up with Stede Bonnet and begins plundering ships approaching North American ports.source
  • François-Marie Arouet is sentenced to imprisonment in the Bastille for eleven months, because of a satirical verse against the Régent of France and his infamous daughter Marie Louise Élisabeth d'Orléans, who is hiding an illegitimate pregnancy and soon to give birth; Arouet will emerge with the pseudonym Voltaire and the completed text of his first play, Œdipe.source

Disasters & Accidents

  • April 26 – The Whydah Gally, flagship of English pirate Samuel Bellamy, is wrecked in a storm off Wellfleet, Massachusetts. The Whydah sinks with a reputed tons of treasure on board, and all but two of her crew are lost, including Bellamy.source

Climate & Environment

  • February 26–March 6 – What becomes the northeastern United States is paralyzed by a series of blizzards that bury the region.source
  • September 29 – Guatemala earthquake: A 7.4 magnitude earthquake strikes Antigua Guatemala, destroying much of the city, and making authorities consider moving the capital of Guatemala to a different location.source
  • December 24–25 – Christmas flood: A disastrous flood hits the North Sea coast, between the Netherlands and Denmark; thousands die or lose their houses.source
  • Most recent rupture of New Zealand's Alpine Fault, with an earthquake estimated to have had a magnitude between 7.8 and 8.1.source

Culture & Society

  • March 2 – Dancer John Weaver performs in the first ballet in Britain, shown at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, The Loves of Mars and Venus.source
  • June 24 – The Premier Grand Lodge of England, the Modern and first Free-Masonic Grand Lodge (which merges with the Ancient Grand Lodge of England in 1813 to form the United Grand Lodge of England), is founded in London.source
  • July 17 – Water Music by George Frederick Handel is first performed, on a Thames barge in London.source
  • September 21 – The first known Druid revival ceremony is held by John Toland at Primrose Hill, in London, at the Autumnal Equinox, to found the Mother Grove, what will later become the Ancient Order of Druids.source
  • October 16 – Antonio Vivaldi's opera Tieteberga is performed for the first time, premiering at the Teatro San Moisè in Venicesource
  • December 9 (November 29, O.S.) - King George I of Great Britain banishes his son and daughter-in-law, George, Prince of Wales and Caroline of Ansbach, from the royal household after the Prince threatens the King's personal assistant, the Duke of Newcastle, the royal Lord Chamberlain. The altercation takes place at the baptismal ceremony for the Prince's newborn son, George William.source

Births

  • January 5 – William Barrington, 2nd Viscount Barrington, English statesman (d. 1793)source
  • January 18 – Jean-François-Marie de Surville, French trader and navigator (d. 1770)source
  • January 29 – Jeffery Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst, British soldier and conqueror of Quebec (d. 1797)source
  • February 2 – Ernst Gideon Freiherr von Laudon, Austrian field marshal (d. 1790)source
  • August 15 – John Metcalf, "Blind Jack of Knaresborough", English roadbuilder (d. 1810)source
  • September 24 – Horace Walpole, English art historian, man of letters, antiquarian and politician (d. 1797)source
  • September 28 – William Nassau de Zuylestein, 4th Earl of Rochford, British diplomat and statesman (d. 1781)source
  • October 5 – Marie-Anne de Mailly-Nesle duchess de Châteauroux, French mistress of King Louis XV (d. 1744)source
  • October 13 – John Armstrong, American civil engineer, major general in the Revolutionary War (d. 1795)source
  • October – James Paine, English architect (d. 1789)source
  • November 16 – Jean le Rond d'Alembert, French mathematician and encyclopædist (d. 1783)source
  • December 9 – Johann Joachim Winckelmann, German classical scholar and archaeologist (d. 1768)source
  • December 25 – George Augustus Eliott, 1st Baron Heathfield, British army officer (d. 1790)source
  • December 29 – Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes, French statesman and diplomat (d. 1787)source

Deaths

  • January 13 – Maria Sibylla Merian, German-born Swiss naturalist and scientific illustrator, who studied plants and insects and made detailed paintings of them (b. 1647)source
  • February 21 – Jan Dobrogost Krasiński, Polish nobleman (szlachcic) (b. 1639)source
  • February 23 – Magnus Stenbock, Swedish military officer (b. 1664)source
  • March 8 – Abraham Darby I, English ironmaster, first of that name of three generations of a Quaker family that was key to the development of the Industrial Revolution (b. 1678)source
  • April 26 – Samuel Bellamy English-born pirate (b. 1689)source
  • June 9 – Jeanne Guyon, French mystic (b. 1648)source
  • July 1 – Princess Anna Sophie of Denmark, daughter of King Frederick III of Denmark (b. 1647)source
  • August 10 – Nicolaes Witsen, Mayor of Amsterdam, Netherlands (b. 1641)source
  • August 16 – William Blathwayt, English civil servant and politician (b. 1649)source
  • August – William Cochrane, Scottish MP in the Parliament of Great Britainsource
  • October 26 – Catherine Sedley, Countess of Dorchester, English mistress of James II of England (b. 1657)source
  • October – Philippe Pastour de Costebelle, French naval officer and Governor of Newfoundland (b. 1661)source
  • December 5 – Richard Onslow, 1st Baron Onslow, English politician (b. 1654)source
  • December 25 – Robert Shirley, 1st Earl Ferrers, English peer and courtier (b. 1650)source