1700
Boston merchant Samuel Sewall publishes The Selling of Joseph, a very early anti-slavery tract
1702
German chemist Georg Stahl coins the name phlogiston for the substance believed to be released in the process of burning
1703
Peter the Great founds the port and city of St Petersburg, giving Russia access to the Baltic
1707
The death of Aurangzeb introduces the long period of decline of the Mughal empire
1707
The Act of Union merges England and Scotland as 'one kingdom by the name of Great Britain', a century after the union of the crowns
1708
The secret of true porcelain is at last discovered in the west, at Dresden, by Johann Friedrich Böttger
1709
The Tatler launches a new style of journalism in Britain's coffee houses, followed two years later by the Spectator
1709
Alexander Selkirk, the inspiration for Robinson Crusoe, is discovered on a Pacific island where he has survived alone for nearly five years
1709
Abraham Darby at Coalbrookdale discovers the use of coke in the smelting of pig iron
1709
In a friendly keyboard contest in Rome between Handel and Domenico Scarlatti, the result is a draw – Handel being the winner on the organ and Scarlatti on the harpsichord
c. 1710
Thomas Newcomen creates a piston steam engine, with the steam condensed in the cylinder by a jet of cold water
1710
Christopher Wren's new domed St Paul's cathedral is completed in London
1710
Machines are thrown out of the window of a Spitalfields factory, in an early protest against industrialization
c. 1710
The Byerley Turk, Darley Arabian and Godolphin Arabian, ancestors of all thoroughbred racehorses, are imported into England
1710
25-year-old George Berkeley attacks Locke in his Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge
1711
Handel's success in London with his opera Rinaldo prompts him to settle in Britain
1712
Alexander Pope's Rape of the Lock introduces a delicate vein of mock-heroic in English poetry
1712
The tsar formally marries Catherine, his mistress for nearly ten years (though they may have married secretly five years earlier)
1713
The emperor Charles VI issues a Pragmatic Sanction, declaring that the remaining Habsburg empire can be inherited through the female line
1713
The treaties signed in Utrecht bring to an end the War of the Spanish Succession
1714
In the aftermath of the War of the Spanish Succession, the Spanish Netherlands are transferred to Austria
1714
Strasbourg and Alsace are ceded to Louis XIV and become part of France
1714
Fahrenheit perfects the mercury thermometer and decides on a 180-degree interval between the freezing and boiling points of water
1714
On the death of Queen Anne, the Act of Settlement delivers the British crown to the elector of Hanover, as George I
1714
The British government offers a massive £20,000 prize for a chronometer capable of keeping accurate time at sea
1714
In his Monadology Leibniz describes a universe consisting of forceful interactive parts that he calls 'monads'
1717
Scottish entrepreneur John Law establishes the Louisiana Company to develop the Mississippi valley for France
1717
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, observing the Turkish practice of inoculation against smallpox, submits her infant son to the treatment
1719
Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, with its detailed realism, can be seen as the first English novel
c. 1720
The lighter rococo style, beginning in France, becomes an extension of the baroque
c. 1720
The symphony begins to develop as a musical form, deriving from the overtures of operas
c. 1720
The postchaise, introduced in France, provides the first chance of reasonably comfortable travel by land
c. 1720
Like the symphony, the string quartet develops during the eighteenth century, moving from simple beginnings to great complexity
1720
Johann Sebastian Bach compiles the Little Keyboard Book a set of pieces to teach his eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach
1720
Shares in the South Sea Company rise rapidly and collapse within the year, in the so-called South Sea Bubble
1720
Shares in John Law's Louisiana Company rise spectacularly and then collapse, in what becomes known as the Mississippi Bubble
1720
The Dalai Lama in Lhasa accepts Chinese imperial protection, which lasts until 1911
1721
With the transfer of Swedish territory on the Baltic coast, Russia becomes the dominant power in the region
1721
In a ceremony in St Petersburg's cathedral Peter the Great has himself proclaimed 'emperor of all Russia'
1721
Johann Sebastian Bach writes the six Brandenburg Concertos for his employer at the court of Köthen
1722
The Iroquois League becomes known as the Six Nations, after the Tuscarora join the group
1722
Easter Island is reached by the Dutch, beginning a spate of European discovery in the islands of the Pacific
1722
J.S. Bach publishes The Well-Tempered Clavier, a collection of 24 Preludes and Fugues
1722
16-year-old Benjamin Franklin contributes the 'Dogood Papers', essays on moral topics, to a Boston journal, The New England Courant
1724
General Wade, commander-in-chief of North Britain, begins an impressive programme of road construction in the Scottish Highlands
1725
