On the death of his grandfather, George II, George III becomes king of Great Britain

Scottish chemist and physicist Joseph Black observes the latent heat in melting ice

John Harrison's fourth chronometer is only five seconds out at the end of a test journey from England to Jamaica

Johann Sebastian Bach's youngest son, Johann Christian, moves to London and becomes known as the English Bach

Fingal, supposedly by the medieval Celtic poet Ossian, has a huge and fashionable success but is revealed to be a forgery by James Macpherson

A treaty signed in Paris ends the Seven Years' War between Britain, France and Spain

English journalist John Wilkes is arrested for publishing seditious libel in issue no 45 of his weekly magazine The North Briton

James Boswell meets Samuel Johnson for the first time, in the London bookshop of Thomas Davies

American artist Benjamin West settles in London, where he becomes famous for his large-scale history scenes

James Watt ponders on the inefficiency of contemporary steam engines and invents the condenser

Britain passes the Sugar Act, levying duty on sugar, wine and textiles imported into America

Lancashire spinner James Hargreaves conceives the idea of the spinning jenny, with multiple spindles worked from a single wheel

English historian Edward Gibbon, sitting among ruins in Rome, conceives the idea of Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

English author Horace Walpole provides an early taste of Gothic thrills in his novel Castle of Otranto

Britain passes the Stamp Act, taxing legal documents and newspapers in the American colonies

Britain repeals the Stamp Act, in a major reversal of policy achieved by resistance in the American colonies

English chemist Henry Cavendish isolates hydrogen but believes that it is phlogiston

The British Chancellor, Charles Townshend, passes a series of acts taxing all glass, lead, paint, paper and tea imported into the American colonies

Captain James Cook sails from Plymouth, in England, heading for Tahiti to observe the transit of Venus

A Society of Gentlemen in Scotland begins publication of the immensely successful Encyclopaedia Britannica

The Royal Academy is established in London, with Joshua Reynolds as its first president

The triangular trade, controlled from Liverpool, ships millions of Africans across the Atlantic as slaves

17-year-old Thomas Chatterton, later hailed as a significant poet, commits suicide in a London garret

In response to American protests, the British government removes the Townshend duties on all commodities with the exception of tea

English entrepreneur Richard Arkwright adds water power to spinning by means of the water frame