• German composer and musical theorist Johann Joaquim Quantz.
• English illustrator William Hogarth.
• English antiquarian John Aubrey, pioneer of archaeology, after whom the Aubrey Holes at Stonehenge are named.
• French violin composer Jean-Marie Leclair.
• British admiral George Anson.
• French socialite and wit, Marquise Marie Anne du Deffand.
• Scottish poet Richard Savage.
• English poet Mehetabel "Hetty" Wright.
• Italian painter Giovanni Antonio Canal, aka "Canaletto."
• German lutenist and composer Adam Falckenhagen.
• Japanese historian Kamo no Mabuchi.

• Swedish King Charles XI.  His fifteen-year-old son succeeds him as Charles XII, and Northern Europe is in for a bumpy ride.
• Chinese painter Mei Ch'ing.
• Dutch painter Jan de Braij.
• English dramatist Edward Ravenscroft.
• Spanish theologian Miguel de Molinos.
• Danish mathematician Georg Mohr.
• Italian mathematician Stefano degli Angeli.
• Dzungar Mongol warlord Galdan Boshogtu.
• 20,000 Ottoman soldiers at Zenta.

• Tsar Peter the Great travels incognitio around Europe; however, when he goes into a Haarlem barber shop for a shave, the barber recognizes him.
• William Penn publishes a Plan of Union, essentially a way for the English North American colonies to resolve disputes without involving the Crown.
• Daniel Defoe publishes An Essay On Projects.
• William Congreve's play The Mourning Bride (containing the famous line "Music has charms to soothe a savage breast") premeires.
• John Dryden publishes an "Ode for St Cecilia's Day", later set to music as "Alexander's Feast" by Georg Friederic Handel.
• Cossacks claim Kamchatka for Russia.
• Qing Emperor Kang Xi crushes an invading Mongol army (see above), and then permits Han men to cultivate land north of the Great Wall for the first time.
• The first services are held in the incomplete St. Paul's Cathedral.
• Gotokuji Temple is completed in Edo (now Tokyo).
• At the Battle of Zenta, prince Eugene of Savoy crushes the Ottoman army.  An embarrassing defeat, as Eugene also captures all of the army's prosivions and artillery, and 10 of the Sultan's wives.
• Polish nobles elect a successor to King Jan Sobiseki, who had died the year before: Frederick August I, Elector of Saxony, after he converts to Catholicism.
• King William's War also known as the War of the League of Augsburg, or the Nine Years' War  sees much action in North America, with Pierre Le Moyne, sieur d'Iberville, destroying the English military presence along Hudson Bay.  Unfortunately, even Louis XIV cannot continue fighting every other power in Europe, even if some of them are involved in other wars.  In September, the Treaty of Ryswick (aka treaty of Nymegen) restores the status quo in America and on the Continent; King Louis XIV of France withdraws his troops from the occupied Spanish Netherlands and The Palatinate, as well as border forts he had captured in previous wars.   However, in the Carribean, Spain cedes the western part of Hispaniola to France, the part which will later be called "Haiti".

1696 - 1697 - 1698

How they Were Made - 17th Century