The Russian tsar Peter the Great dies and is succeeded by his wife as the empress Catherine I
1725
Vivaldi publishes the set of violin concertos known as The Four Seasons
1726
Jonathan Swift launches his hero on a series of bitterly satirical adventures in Gulliver's Travels
c. 1727
J.S. Bach conducts the first performance of his St Matthew Passion in the St Thomas's church in Leipzig
1727
Handel composes Zadok the Priest for the crowning of George II, and it has been sung at every subsequent British coronation
1728
The Danish explorer Vitus Bering sails into Arctic seas through the strait between Asia and America known now by his name
1729
Benjamin Franklin prints, publishes and largely writes the weekly Pennsylvania Gazette
c. 1730
John and Charles Wesley form a Holy Club at Oxford which becomes the cradle of Methodism
1731
English maker of telescopes John Hadley designs the instrument which evolves into the standard sextant used at sea
1731
Benjamin Franklin sets up a subscription library, the Library Company of Philadelphia
1732
Georgia is granted to a group of British philanthropists, to give a new start in life to debtors
1733
Voltaire publishes a series of Philosophical Letters comparing the French unfavourably with England
1733
John Kay, working in the Lancashire woollen industry, patents the flying shuttle to speed up weaving
1733
Benjamin Franklin establishes the most successful of America's almanacs, publishing it annually until 1758
c. 1735
A revivalist movement in America, led by Jonathan Edwards, becomes known as the Great Awakening
1735
Swedish naturalist Carolus Linnaeus publishes a 'system of nature', capable of classifying all living things
c. 1735
Swedish chemist Georg Brandt discovers a new metallic element, which he names cobalt
1736
The leader of a gang of tribal brigands seizes the Persian throne and takes the name Nadir Shah
1737
Florence loses her independence when the last Medici duke of Tuscany dies
1739
The Persian ruler Nadir Shah enters Delhi and removes much of the accumulated treasure of the Mughal empire
1739
David Hume publishes his Treatise of Human Nature, in which he applies to the human mind the principles of experimental science
1740
Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador become the Spanish viceroyalty of New Granada, with Bogota as the capital
c. 1740
A charismatic leader, Baal Shem Tov, develops Hasidism in Poland as an influential revivalist movement within Judaism
1741
J.S. Bach publishes his set of Goldberg Variations, supposedly written for performance by the young harpsichordist Johann Gottlieb Goldberg
1741
American Revivalism is inflamed by Jonathan Edwards' vivid sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God
1742
Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius proposes 100 degrees between the freezing and boiling points of water
1743
Benjamin Franklin drafts in Philadelphia the founding document for the American Philosophical Society
1744
Muhammad ibn Saud begins the expansion of power that will lead eventually to the establishment of Saudi Arabia
1744
The Muslim reformer Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab makes an alliance with Muhammad ibn Saud, of significance to the later Saudi dynasty
1746
An earthquake destroys much of Lima, and an ensuing tidal wave engulfs its port at Callao
1747
A tribal leader, Ahmad Shah Abdali, is elected king of the Afghans in an event seen as the foundation of the Aghan nation
1748
Systematic digging begins near Vesuvius, in an area where ancient fragments are often unearthed - soon discovered to be Pompeii
1749
A French official travels down the Ohio valley, placing markers to claim it for France
1749
Henry Fielding introduces a character of lasting appeal in the lusty but good-hearted Tom Jones
1749
Shortly before his death (in 1750) J.S. Bach completes his Mass in B Minor, worked on over many years
c. 1750
Naval engagements are now fought in lines of battle, with only the most heavily armed vessels rated as 'ships of the line'
1751
A great French undertaking by Denis Diderot, his 28-volume Encyclopédie, begins publication
1751
The Swedish chemist Alex Cronstedt identifies an impurity in copper ore as a separate metallic element, which he names nickel
1752
Britain is one of the last nations to adjust to the more accurate Gregorian calendar, causing a suspicious public to fear they have been robbed of eleven days
1752
English obstetrician William Smellie introduces scientific midwifery as a result of his researches into childbirth
1752
Benjamin Franklin flies a kite into a thunder cloud to demonstrate the nature of electricity
1753
George Washington undertakes a difficult and ineffectual journey to persuade the French to withdraw from the Ohio valley
1754
In Freedom of Will American evangelist Jonathan Edwards makes an uncompromising defence of orthodox against liberal Calvinism
1754
Benjamin Franklin's chopped-up snake, urging union of the colonies with the caption Join or Die, is the first American political cartoon
1754
Quaker minister John Woolman publishes the first part of Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes, an essay denouncing slavery
