18th century

Centuries:	17th century - 18th century - 19th century
Decades:	1700s 1710s 1720s 1730s 1740s 1750s 1760s 1770s 1780s 1790s

As a means of recording the passage of time, the 18th century refers to the century that lasted from 1701 through 1800 in the Gregorian calendar.

European history scholars will sometimes specifically refer to the 18th century as 1715-1789, denoting the period of time between the death of Louis XIV of France and the start of the French Revolution.

Contents 1 Events 1.1 1700s 1.2 1710s 1.3 1720s 1.4 1730s 1.5 1740s 1.6 1750s 1.7 1760s 1.8 1770s 1.9 1780s 1.10 1790s 2 Significant people 3 Inventions, discoveries, introductions 4 Decades and years

Events

1700s

• 1701-1714: War of the Spanish Succession
• 1703: Saint Petersburg founded by Peter the Great. Russian capital until 1918.
• 1707: Act of Union passed merging the Scottish and the English Parliaments, thus establishing The Kingdom of Great Britain.
• 1707: After Aurangzeb's death, the Mughal Empire enters a long decline.

1710s

• 1715: Louis XIV died leaving France deep in debt.
• 1718: City of New Orleans founded by the French in North America

1720s

• 1720: The South Sea Bubble
• 1721: Robert Walpole becomes the first Prime Minister of Great Britain (de facto).
• 1721: Treaty of Nystad signed, ending the Great Northern War.
• 1722: Afghans conquer Iran, ending the Safavid dynasty.
• 1722: Kangxi Emperor of China dies.

1730s

• 1733-38: War of the Polish Succession
• 1735-99: The Qianlong Emperor of China oversees a huge expansion in territory.
• 1736: Nadir Shah assumes title of Shah of Persia and founds the Afsharid dynasty. Rules until his death in 1747.
• 1739: Nadir Shah defeats the Mughals and sacks Delhi.

1740s

• 1740: Frederick the Great crowned King of Prussia.
• 1740-48: War of the Austrian Succession
• 1741: Russians begin settling the Aleutian Islands.
• 1747: Ahmad Shah founds the Durrani Empire in modern day Afghanistan.

1750s

• 1750: Peak of the Little Ice Age
• 1755: The Lisbon earthquake
• 1756-63: Seven Years' War fought among European powers in various theaters around the world.
• 1757: Battle of Plassey signals the beginning of British rule in India.

1760s

• 1760: George III becomes King of Britain.
• 1762-96: Reign of Catherine the Great of Russia.
• 1763-66: Pontiac's Rebellion in North America
• 1766-99: Anglo-Mysore Wars
• 1767: Burmese conquer the Ayutthaya kingdom.
• 1768: Gurkhas conquer Nepal.
• 1768-1774: Russo-Turkish War
• 1769: Spanish missionaries establish the first of 21 missions in California.
• 1769-73: The Bengal famine of 1770 kills one third of the Indian population.

1770s

• 1772-1795: The Partitions of Poland end the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and erase Poland from the map for 123 years.
• 1775-1782: First Anglo-Maratha War
• 1775-1783: American Revolutionary War
• 1779-1879: Cape Frontier Wars between British and Boer settlers and the Xhosas in South Africa

1780s

• 1785-95: Northwest Indian War between the United States and Native Americans
• 1787: Freed slaves from London found Freetown in present-day Sierra Leone.
• 1788: First European settlement established in Australia at Sydney.
• 1789: George Washington elected President of the United States. Serves until 1797.
• 1789-99: The French Revolution

1790s

• 1791 Jewish Emancipation in France.
• 1791-1804: The Haitian Revolution
• 1792-1815: The Great French War starts as the French Revolutionary Wars which lead into the Napoleonic Wars.
• 1792: New York Stock & Exchange Board founded.
• 1793: Upper Canada bans slavery.
• 1795: Pinckney's Treaty between the United States and Spain grants the Mississippi Territory to the US.
• 1796: British eject Dutch from Ceylon.
• 1796-1804: White Lotus Rebellion in China.
• 1797: Napoleon's invasion and partition of the Republic of Venice ends over 1,000 years of independence for the Serene Republic.
• 1798: Irish Rebellion against British Rule
• 1798-1800: Quasi-War between the United States and France.
• 1799: Napoleon stages a coup d'état and becomes dictator of France.
• 1799: Dutch East India Company is dissolved.

