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| | | | World History timeline |
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| 1689 |
| | | Young gentlewomen in Chelsea give the first performance of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas | |
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| c. 1690 |
| | | France by now has six fortified trading settlements around the coast of India, of which Pondicherry is the most important | |
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| 1690 |
| | | The armies of James II and William III confront each at the river Boyne, with victory going to William | |
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| c. 1690 |
| | | Chinoiserie becomes the new craze in Europe, after Jesuit reports of the Chinese civilization | |
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| 1690 |
| | | The French scientist Denis Papin, while professor of mathematics at Marburg, develops the first steam engine to use a piston | |
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| 1690 |
| | | The Church of Scotland finally wins recognition as an independent Presbyterian body | |
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| 1690 |
| | | John Strong, landing on some remote Atlantic islands, names them after Viscount Falkland, treasurer of the British navy | |
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| 1690 |
| | | John Locke publishes his Essay concerning Human Understanding, arguing that all knowledge is based on experience | |
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| 1692 |
| | | Government soldiers, mainly Campbells, massacre their MacDonald hosts in Glencoe | |
|  | Order for the massacre of Glencoe
National Library of Scotland
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| 1692 |
| | | The Massachusetts town of Salem is gripped by witch-hunting hysteria | |
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| 1692 |
| | | Twenty people convicted of witchcraft are hanged in Salem, and one is pressed to death | |
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| 1693 |
| | | Gold is found in Brazil, launching the first great American gold rush | |
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| 1694 |
| | | The Bank of England is founded and soon becomes the central banker for England's many private banks | |
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| 1694 |
| | | The joint monarch of England, Mary II, dies - leaving her husband, William III, to reign alone | |
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| 1696 |
| | | Peter the Great makes an unexpected raid down the river Don and captures Azov from the Crimean Tatars | |
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| 1696 |
| | | Fort St William is built by the East India Company in the Ganges delta, and subsequently develops into Calcutta | |
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| 1697 |
| | | The Russian tsar, Peter I, studies western European technology, working as a ship's carpenter in Dutch and English shipyards | |
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| 1697 |
| | | In the Treaty of Rijswijk, Spain cedes the western half of Hispaniola to France, which names its new colony Saint-Domingue | |
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| 1698 |
| | | A fleet from Oman evicts the Portuguese from Mombasa and Zanzibar | |
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| 1698 |
| | | Thomas Savery creates the first practical steam engine, designed to pump water out of mines | |
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| 1698 |
| | | A maker of harpsichords in Florence, Bartolomeo Cristofori, develops the piano ('soft') and forte ('loud') feature which leads to the piano | |
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| 1698 |
| | | Scotland makes a disastrous attempt to establish a colony in Darien, on the isthmus of Panama | |
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| 1698 |
| | | Peter the Great makes a symbolic gesture of reform in trimming his boyars' beards | |
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| 1699 |
| | | The tenth Sikh guru, Gobind Rai, commits his people to the five Ks, which become the outward signs of their group identity | |
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| c. 1700 |
| | | In the years after the battle of the Boyne, Catholic ownership of land in Ireland is reduced to just 14% of the total | |
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| c. 1700 |
| | | Holland and England are now producing the magnificent ocean-going merchant vessels known as East Indiamen | |
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| 1700 |
| | | Charles II, the childless king of Spain. leaves all his territories to Philip of Anjou, a grandson of the French king, Louis XIV | |
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| 1700 |
| | | Poland, Russia and Denmark attack Sweden, beginning the 21-year Northern War | |
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| c. 1700 |
| | | Peter the Great sets up numerous schools and commercial enterprises to enable Russia to compete in Europe | |
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| 1700 |
| | | Boston merchant Samuel Sewall publishes The Selling of Joseph, a very early anti-slavery tract | |
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| 1701 |
| | | The Act of Settlement declares that no Catholic may inherit the English crown | |
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| 1701 |
| | | The War of the Spanish Succession breaks out between French and Austrian claimants to the Spanish throne | |