1754
Scottish chemist Joseph Black identifies the existence of a gas, carbon dioxide, which he calls 'fixed air'
1754
George Washington kills ten French troops at Fort Duquesne, in the first violent clash of the French and Indian war
1754
Benjamin Franklin proposes to the Albany Congress that the colonies should unite to form a colonial government
1754
The British colonies negotiate with the Iroquois at the Albany Congress, in the face of the French threat in the Ohio valley
1755
Samuel Johnson publishes his magisterial Dictionary of the English Language
1756
Frederick the Great again precipitates a European conflict, marching without warning into Saxony and launching the Seven Years' War
1757
Robert Clive defeats the nawab of Bengal at the battle of Plassey, and places his own man on the throne
1757
William Pitt the Elder becomes secretary of state and transforms the British war effort against France in America
c. 1758
Joshua Reynolds, by now the most fashionable portrait painter in London, copes with as many as 150 sitters in a year
1758
A comet returns exactly at the time predicted by English astronomer Edmond Halley, and is subsequently known by his name
1758
James Woodforde, an English country parson with a love of food and wine, begins a detailed diary of everyday life
1759
Voltaire publishes Candide, a satire on optimism prompted by the Lisbon earthquake of 1755
1759
British general James Wolfe sails up the St Lawrence river with 15,000 men to besiege Quebec
1759
The Portuguese expel the Jesuits from Brazil, beginning a widespread reaction against the order in Catholic Europe
1760
On the death of his grandfather, George II, George III becomes king of Great Britain
1761
Joseph Haydn enters the service of the Esterházy family, and stays with them for twenty-nine years
1761
Scottish chemist and physicist Joseph Black observes the latent heat in melting ice
1761
Austrian physician Joseph Leopold Auenbrugger describes his new diagnostic technique – percussion, or listening to a patient's chest and tapping
1761
John Harrison's fourth chronometer is only five seconds out at the end of a test journey from England to Jamaica
1761
Italian anatomist Giovanni Battista Morgagni publishes De Sedibus, the work that introduces scientific pathology
1761
George Washington, the future president, inherits Mount Vernon from his half-brother Lawrence
1762
6-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart plays for the Habsburg empress Maria Theresa
1763
In the treaty of Paris France cedes to Britain all its territory north of the Great Lakes and east of the Mississippi river, except the district of New Orleans
1764
James Watt ponders on the inefficiency of contemporary steam engines and invents the condenser
1764
Lancashire spinner James Hargreaves conceives the idea of the spinning jenny, with multiple spindles worked from a single wheel
1765
Britain passes the Stamp Act, taxing legal documents and newspapers in the American colonies
1765
American campaigners against the Stamp Act organize themselves as the Sons of Liberty in Massachusetts and New York
1766
Britain repeals the Stamp Act, in a major reversal of policy achieved by resistance in the American colonies
1766
English chemist Henry Cavendish isolates hydrogen but believes that it is phlogiston
1768
Captain James Cook sails from Plymouth, in England, heading for Tahiti to observe the transit of Venus
1768
A Society of Gentlemen in Scotland begins publication of the immensely successful ` Encyclopaedia Britannica
c. 1770
The triangular trade, controlled from Liverpool, ships millions of Africans across the Atlantic as slaves
1770
British troops fire into an unruly crowd in Boston, Massachusetts, killing five
1770
Captain Cook reaches the mainland of Australia, at a place which he names Botany Bay, and continues up the eastern coast
1770
In response to American protests, the British government removes the Townshend duties on all commodities with the exception of tea
1770
27-year-old Thomas Jefferson begins constructing a mansion on a hilltop in Charlottesville, calling it Monticello ('little mountain')
1771
Richard Arkwright pioneers the factory environment with his cotton mill at Cromford in Derbyshire
1772
Russia, Prussia and Austria agree a treaty enabling them to divide the spoils in the first partition of Poland
1772
Captain Cook sets off, in HMS Resolution, on his second voyage to the southern hemisphere
1772
Haydn's Farewell Symphony gives a subtle hint to his employer at Esterházy that it is time for the musicians to return home
1773
English prison reformer John Howard is shocked into action by the conditions he sees in Bedford gaol
1773
The London brokers who meet to do business in Jonathan's coffee house decide to call themselves the Stock Exchange
1773
Oliver Goldsmith's play She Stoops to Conquer is produced in London's Covent Garden theatre
1773
Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele isolates oxygen but does not immediately publish his achievement
1773
Samuel Johnson and James Boswell undertake a journey together to the western islands of Scotland
1773
Some fifty colonists, disguised as Indians, tip a valuable cargo of tea into Boston harbour as a protest against British tax
