Directory

1752 CE

In the British Empire, it was the only year with 355 days: the 11 days from 3 to 13 September were dropped when the Empire adopted the Gregorian calendar.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • 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.source
  • February 29 – Alaungpaya, a village chief in Upper Burma, founds the Konbaung Dynasty; by the time of his death 8 years later, he will have unified the whole country.source
  • 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. 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.source
  • June 13 – The Treaty of Logstown is signed by representatives of the Iroquois Confederation, Lenape and Shawnee leaders, and commissioners from Virginia, headed by Joshua Fry. Christopher Gist and William Trent represent the Ohio Company. The treaty grants control over lands south and east of the Ohio River to the English, along with permission to build a fort on the site of what is now Pittsburgh.source
  • 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.source
  • November 8 – British Governor Hopson of Nova Scotia and French Governor General of New France, the Marquis Duquesne, agree to a free exchange of deserters from each other's armies in Canada, with the understanding that neither side will execute a deserter once returned.source

Conflict & Security

  • March 23 – Ava, capital of the Kingdom of Burma, is sacked by Hanthawaddy Kingdom, led by King Binnya Dala.source
  • April 12 – The Kingdom of Afghanistan, under the rule of Ahmad Shah Durrani, recaptures the city of Lahore four years after its capture by the Sikhs of Punjab.source

Exploration & Expansion

  • August 21 – A group of Scottish Presbyterians who had fled to America from Scotland held the first Covenanter communion in the 13 American colonies, meeting in New Kingstown, Pennsylvania.source
  • August 25 – The first group of the United Brethren church, commonly called the Moravians, leaves Bethlehem, Pennsylvania on a mission to find 100000 acre of land on which to build "Villages of the Lord" for German emigres to settle upon in America; after a 450 mile 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.source
  • 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. 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.source

Technology & Infrastructure

  • 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.source

Science & Discovery

  • 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. 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.source
  • May 10 – At Marly-la-Ville in France, physicist Thomas-François Dalibard successfully conducts the kite experiment proposed by Benjamin Franklin in the 1750 book Franklin's Experiments and Observations on Electricity.source

Health & Medicine

  • February 10 – Pennsylvania Hospital, the first hospital in the United States, and the first to offer medical treatment to the mentally ill, admits its first patients at a temporary location in Philadelphia.source

Crime & Justice

  • February 27 – The Virginia Assembly passes a law making maiming a felony, in response to the practice of gouging.source

Disasters & Accidents

  • 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.source
  • June 21 – Pickawillany (now Piqua, Ohio), the capital of the Miami Indian nation, is attacked and burned by Odawa, Ojibwe and French soldiers under the command of Odawa War Chief Charles Michel de Langlade.source

Climate & Environment

  • July 30 - An earthquake occurred in Edirne and affected the region all the way to Bulgaria.source
  • November 3 – A hurricane destroys the Spanish settlement on Florida's Santa Rosa Island, leaving only two buildings standing; 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.source

Culture & Society

  • March 23 – The Halifax Gazette, the first Canadian newspaper, is published.source
  • April 12 – 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.source
  • July 1 – In Istanbul, Divitdar Mehmed Emin Pasha is dismissed from his position as Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire by the Ottoman Sultan, Mahmud I. The Sultan appoints Çorlulu Ali Pasha as the new Grand Vizier.source
  • December 5 – The first presentation of a Shakespearean play in America is performed when a company of players stages The Merchant of Venice in Williamsburg, Virginia.source

Births

  • January 1 – Betsy Ross, American entrepreneur, creator of the American flag (d. 1836)source
  • January 18 – John Nash, English architect (d. 1835)source
  • January 19 – James Morris III, Continental Army officer from Connecticut (d. 1820)source
  • January 31 – Gouverneur Morris, American diplomat, politician (d. 1815)source
  • February 26 – James Winchester, American general and politician (d. 1826)source
  • February 27 – William Linn, American President of Queen's College) (d. 1808)source
  • May 4 – John Brooks (governor), Massachusetts doctor, military officer, governor (d. 1825)source
  • May 29 – Charles Whitworth, 1st Earl Whitworth, British diplomat (d. 1825)source
  • June 13 – Fanny Burney, English novelist, diarist (d. 1840)source
  • June 27 – Hannah Mather Crocker, American essayist, advocate of women's rights in America (d. 1829)source
  • July 14 – Andreas Joseph Hofmann, German philosopher and revolutionary (d. 1849)source
  • August 13 – Queen Marie Caroline of Naples and Sicily (d. 1814)source
  • November 19 – George Rogers Clark, American soldier, officer and explorer (d. 1818)source
  • November 29 – Jemima Wilkinson, American preacher (d. 1819)source

Deaths

  • January 14 – Devasahayam Pillai, beatified Indian Catholic (b. 1712)source
  • January 16 – Francis Blomefield, English topographer (b. 1705)source
  • February 10 – Henriette of France, daughter of King Louis XV (b. 1727)source
  • 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.source
  • 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.source
  • May 3 – Samuel Ogle, British provincial Governor of Maryland (b. 1694)source
  • May 23 – William Bradford, British-born printer (b. 1663)source
  • June 16 – Joseph Butler, English priest, theologian (b. 1692)source
  • June 16 – Giulio Alberoni, Italian cardinal (b. 1664)source
  • July 29 – Peter Warren, British admiral (b. 1703)source
  • August 22 – William Whiston, English mathematician (b. 1667)source
  • November 2 – Johann Albrecht Bengel, German scholar (b. 1687)source
  • November 27 – William Digby, 5th Baron Digby, English politician, baron (b. 1661)source
  • December 3 – Henri-Guillaume Hamal, Walloon musician and composer (b. 1685)source