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

Joseph Haydn's first published work is six string quartets, a form which he subsequently makes very much his own

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

Irish novelist Oliver Goldsmith publishes The Vicar of Wakefield, with a hero who has much to complain about but keeps calm

Pierre le Roy's chronometer, as accurate as Harrison's and cheaper to construct, is set to become the standard model

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 French artist, Jean Baptiste le Prince, discovers the aquatint technique in printmaking

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

A border incident at Balta, in the southern Ukraine, sparks a war between Russia and Turkey that will last six years

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

French inventor Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot successfully tests a steam wagon, probably the first working mechanical vehicle

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

Richard Arkwright pioneers the factory environment with his cotton mill at Cromford in Derbyshire

Russia, Prussia and Austria agree a treaty enabling them to divide the spoils in the first partition of Poland

The first partition of Poland begins the process of Lithuania being progressively absorbed into Russia

Gustavus III achieves a coup d'état which brings executive power in Sweden back into royal hands