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| 1702 |
| | | The Augustan Age begins in English literature, claiming comparison with the equivalent flowering under Augustus Caesar | |
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| 1702 |
| | | On the death of her brother-in-law, William III, Anne becomes queen of England and Scotland | |
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| 1702 |
| | | German chemist Georg Stahl coins the name phlogiston for the substance believed to be released in the process of burning | |
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| 1703 |
| | | Peter the Great falls for a Lithuanian serf, Catherine, who becomes his life-long companion | |
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| 1703 |
| | | Peter the Great founds the port and city of St Petersburg, giving Russia access to the Baltic | |
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| 1704 |
| | | The tenth Sikh guru, Gobind Rai, names as his successor the sacred book known as the Granth | |
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| 1704 |
| | | The duke of Marlborough wins a major victory over the French at Blenheim, capturing twenty-four battalions and four regiments | |
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| 1707 |
| | | The death of Aurangzeb introduces the long period of decline of the Mughal empire | |
|  | Aurangzeb
Fotofile CG
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| 1707 |
| | | The Act of Union merges England and Scotland as 'one kingdom by the name of Great Britain', a century after the union of the crowns | |
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| 1708 |
| | | The secret of true porcelain is at last discovered in the west, at Dresden, by Johann Friedrich Böttger | |
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| 1709 |
| | | The Swedish king Charles XII suffers his first major defeat in a brilliant career, when he faces the Russians at Poltava | |
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| 1709 |
| | | The Tatler launches a new style of journalism in Britain's coffee houses, followed two years later by the Spectator | |
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| 1709 |
| | | Alexander Selkirk, the inspiration for Robinson Crusoe, is discovered on a Pacific island where he has survived alone for nearly five years | |
|  | Fleet marriage of original Robinson Crusoe, c.1718
National Archives, Kew
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| 1709 |
| | | Abraham Darby at Coalbrookdale discovers the use of coke in the smelting of pig iron | |
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| c. 1710 |
| | | Thomas Newcomen creates a piston steam engine, with the steam condensed in the cylinder by a jet of cold water | |
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| 1710 |
| | | Christopher Wren's new domed St Paul's cathedral is completed in London | |
|  | St.Paul's Cathedral
Fotofile CG
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| 1710 |
| | | Machines are thrown out of the window of a Spitalfields factory, in an early protest against industrialization | |
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| c. 1710 |
| | | The Byerley Turk, Darley Arabian and Godolphin Arabian, ancestors of all thoroughbred racehorses, are imported into England | |
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| 1710 |
| | | 25-year-old George Berkeley attacks Locke in his Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge | |
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| 1711 |
| | | Handel's success in London with his opera Rinaldo prompts him to settle in Britain | |
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| 1712 |
| | | Alexander Pope's Rape of the Lock introduces a delicate vein of mock-heroic in English poetry | |
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| 1712 |
| | | The tsar formally marries Catherine, his mistress for nearly ten years (though they may have married secretly five years earlier) | |
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| 1713 |
| | | The emperor Charles VI issues a Pragmatic Sanction, declaring that the remaining Habsburg empire can be inherited through the female line | |
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| 1713 |
| | | The treaties signed in Utrecht bring to an end the War of the Spanish Succession | |
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| 1714 |
| | | In the aftermath of the War of the Spanish Succession, the Spanish Netherlands are transferred to Austria | |
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| 1714 |
| | | Strasbourg and Alsace are ceded to Louis XIV and become part of France | |
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| 1714 |
| | | Fahrenheit perfects the mercury thermometer and decides on a 180-degree interval between the freezing and boiling points of water | |
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| 1714 |
| | | On the death of Queen Anne, the Act of Settlement delivers the British crown to the elector of Hanover, as George I | |
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| 1714 |
| | | The British government offers a massive £20,000 prize for a chronometer capable of keeping accurate time at sea | |
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| 1714 |
| | | In his Monadology Leibniz describes a universe consisting of forceful interactive parts that he calls 'monads' | |
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| 1715 |
| | | Louis XIV dies after seventy-two years on the throne | |
