• English literary figure Joseph Spence.
• Welsh poet John Dyer.
• Scottish poet Robert Blair.
• French painter Pierre Subleyras.
• French mathematician Charles Etienne Louis Camus.
• French painter Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin.
• French engraver Hubert-François Bourguignon Gravelot.
• Irish actor and playwright Charles Macklin.
• Future King Chrisitian VI of Denmark.

• English clergyman and theologian Edward Stillingfleet.
• English painter Mary Beale.
• Italian painter Mattia Preti.
• French dramatist Jean Racine.
• Spanish sculptor Pedro Roldán.
• King Christian V of Denmark, His son Frederik IV takes over.

• Peter the Great, Tsar of all the Russias:
• institutes calendar reform, including the Anno Domini system of counting years in Russia, and the New Year's beginning January 1 instead of September 1.
• is nervous about 17-year-old Swedish King Karl XII's saber rattling; at the same time, he sees an opportunity to gain territory from Sweden, and concludes a military alliance with Saxony, Denmark, and Poland.
• 14-year-old George Frideric Handel pens his first known musical composition.
• Sikh guru Gobind Singh founds the Khalsa order during the Vaisakhi festival.
• Pirate captain William Kidd lands at Boston and turns himself in after receiving assurances of clemency from Massachusetts governor Lord Bellomont.  Bad idea; Bellomont ships Kidd and his cohorts back to London in irons.
• At Cahokia, Illinois, French Jesuit priests build a house and a chapel, the first European settlement on the Mississippi.
• Arenales Indians rebel against the Spanish on Trinidad.  A mission is burned and four priests are killed, and The Spanish suppress the rebellion with bloody reprisals.
• Settlers in the Scottish colony of "New Caledonia" in Panama go home after the Spanish seize their supplies.
• A Virginia town named "Middle plantation" is renamed Williamsburg after King William III and the Virginia seat of government is moved there. The former capital, Jamestown, is abandoned.
• William III appoints Sir Isaac Newton as Master of the Mint.
• French scientist Guillaume Amontons rediscovers the laws of friction (stated earlier by Leonardo da Vinci).
• At the suggestion of his Naval minister Ponchartrain, King Louis XIV levies a tax on theaters, ostensibly to discourage begging.
• Louisiana founded by Pierre Le Moyne (sieur de Iberville) and his brothers, including Jean-Baptiste (sieur de Bienville).
• On Shrove Tuesday they camp in the Mississippi River delta and name things after Mardi Gras.
• While exploring the river, they come upon a decorated red pole serving as a boundary marker between two resident tribes (the Bayougoula and Houma).
• Later in the year, they found the first settlements, Mobile and Fort Maurepas (Biloxi).
• They also convince a few Englishmen that settling in the area was a bad idea.
• A large number of Huguenot refugees from France settle in Virginia.
• Austria's war with the Ottoman Empire ends.  At the peace of Karlowitz, eastern European powers each take bites:
• Austria takes Hungary, Slovenia and Croatia
• Poland takes Podolia.
• Venice occupies the Peleponessus  and Dalmatia.

 

1698 - 1699 - 1700

How they Were Made - 17th Century