1754 CE

French and Indian War: Battle of Jumonville Glen – The war begins when George Washington, 22, leads a company of militia from the Colony of Virginia, in an ambush on a force of 35 French Canadians. French and Indian War – Battle of Fort Necessity: George Washington surrenders Fort Necessity to French Capt. Louis Coulon de Villiers, the only surrender in Washington's military career. Karim Khan Zand, the King of Persia (now Iran) recaptures the city of Shiraz from Afghan warlord Azad Khan Afghan, who had taken control of much of central Iran since 1749.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

June 19 – The Albany Congress of seven northern colonies proposes an American Union.source
August 17 – Pennsylvania becomes the first of the British colonies to address Benjamin Franklin's Albany Plan for an inter-colonial union. With Franklin absent from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania's House of Representatives votes against to not consider the Plan at all, and to not refer it to the next legislative session for debate.source
November 28 – Denmark establishes the Renteskirverkontor, an office within the Chamber of Finance, to oversee the colonial affairs of the Danish West Indies (Dansk Vestindien). Peder Mariager, who had been a minor official of the Danish West Indies Company, becomes the first administrator. The colony, consisting of the islands of Saint Thomas, Saint John and Saint Croix later is purchased by the United States from Denmark and is now the U.S. Virgin Islands.source
December 26 – Massachusetts becomes the third colony (after Pennsylvania and Connecticut) to reject the Albany Plan for an inter-colonial union, voting 48 to 31 to postpone consideration of the union question indefinitely.source
Surveyor William Churton lays out what will become the seat of Orange County, North Carolina. The town is named Corbin Town for Francis Corbin, a member of the North Carolina governor's council. Corbin Town is renamed Childsburgh in 1759, and finally Hillsborough in 1766.source

Conflict & Security

February 22 – Expecting an attack by Portuguese-speaking militias in the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, the indigenous Guarani people residing in the Misiones Orientales stage an attack on a small Brazilian Portuguese settlement on the Rio Pardo in what is now the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. The attack by 300 Guarani soldiers from the missions at San Luis, San Lorenzo and San Juan Bautista is repelled with a loss of 30 Guarani and is the opening of the Guarani Warsource
February 25 – Guatemalan Sergeant Major Melchor de Mencos y Varón departs the city of Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala with an infantry battalion to fight British pirates that are reportedly disembarking on the coasts of Petén (modern-day Belize), and sacking the nearby towns.source
April 30 – Battle of San Felipe and the Cobá Lagoon: Guatemalan Sergeant Mayor Melchor de Mencos y Varón and his troops defeat the British pirates.source
May 28 – French and Indian War: Battle of Jumonville Glen – The war begins when George Washington, 22, leads a company of militia from the Colony of Virginia, in an ambush on a force of 35 French Canadians.source
July 3 – French and Indian War – Battle of Fort Necessity: George Washington surrenders Fort Necessity to French Capt. Louis Coulon de Villiers, the only surrender in Washington's military career.source
August 19 – Lieutenant Colonel George Washington is forced to confront his first mutiny as 25 members of his Virginia militia refuse to obey orders from their officers. Washington, who is attending church services at the time, quickly suppresses the rebellion and the mutineers are imprisoned before more join.source
August 30 – New Hampshire settlers Susannah Willard Johnson and her family are taken hostage by the Abenaki Indians during an attack near Charlestown. Nine months pregnant at the time of their capture, Johnson gives birth two days later to a child, whom she names Elizabeth Captive Johnson. For the next two years, the family is held for ransom in Canada before she is released. In 1796, she will recount the story in a popular memoir, A Narrative of the Captivity of Mrs. Johnson.source
November 29 – Karim Khan Zand, the King of Persia (now Iran) recaptures the city of Shiraz from Afghan warlord Azad Khan Afghan, who had taken control of much of central Iran since 1749.source

Exploration & Expansion

September 11 – Anthony Henday, an English explorer, becomes the first white man to reach the Canadian Rockies, after climbing a ridge above the Red Deer River near what is now Innisfail, Alberta.source
October 24 – China's Qianlong Emperor reverses a longstanding policy that barred Chinese subjects from ever returning to China if they remained out of the country for more than three years.source