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| 1715 |
| | | A Jacobite uprising in Scotland on behalf of the Old Pretender ends in fiasco | |
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| 1715 |
| | | Colen Campbell creates interest in the Palladian style in Britain with the publication of his Vitruvius Britannicus | |
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| 1716 |
| | | The Habsburg emperor Charles VI has a son, but the child dies within the year | |
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| 1717 |
| | | Scottish entrepreneur John Law establishes the Louisiana Company to develop the Mississippi valley for France | |
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| 1717 |
| | | The earl of Burlington employs Colen Campbell to remodel his Piccadilly house in the Palladian style | |
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| 1717 |
| | | Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, observing the Turkish practice of inoculation against smallpox, submits her infant son to the treatment | |
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| 1718 |
| | | The tsarevitch Alexis, heir to Peter the Great, dies from violence inflicted on him in prison | |
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| 1719 |
| | | Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, with its detailed realism, can be seen as the first English novel | |
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| c. 1720 |
| | | The lighter rococo style, beginning in France, becomes an extension of the baroque | |
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| c. 1720 |
| | | The symphony begins to develop as a musical form, deriving from the overtures of operas | |
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| c. 1720 |
| | | The postchaise, introduced in France, provides the first chance of reasonably comfortable travel by land | |
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| c. 1720 |
| | | Like the symphony, the string quartet develops during the eighteenth century, moving from simple beginnings to great complexity | |
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| 1720 |
| | | Johann Sebastian Bach compiles the Little Keyboard Book a set of pieces to teach his eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach | |
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| 1720 |
| | | Shares in the South Sea Company rise rapidly and collapse within the year, in the so-called South Sea Bubble | |
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| c. 1720 |
| | | Two political parties emerge in Sweden's parliament and become known as the Hats and the Caps | |
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| 1720 |
| | | Shares in John Law's Louisiana Company rise spectacularly and then collapse, in what becomes known as the Mississippi Bubble | |
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| 1720 |
| | | The Dalai Lama in Lhasa accepts Chinese imperial protection, which lasts until 1911 | |
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| c. 1720 |
| | | Young noblemen, particularly from Britain, visit Italy on the Grand Tour | |
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| c. 1720 |
| | | Canaletto begins to specialize in views of the Venetian canals, finding his main customers among the British | |
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| 1721 |
| | | In the treaty of Nystad Sweden cedes Estonia to Russia together with most of Latvia (the rest of which soon follows) | |
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| 1721 |
| | | Robert Walpole becomes Britain's chief minister and holds the post for an unrivalled span of twenty-one years | |
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| 1721 |
| | | With the transfer of Swedish territory on the Baltic coast, Russia becomes the dominant power in the region | |
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| 1721 |
| | | In a ceremony in St Petersburg's cathedral Peter the Great has himself proclaimed 'emperor of all Russia' | |
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| 1721 |
| | | Jean-Antoine Watteau paints the most splendid shop sign in history, for his friend Gersaint | |
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| 1721 |
| | | Johann Sebastian Bach writes the six Brandenburg Concertos for his employer at the court of Köthen | |
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| 1722 |
| | | The Iroquois League becomes known as the Six Nations, after the Tuscarora join the group | |
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| 1722 |
| | | Easter Island is reached by the Dutch, beginning a spate of European discovery in the islands of the Pacific | |
|  | Hodges Monuments on Easter Island (detail)
National Maritime Museum
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| 1722 |
| | | J.S. Bach publishes The Well-Tempered Clavier, a collection of 24 Preludes and Fugues | |
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| 1722 |
| | | 16-year-old Benjamin Franklin contributes the 'Dogood Papers', essays on moral topics, to a Boston journal, The New England Courant | |
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| 1723 |
| | | The Austrian emperor, Charles VI, agrees that Hungary shall be ruled as a separate kingdom within his empire | |
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| 1724 |
| | | General Wade, commander-in-chief of North Britain, begins an impressive programme of road construction in the Scottish Highlands | |
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| 1725 |
| | | The Russian tsar Peter the Great dies and is succeeded by his wife as the empress Catherine I | |
