• German composer Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach.
• Austrian composer Christoph Willibald Gluck.
• French painter Claude-Joseph Vernet.
• English poet William Shenstone.
• (approx.) Irish actress Peg Woffington.
• English preacher George Whitefield, who helped John Wesley found Methodism.
• French sculptor Jean-Baptiste Pigalle.
• English landscape painter Richard Wilson, in Wales.

• (June 8) Sophie, Electress-dowager of Hanover.
• (August 12) Queen Anne of Great Britain.
• German architect Andreas Schlüter.
• English playwright Charles D'Avenant.
• Princess Maria Louise Gabriella, wife of Spanish King Philip V.  Philip marries Princess Elizabeth Farnese of Parma.

• The 1701 Act of Settlement had revised the English law of succession so that no Catholic could inherit the throne.  At the time the law was passed, the closest Protestant heir was the aforementioned electress-dowager Sophie, granddaughter of King James I.  However, Sophie dies six weeks before Queen Anne, and the throne passes to Sohpie's son, the Current Elector of Hanover, George I.  Many Catholic claimants with otherwise stronger claims to the throne, especially James Edward Stewart, are passed over.  Recall that the Act Of Union between England and Scotland did not occur until 1707. This will cause trouble later on.
• Some more treaties making up what is now called the Peace of Utrecht, ending The War of the Spanish Succession, are signed:
• (March 7) The salami-slicing Treaty of Rastatt between Louis XIV of France and Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI.
• Austria gets the formerly Spanish Netherlands and some formerly Spanish possessions in Italy (Milan, Sardinia, Naples, Mantua.
• Austria is at peace with France but still at war with Spain, refusing to accept the legitimacy of Louis XIV's grandson, Spanish King Philip V.
• (June 26) Spain and the Republic of the Netherlands make peace in Utrecht.
• (September 7) The Treaty of Baden confirms Austrian possession of the East side of the Rhine; France keeps Alsace and Strasbourg.
• France withdraws its occupation of Lorraine.
• All of the autonomous Spanish provinces who had opposed Philip, notably Catalonia, lose their autonomy.
• The Great Northern War continues.  Swedish King Charles XII is a prisoner in Turkey.
• The Russian navy defeats the Swedish navy at the Battle of Hangö.
• The Russian army captures most of Finland after winning the Battle of Storkyro; the Finnish army retreats into Sweden.
• (September) Charles leaves for home.  He passes through Vienna and Frankfurt before eventually landing in Swedish territory -- Stralsund in Pomerania, the wrong side of the Baltic.
• (December) The Ottoman Empire declares war against Venice, not Russia, as Charles XII wanted.
• The Maratha kingdom's civil war continues.  The leader of one faction, dowager Tarabai removes one son (Shivaji II) as King and installs another (Sambhaji).  The leader of the other faction, Shahu, still considers himdelf king.
• Alexander Pope publishes his full version of The Rape of the Lock for the first time.
• Gabriel Fahrenheit invents the mercury thermometer and a temperature scale to measure it with.
• Dominique Anel invents the hypodermic needle.
• Tsar Peter the Great forbids the construction of stone buildings in Moscow, to promote the development of his new capital, St. Petersburg.
• The British colonies in North America taste tea for the first time.  This will cause trouble later on, as well.
• The first French settlement west of the Mississippi River, Natchitoches, is founded.

1713 - 1714 - 1715

How they Were Made - 18th Century