Religion & Belief

December 13 – Osman III succeeds his brother Mahmud I as Ottoman Emperor; he will rule until his death in 1757.source
St. Florian's Martyr Greek Catholic Church, Budapest is built.source

Science & Discovery

January 28 – Horace Walpole, in a letter to Horace Mann, coins the word serendipity.source
Marian apparition at Las Lajas in Colombia.source

Climate & Environment

September 2 – A powerful earthquake strikes Constantinople shortly after 9 o'clock in the evening. A Scottish physician, Mordach Mackenzie, reports in a letter that the tremor damaged or destroyed numerous buildings and comments, "Some say there were 2000 people destroyed by this calamity, in the town and suburbs; some 900; and others reduce them to 60, who, by what I have seen, are nearer the truth."source

Culture & Society

March 25 – The Clandestine Marriages Act 1753 comes into force in England and Wales, placing marriage in that jurisdiction on a statutory basis for the first time.source
May 14 – The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews is founded in Scotland.source
July 17 – Classes begin at Columbia University, founded on October 31 as King's College by royal charter of King George II of Great Britain. The college is originally located in Lower Manhattan in the Province of New York. Instruction is suspended in 1776, and the school reopens in 1784 as Columbia College. With the college's growth in the 19th century, it is renamed Columbia University in 1896.source
October 31 – What will become Columbia University is chartered as "a College in the Province of New York... in the City of New York in America... named King's College", with the charter submitted by New York's colonial governor, James De Lancey.source

Births

January 15 – Jacques Pierre Brissot, French politician (d. 1795)source
January 15 – Richard Martin, Irish founder of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (d. 1834)source
February 2 – Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, French politician (d. 1838)source
February 17 – Nicolas Baudin, French explorer (d. 1803)source
March 4 – Benjamin Waterhouse, American physician, medical professor (smallpox vaccine pioneer) (d. 1846)source
March 17 – Madame Roland (Jeanne Marie Manon Philipon), French politician (d. 1793)source
March 23 – Baron Jurij Vega, Slovenian mathematician, physicist and artillery officer (d. 1802)source
May 23 – William Drennan, Irish physician, poet and radical politician (d. 1820)source
June 18 – Anna Maria Lenngren, Swedish poet, feminist and cultural figure (d. 1817)source
August 9 – Pierre Charles L'Enfant, French architect (d. 1825)source
August 21 – William Murdoch, Scottish inventor (d. 1839)source
October 20 – James Hillhouse, American politician and congressman from Connecticut, 1791 until 1810 (d. 1832)source
December 15 – Usman dan Fodio, Nigerian Islamic theologian (d. 1817)source
December 24 – George Crabbe, English poet (d. 1832)source

Deaths

January 16 – Edward Trelawny, British governor of Jamaica 1738–1752 (b. 1699)source
January 28 – Ludvig Holberg, Norwegian dramatist and writer (b. 1684)source
February 2 – William Benson, English architect and self-serving Whig place-holder (b. 1682)source
March 6 – Henry Pelham, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1694)source
March 9 – Alexander Brodie, Scottish clan chief and politician (b. 1697)source
March 22 – Samuel Bourn the Younger, English dissenting minister (b. 1689)source
April 5 – Lord Archibald Hamilton, Scottish officer of the Royal Navy (b. 1673)source
April 9 – Christian Wolff, German philosopher, mathematician, scientist (b. 1679)source
May 23 – John Wood, the Elder, English architect (b. 1704)source
August 2 – John Waller, American politician who served in the House of Burgess in 1714 (b. 1673)source
August 14 – Maria Anna of Austria, Archduchess of Austria and Queen consort of Portugal (b. 1683)source
October 10 – Dorothea Krag, Danish General Postmaster and noble (b. 1675)source
October 13 – Mahadhammaraza Dipadi, last king of Toungoo dynasty of Burma (Myanmar), 1733–1752 (b. 1714)source
November 27 – Abraham de Moivre, French mathematician (b. 1667)source