Significant people

• Maria Gaetana Agnesi (Italian mathematician and linguist)
• Ueda Akinari (Japanese writer)
• Queen Anne (British monarch)
• Marie Antoinette (Austrian-born French Queen and symbol of anti-Revolutionary ire)
• Benedict Arnold, considered a traitor by many people on both sides (United States and Britain) of the American Revolutionary War.
• Feijoo, Spanish writer.
• Johann Sebastian Bach (composer)
• Pierre Beaumarchais (French writer)
• Jeremy Bentham (English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer)
• Daniel Bernoulli (Swiss mathematician and physicist)
• Napoleon Bonaparte (general and first consul of France)
• François Boucher (French painter)
• Edmund Burke (British statesman and philosopher who supported the American Revolution)
• Robert Burns (Scottish poet)
• Catherine the Great (Russian Tsaritsa)
• Alexis Clairault (French mathematician)
• James Cook (British navigator)
• François Couperin French composer
• Jean le Rond d'Alembert (French mathematician, physicist, and encyclopedist)
• Denis Diderot (French writer and philosopher)
• Leonhard Euler (Swiss mathematician)
• Jean-Honoré Fragonard (French painter)
• Benjamin Franklin (American revolutionary, inventor, printer, and diplomat)
• Frederick the Great (Prussian monarch)
• Thomas Gainsborough (painter)
• Carl Friedrich Gauss (German mathematician, physicist, and astronomer)
• King George III (British monarch)
• Christoph Willibald Gluck (German composer)
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German writer)
• Thomas Gray (British writer)
• George Frideric Handel (German composer)
• Alexander Hamilton (American revolutionary, lawyer, and statesman)
• Joseph Haydn (Austrian composer)
• William Hogarth (painter and engraver)
• David Hume (philosopher)
• Thomas Jefferson (American revolutionary, philosopher, and statesman)
• Samuel Johnson (British writer and literary critic)
• Immanuel Kant (philosopher)
• Wolfgang von Kempelen (Hungarian scientist, pioneer in experimental phonetics)
• Pierre Choderlos de Laclos French official, general and author.
• Joseph Louis Lagrange (Italian mathematician and mathematical physicist)
• Pierre Simon Laplace (French physicist and mathematician)
• John Law (Scottish economist)
• James Watt, (Scottish inventor)
• Antoine Lavoisier (French chemist)
• Adrien-Marie Legendre (French mathematician)
• Louis XIV of France (monarch)
• Louis XV of France (monarch)
• Louis XVI of France (monarch)
• James Madison (American revolutionary, writer, and statesman)
• Maria Theresa of Austria (Holy Roman Empress, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia)
• Michikinikwa (Miami tribe chief and war leader)
• Honoré Mirabeau French writer, orator, politician
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (composer)
• Thomas Paine (British intellectual and philosopher who advocated for the American Revolution)
• Tupac Amaru II (Peruvian revolutionary)
• Philip II, Duke of Orléans (Regent of France)
• Alexander Pope (British poet)
• Francis II Rákóczi (prince of Hungary and Transylvania, leader of the Hungarian freedom war)
• Jean-Philippe Rameau (French composer and music theorist)
• Sir Joshua Reynolds (painter)
• Maximilien Robespierre (French Revolutionary leader and dictator)
• Pedro Rodríguez de Campomanes, Spanish politician and economist.
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau (French writer and philosopher)
• Domenico Scarlatti Italian composer.
• Friedrich Schiller (German writer)
• John Small, Sr (Hambledon cricketer; the first great batsman)
• Adam Smith (Scottish economist and philosopher)
• Laurence Sterne (British writer)
• Edward "Lumpy" Stevens (Surrey cricketer; the first great bowler)
• Jonathan Swift (Anglo-Irish satirist)
• Tecumseh (Revolutionary)
• Antonio Vivaldi Italian composer
• Voltaire (French writer and philosopher)
• George Washington (American revolutionary general and first president)
• Antoine Watteau French painter
• John Wesley (Founder of Methodism, Anglican clergyman, English reformer, scholar, theologian and writer)
• William Pitt (British Prime Minister)

See Founding Fathers of the United States

Inventions, discoveries, introductions

Main articles: Timeline of invention#18th century and Timeline of scientific discoveries#1700s

• Industrial Revolution begins
• The Encyclopédie by the Encyclopedists
• The English Dictionary by Samuel Johnson
• Economics by Adam Smith
• Rosetta stone discovered by Napoleon's troops.
• Vitus Bering discovered Alaska.
• James Cook mapped the boundaries of the Pacific Ocean and discovered many Pacific Islands.
• Wahhabism by Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab

The content of this page is retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighteenth_century under GFDL