• French mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace.
• French mathematician Jean-Baptiste Joseph Delambre.
• English physician Edward Jenner, discoverer of the first smallpox vaccine.
• German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
• Flemish composer Maria Barthélemon.
• Massachusetts printer Isaiah Thomas.
• Italian composer Domenico Cimarosa.
• British Whig politician Charles James Fox.
• English poet Charlotte Smith.
• Italian/Scottish composer Pietro Urbani.
• Italian painter Lorenzo da Ponte
• Italian composer Domenico Cimarosa.
• The future Danish King Christian VII.
• Russian radical printer Alexander Nikolaevich Radischev.
• Japanese poet and writer Ota Nanpo.
• Japanese mathematician Matsunaga Ryohitsu.

Died in 1749:

• French physicist Marquise Gabrielle du Châtelet, in childbirth.
• English playwright and author, Catharine Trotter Cockburn.
• Dutch floral painter Jan Van Huysum.
• Italian painter Alessandro Magnasco.
• English mathematician William Jones, namer of pi. π

• Halifax, Nova Scotia founded.
• Britain and France Louisborg, Nova Scotia for Madras in India.
• A much-photographed bridge over the river Cam is built near Queens' College in Cambridge, England.
• Henry Fielding publishes The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling.
• British King George II commissions George Friederic Handel to write something to celebrate the end of the War of Austrian Succession.  Handel produces his Music for the Royal Fireworks.
• Georgia legalizes slavery.
• Scottish scientist Alexander Wilson uses kites to measure temperature at different altitudes.
• The Ohio Company is formed to explore and settle the area of Virginia north-west of the Ohio River.

1748 - 1749 - 1750