Born in 1698:
Died in 1698:
Events of 1698:
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Bénigne d'Auvergne de St.-Mars, commander of the Ste. Marguerite prison in France], is given command of the Bastille in Paris. With him, he brings certain special prisoners whom Louis XIV put in his keeping. One of these is a man wearing a mask (leather, not iron as dramatized by Alexandre Dumas), who has his own valet. The prisoner's aappearance during his brief walk into the Bastille causes much speculation as to his identity.
-
Tsar Peter the Great:
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travels incognito around Europe, but has to hurry home from England when
his Streltsy guards revolt in favor of Peter's half-sister Sophia.
Sophia is put in a nunnery and the rebels are executed (some by Peter himself)
to a man; the corps of Streltsy is disbanded.
-
levies a tax on beards in order to encourage westernization of Russia.
Those who paid the tax were issued a metal token with a beard stamped on
it.
-
Jakob Bernoulli demonstrates how to calculate geodesic lines on curved
surfaces.
-
England removes the slave trade monopoly from the Royal African Company,
allowing all English merchants to kidnap human beings and transport them
into slavery. The infamous Triangular trade of slaves, molasses
and rum is set up.
-
Captain William Kidd decides that chasing pirates is less profitable
than being one, and begins raiding ships in the Indian Ocean. English
authorities are upset because he is disrupting the slave trade.
-
The first expedition to settle Louisiana leaves Brest.
-
Five ships carrying 1000 Scots leave for a new Scottish colony in Darien,
Panama.
-
William III charters a New East India Company, a competitor
to the original English East India Company.
-
The English East India Company purchases three villages in Bengal (Kalikata,
Sutanati, and Govindpurfrom) from Mughal emperor Aurangzeb.
The Company fortifies their factory at Hugli, naming it Fort William.
The villages will eventually become the city of Calcutta.
-
Construction of a different Fort William, in Newfoundland, also begins.
-
The army of Brandenburg-Prussia adopts marching in step, and issues
iron ramrods for its muskets.
-
Spanish soldiers buidl Fort San Carlos on Pensacola Bay.
-
William Partridge releases a pamphlet claiming that his 1695 prediction
that the world would end in 1697 was correct: the world had ended,
but no-one noticed.
-
Asante king Osei Tutu begins a war against the Asante's former
conquerors, the Denkyira people.
-
The Dutch West India Company builds Fort Leitsaemheyt at Apam on the
Gold Coast (Ghana).
- The Virginia state house in Jamestown burns down.
1697 - 1698 - 1699
How they Were Made - 17th Century