• Austrian composer Leopold Mozart, more notable for having a famous son.
• Italian priest and physicist Giuseppe Toaldo.
• English mathematician John Landen.
• Swedish politician and mathematician Jakob Gadolin.
• French author Jacques Cazotte.
• French statesman Duc Étienne François de Choiseul.
• Irish actor and author Thomas Sheridan.
• Japanese politician Tanuma Okitsugu.

 

• English essayist and poet Joseph Addison.
• German organ builder Arp Schnitger.
• French mathematician Michel Rolle.
• Former nanny Marquise Francoise d'Aubigne Maintenon, widow of Louis XIV.
• French mathematician Phillipe de la Hire.
• Alsatian mathematician Julius Reichelt.
• English poet and physician Samuel Garth.
• Dutch painter Arnold Houbraken.
• Scottish merchant and banker William Paterson.
• Japanese military author Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
• Mughal emperor Farrukh Siyah, assassinated by the Sayyid Brothers.
• His successor Rafi ud-Darajat.
• His successor Rafi ud-Daula, aka Shah Jehan II.
• His successor Nikusiyar.

• Daniel Defoe publishes:
• The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe,
• A sequel, The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.
• An essay On the Education of Women.  The verdict: A good idea, to a certain extent.
• Rumors of diamonds and gold in Louisiana cause wild speculation in the stock of John Law's Mississippi Company.
• The Quadruple Alliance of Great Britain, France, Austria, and Savoy declares war against Spain (they had driven spain out of Sicily the previous year).
• Spain tries to drive the duc d'Orleans from the regency of France.
• Spain sends an invasion fleet to assist a Jacobite rising in Scotland; however the main invasion fleet is wrecked in a storm. The rising is abandoned after the inconclusive Battle of Glenshiel.
• The British invade southern Spain, French troops occupy northern Spain
• Spanish troops from Cuba sack the French settlement of Mobile.
• France captures Pensacola from the Spanish. They also send an architect to expand the new settlement of New Orleans.
• Philip V's chief adviser, Cardinal Giulio Alberoni is banished for this defeat.
• (May) A Russian fleet defeats a Swedish squadron at the Battle of Osel Island in the Baltic Sea. This is the first Russian naval victory of any sort, but still makes Russia the predominant power in the Baltic.
• The Afghans invade Persia.
• Mahmud Shah becomes Mughal Emperor. He survives, but the Sayyid Brothers have all the real power.
• Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV:
• elevates the County of Vaduz to the Principality of Liechtenstein.
• captures the (now Hungarian province of) Banat from the Ottoman Empire
• names his daughter Maria Theresa his heir.  Although all of the European powers will give their "Pragmatic Sanction" to this succession, an opportunistic new king will exploit the actual succession in 1740.

1718 - 1719 - 1720

How they Were Made - 18th Century