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| 1725 |
| | | Vivaldi publishes the set of violin concertos known as The Four Seasons | |
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| 1726 |
| | | Jonathan Swift launches his hero on a series of bitterly satirical adventures in Gulliver's Travels | |
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| c. 1727 |
| | | J.S. Bach conducts the first performance of his St Matthew Passion in the St Thomas's church in Leipzig | |
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| 1727 |
| | | On the death of his father, George I, George II becomes king of Great Britain | |
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| 1727 |
| | | Handel composes Zadok the Priest for the crowning of George II, and it has been sung at every subsequent British coronation | |
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| 1728 |
| | | The Danish explorer Vitus Bering sails into Arctic seas through the strait between Asia and America known now by his name | |
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| 1729 |
| | | Benjamin Franklin prints, publishes and largely writes the weekly Pennsylvania Gazette | |
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| 1730 |
| | | The Italian poet Metastasio produces, in Vienna, opera libretti which are used by almost every composer of the day | |
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| c. 1730 |
| | | John and Charles Wesley form a Holy Club at Oxford which becomes the cradle of Methodism | |
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| 1731 |
| | | The Flemish-born sculptor Michael Rysbrack creates a momument to Newton in Westminster Abbey | |
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| 1731 |
| | | English maker of telescopes John Hadley designs the instrument which evolves into the standard sextant used at sea | |
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| 1731 |
| | | Benjamin Franklin sets up a subscription library, the Library Company of Philadelphia | |
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| 1732 |
| | | Georgia is granted to a group of British philanthropists, to give a new start in life to debtors | |
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| 1732 |
| | | With the performance of Esther Handel taps a rich new vein, the English oratorio | |
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| 1733 |
| | | An alliance between the French and Spanish Bourbons is the first of what become known as the Family Compacts | |
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| 1733 |
| | | Voltaire publishes a series of Philosophical Letters comparing the French unfavourably with England | |
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| 1733 |
| | | John Kay, working in the Lancashire woollen industry, patents the flying shuttle to speed up weaving | |
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| 1733 |
| | | Benjamin Franklin establishes the most successful of America's almanacs, publishing it annually until 1758 | |
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| c. 1735 |
| | | A revivalist movement in America, led by Jonathan Edwards, becomes known as the Great Awakening | |
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| 1735 |
| | | Swedish naturalist Carolus Linnaeus publishes a 'system of nature', capable of classifying all living things | |
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| 1735 |
| | | John Peter Zenger, editor of the Weekly Journal, is acquitted of libelling the governor of New York on the grounds that what he published was true | |
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| c. 1735 |
| | | Swedish chemist Georg Brandt discovers a new metallic element, which he names cobalt | |
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| 1736 |
| | | The leader of a gang of tribal brigands seizes the Persian throne and takes the name Nadir Shah | |
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| 1737 |
| | | Florence loses her independence when the last Medici duke of Tuscany dies | |
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| 1738 |
| | | In the Treaty of Vienna, France accepts the Pragmatic Sanction of Charles VI – the last of the European powers to do so | |
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| 1739 |
| | | Britain declares war on Spain, partly in a mood of indignation over Captain Jenkins' ear | |
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| 1739 |
| | | The Persian ruler Nadir Shah enters Delhi and removes much of the accumulated treasure of the Mughal empire | |
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| 1739 |
| | | David Hume publishes his Treatise of Human Nature, in which he applies to the human mind the principles of experimental science | |
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| 1740 |
| | | Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador become the Spanish viceroyalty of New Granada, with Bogota as the capital | |
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| 1740 |
| | | Frederick II, inheriting the throne in Prussia, establishes a cultured and musical court | |
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| c. 1740 |
| | | A charismatic leader, Baal Shem Tov, develops Hasidism in Poland as an influential revivalist movement within Judaism | |
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| c. 1740 |
| | | Italian dramatist Carlo Goldoni makes a success of plays in the ancient commedia dell'arte tradition | |
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