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

The Pagoda, designed by Sir William Chambers, is completed in Kew Gardens. The roofs are covered with varnished iron plates and there are 80 carved golden dragons on the corners of the roofs

Elliot Bishop buys the 8-acre estate in the south east corner of Ham Common (the site of the future Cassel Hospital)

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

Some of Whitton Park's finest specimen trees and shrubs are transferred to the newly created botanical gardens at Kew.

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

The first mention of brewing in Mortlake describes two small adjacent breweries, in separate ownership, occupying between them about two acres

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

George Gostling buys Whitton Park, converts the greenhouse to a mansion and divides the estate, selling or leasing Whitton Place.

Lady Suffolk dies and the Marble Hill estate passes to her nephew the Earl of Buckinghamshire. He lives occasionally in the house but also rents it out.

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

Robert Mylne completes his new bridge at Blackfriars