1773
Responding to pressure from the Catholic monarchs of Europe, Clement XIV abolishes the Jesuit Order
1774
As a retaliation for the Boston Tea Party, the British parliament closes Boston's port with the first of its Coercive Acts
1774
Britain's new Coercive (or Intolerable) Acts include the requirement that Massachusetts citizens give board and lodging to British troop
1774
In the treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji, ending the recent Russo-Turkish war, the Ottoman empire cedes the Crimea to Russia
1774
The treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji grants Russia special rights in relation to the Christian Holy Places under Ottoman control
1774
Illiterate visionary Ann Lee, leader of an English sect, the 'Shaking Quakers', crosses the Atlantic to spread the word
1774
English chemist Joseph Priestley isolates oxygen, but he believes it to be 'dephlogisticated air'
1774
Delegates from twelve American colonies meet in Philadelphia and agree not to import any goods from Britain
1775
Pioneer Daniel Boone and other backwoodsmen cut the road west that will bring settlers to Kentucky
1775
Patrick Henry makes a stirring declaration – 'Give me liberty or give me death' – to the Virginia Assembly
1775
General Gage sends a detachment of British troops to seize weapons held by American Patriots at Concord
1775
Paul Revere is one of the US riders taking an urgent warning to Concord, but he is captured on the journey
1775
The first shot of the American Revolution is fired in a skirmish between redcoats and militiamen at Lexington, on the road to Concord
1775
Delegates in Philadelphia select George Washington as commander-in-chief of the colonial army
1775
At Bunker Hill, overlooking Boston from the north, the American militiamen prove their worth against British professional soldiers
1775
Delegates to the Continental Congress make a final bid for peace, sending the Olive Branch Petition to George III
1775
Britain declares the colonies to be in a state of rebellion, and sets up a naval blockade of the American coastline
1775
Yankee Doodle is the most popular song with the patriot troops in the American Revolution
1775
Captain Cook publishes his discovery of a preventive cure against scurvy, in the form of a regular ration of lemon juice
1776
Two Boulton and Watt engines are installed, the first of many in the mines and mills of England's developing industrial revolution
1776
George Washington drives the British garrison from Boston, and moves south to protect New York
1776
The revolutionary convention of Virginia votes for independence from Britain, and instructs its delegates in Philadelphia to propose this motion
1776
Virginia's motion for independence from Britain is passed at the Continental Congress of the colonies with no opposing vote
1776
Thomas Jefferson's text for the Declaration of Independence is accepted by the Congress in Philadelphia
1776
English historian Edward Gibbon publishes the first volume of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
1776
John Hancock is the first delegate to sign the Declaration of Independence formally written out on a large sheet of parchment
1776
Scottish economist Adam Smith analyzes the nature and causes of the Wealth of Nations
1777
Congress adopts a new flag for independent America – the stars and stripes
1779
British explorer Captain James Cook is killed in a skirmish with natives in Hawaii over a stolen boat
1779
The world's first iron bridge is assembled in a few months across the Severn at Coalbrookdale
c. 1780
In developing the Haskalah, the German philosopher Moses Mendelssohn reconciles Judaism and the Enlightenment
1780
Six days of riot in London are triggered by Lord George Gordon leading a march to oppose any degree of Catholic emancipation
1781
Maryland, ratifies the Articles of Confederation (the last state to do so), completing 'the Confederation of the United States'
1781
William Herschel discovers Uranus, the first planet to be found by means of a telescope, and names it the Georgian star
1781
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, now 25, leaves Salzburg to settle in Vienna
1781
The Bank of North America is established by the Continental Congress to lend money to the fledgling Revolutionary government
1781
German philosopher Immanuel Kant publishes the first of his three 'critiques', The Critique of Pure Reason
1781
Ann Lee leads her Shaker colleagues in a missionary tour of New England lasting two years
1781
The reforming emperor Joseph II emancipates the serfs in the Habsburg territories
1781
The British general Charles Cornwallis, isolated at Yorktown, is forced to surrender in the final engagement of the Revolutionary War
1782
12-year-old Ludwig van Beethoven publishes his first composition, Piano Variations on a March by Dressler
1782
French paper manufacturer Joseph Montgolfier sends a hot-air balloon 3000 feet (1000m) into the air, in front of a crowd in Annonay
c. 1783
Some 40,000 Loyalists flee from British America to the previously French colonies, in particular Nova Scotia
1783
