1716

Born in 1716:

• English poet Thomas Gray.
• English engineer and canal builder James Brindley.
• Swedish naturalist Pehr Kalm, explorer of Canada.
• The future King Charles III of Spain.
• Antonio de Ulloa, first Spanish governor of Louisiana.
• English landscape architect Launcelot 'Capability' Brown.
• French sculptor Étienne-Maurice Falconet.
• English politician George Sackville Germain.

• German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, co-discoverer of calculus.
• English mathematician Roger Cotes.
• French mathematician Antoine Parent.
• German physician and naturalist Engelbert Kämpfer, author of descriptions of 17th-century Persia and Japan.
• English dramatist William Wycherley.
• Scottish anti-unionist Andrew Fletcher 'of Saltoun' (old age).
• Jacobite leaders, beheaded over the 's rising:
• James Radcliffe, 3rd Earl of Derwentwater (his brother escapes Newgate prison and flees to the Continent).
• William Gordon, 6th Viscount Kenmure
• Tokugawa Ietsugu, shogun of Japan. He is succeeded by Tokugawa Yoshimune.
• Ottoman Grand Vizier Damad Ali, killed at Peterwardein.

• French King Louis XV's regent, the duc d'Orleans, grants Scottish monetary reformer John Law permission to found a central bank (the Banque Générale) for France.
• The failed Jacobite rising of the previous year results in greater British control over Scotland.
• James Edward Stewart, aka "Charles III" or "The Old Pretender", flees to France.
• Seven leaders are condemned to death; some escape, and only two are actually executed.
• Many others are transported to America.
• Before his death, Leibniz proposes a difficult problem to test the mettle of English mathematicians, and Sir Isaac Newton solves it in five hours.
• Austria declares war with the Ottoman Empire, ostensibly to aid Venice.
• (August 5) Prince Eugene of Savoy crushes the Turkish army at Peterwardein.  This gives the Austrians control of the rest of Hungary.
• (October 14) Eugene wins again at the Battle of Temesvar; Austria now controls Banat.
• The Great Northern War continues, as Swedish King Charles XII just won't give up.
• Wismar, the last bit of Pomerania captured by Gustavus Adolphus during the Thirty Years' War, falls.  The Swedish Empire is reduced to Sweden and Finland.
• The allied Danish, British, Dutch, and Russian navies call off a planned invasion of Sweden.
• He then invades Norway, capturing Christiania, and lays siege to Frederiksten. This does not succeed, but he will try again two years later.

1715 - 1716 - 1717

How they Were Made - 18th Century