Louis XIV dies after seventy-two years on the throne

A Jacobite uprising in Scotland on behalf of the Old Pretender ends in fiasco

The Habsburg emperor Charles VI has a son, but the child dies within the year

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, observing the Turkish practice of inoculation against smallpox, submits her infant son to the treatment

The tsarevitch Alexis, heir to Peter the Great, dies from violence inflicted on him in prison

Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, with its detailed realism, can be seen as the first English novel

The lighter rococo style, beginning in France, becomes an extension of the baroque

The postchaise, introduced in France, provides the first chance of reasonably comfortable travel by land

Johann Sebastian Bach compiles the Little Keyboard Book a set of pieces to teach his eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach

Shares in the South Sea Company rise rapidly and collapse within the year, in the so-called South Sea Bubble

Two political parties emerge in Sweden's parliament and become known as the Hats and the Caps

Shares in John Law's Louisiana Company rise spectacularly and then collapse, in what becomes known as the Mississippi Bubble

Young noblemen, particularly from Britain, visit Italy on the Grand Tour

Canaletto begins to specialize in views of the Venetian canals, finding his main customers among the British

In the treaty of Nystad Sweden cedes Estonia to Russia together with most of Latvia (the rest of which soon follows)

Robert Walpole becomes Britain's chief minister and holds the post for an unrivalled span of twenty-one years

With the transfer of Swedish territory on the Baltic coast, Russia becomes the dominant power in the region

In a ceremony in St Petersburg's cathedral Peter the Great has himself proclaimed 'emperor of all Russia'

Jean-Antoine Watteau paints the most splendid shop sign in history, for his friend Gersaint

Johann Sebastian Bach writes the six Brandenburg Concertos for his employer at the court of Köthen

J.S. Bach publishes The Well-Tempered Clavier, a collection of 24 Preludes and Fugues

The Austrian emperor, Charles VI, agrees that Hungary shall be ruled as a separate kingdom within his empire

The Russian tsar Peter the Great dies and is succeeded by his wife as the empress Catherine I

Vivaldi publishes the set of violin concertos known as The Four Seasons

Jonathan Swift launches his hero on a series of bitterly satirical adventures in Gulliver's Travels