istoryworld
All Events
John Strong, landing on some remote Atlantic islands, names them after Viscount Falkland, treasurer of the British navy
John Locke publishes his Essay concerning Human Understanding, arguing that all knowledge is based on experience
Government soldiers, mainly Campbells, massacre their MacDonald hosts in Glencoe
The Massachusetts town of Salem is gripped by witch-hunting hysteria
Twenty people convicted of witchcraft are hanged in Salem, and one is pressed to death
Gold is found in Brazil, launching the first great American gold rush
The Bank of England is founded and soon becomes the central banker for England's many private banks
Mary II dies of smallpox and building work at Hampton Court is suspended for 3 years due to William's grief and also for financial reasons due to the enormous expenditure
The joint monarch of England, Mary II, dies - leaving her husband, William III, to reign alone
Barn Elms is demolished by Thomas Cartwright, who replaces it with a country house in a contemporary style
The new Privy Garden at Hampton Court is built (the Mount had previously been levelled) including a new elm bower and a new Great Parterre of complex design and an Orangery
The first teacher of the virtuoso harpsichordist Domenico Scarlatti is his father, Alessandro
Peter the Great makes an unexpected raid down the river Don and captures Azov from the Crimean Tatars
Fort St William is built by the East India Company in the Ganges delta, and subsequently develops into Calcutta
The Russian tsar, Peter I, studies western European technology, working as a ship's carpenter in Dutch and English shipyards
In his opera La Caduta de' Decemviri, Alessandro Scarlatti introduces a new form of prelude, later known as the Italian overture, which is an important stage in the development of the symphony
In the Treaty of Rijswijk, Spain cedes the western half of Hispaniola to France, which names its new colony Saint-Domingue
On the death of Elizabeth, Duchess of Lauderdale, Ham House is inherited by her Tollemache descendants who manage the estate for the next 250 years
A fleet from Oman evicts the Portuguese from Mombasa and Zanzibar
Thomas Savery creates the first practical steam engine, designed to pump water out of mines
A maker of harpsichords in Florence, Bartolomeo Cristofori, develops the piano ('soft') and forte ('loud') feature which leads to the piano
Scotland makes a disastrous attempt to establish a colony in Darien, on the isthmus of Panama
Peter the Great makes a symbolic gesture of reform in trimming his boyars' beards
Grinling Gibbons begins work on carving decorative features and architectural mouldings in the King's Appartments at Hampton Court
The tenth Sikh guru, Gobind Rai, commits his people to the five Ks, which become the outward signs of their group identity