US lexicographer Noah Webster publishes a Spelling Book for American children that eventually will sell more than 60 million copies
1783
The empress Catherine the Great annexes the Crimean peninsula, giving Russia a presence in the Black Sea
1783
Ten days after the first human ascent in a hot-air balloon the feat is repeated, again in Paris, in a version lifted by hydrogen
1783
In the Treaty of Paris, negotiated by Adams, Franklin and Jay, the British government recognizes US independence
1783
Louis XVI watches through his telescope the first balloon flight with living passengers – a sheep, a cock and a duck
1783
A hot-air balloon rises from a Paris garden, carrying the first human aeronauts – Pilàtre de Rozier and the marquis d'Arlandes
1784
English ironmaster Henry Cort patents a process for puddling iron which produces a pure and malleable metal
1784
The first mail coach leaves Bristol for London, introducing a new era of faster transport
1785
James Hutton describes to the Royal Society of Edinburgh his studies of local rocks , launching the era of scientific geology
1785
William Withering's Account of the Foxglove describes the use of digitalis for dropsy, and its possible application to heart disease
1787
French chemist Antoine Laurent Lavoisier publishes a system for classifying and naming chemical substances
1787
A British ship lands a party of freed slaves as the first modern settlers in Sierra Leone, on the west coast of Africa
1787
Scottish engineer James Watt devises the governor, the first example of industrial automation
1787
Delegates meeting in Philadelphia agree a final draft for a US consitution, to be submitted to the states for ratification
1787
Mozart's opera Don Giovanni has its premiere in Prague
1788
Arthur Phillip, selecting a suitable coastal site for the first penal colony in Australia, names the place Sydney Cove
1789
George Washington, unanimously elected first president of the United States, is inaugurated on Wall Street in New York
1789
Alexander Hamilton becomes secretary of the treasury in the administration of George Washington, whose federalist views he shares
1789
William Blake publishes Songs of Innocence, a volume of his poems with every page etched and illustrated by himself
1789
In his Principles Jeremy Bentham defines 'utility' as that which enhances pleasure and reduces pain
1789
The autobiography of Olaudah Equiano, a slave captured as a child in Africa, becomes a best-seller on both sides of the Atlantic
1789
Alexander Mackenzie explores by canoe from central Canada through the Great Slave Lake to the Arctic Ocean
1789
Parisians force their way into the palace at Versailles and insist on Louis XVI and his royal family accompanying them back to Paris
1789
French doctor Joseph-Ignace Guillotin proposes a decapitation machine as a more humane form of capital punishment
c. 1790
A second great revivalist movement sweeps northeast America, inspired by the earlier example of Jonathan Edwards
1791
Under the guidance of Alexander Hamilton the First Bank of the United States is established in Philadelphia
1791
Naval officer George Vancouver sails from Britain on the voyage which will bring him to the northwest coast of America
1791
The first ten amendments to the US Constitution, collectively known as the Bill of Rights, are ratified by the states
1792
English author Mary Wollstonecraft publishes a passionately feminist work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
1792
Thomas Paine moves hurriedly to France, to escape a charge of treason in England for opinions expressed in his Rights of Man
1792
The National Convention abolishes royalty in France and establishes the first republic
1793
Louis XVI is guillotined after a majority of just one in the national Convention has voted for death without delay
1793
Eli Whitney invents the cotton gin, enormously speeding up the process of separating cotton fibres from the seeds
1794
In his Science of Knowledge Johann Gottlieb Fichte contrasts the I, or Ego, and its opposing non-I, or non-Ego
1794
William Blake's volume Songs of Innocence and Experience includes his poem 'Tyger! Tyger! burning bright'
c. 1795
Dutch Boers begin calling themselves Afrikaners, to emphasize that Africa is their native land
1796
In Berkeley, Gloucestershire, Edward Jenner inoculates a boy with cowpox in the pioneering case of vaccination
1796
George Washington selects the Cherokee Indians for an experiment in adaptation to 'civilization'
1797
Pope Pius VI is seized by a French army in Rome and is taken off to captivity in France
1798
Austrian author Alois Senefelder, experimenting with grease and water on stone, discovers the principles of lithography
1798
The British acquire a foothold in the Persian Gulf by making Oman a protectorate
1799
Napoleon's soldiers discover a black basalt slab, the Rosetta Stone, near the village of Rashid in Egypt
1799
The tsar, Paul I, establishes the Russian-American Company with the express purpose of developing Alaska
1799
English surveyor William Smith compiles a manuscript, Order of the Strata, revealing chronology through fossils in rocks
1799
British prime minister William Pitt introduces income tax at 10% to pay for the war against France