February 11 –
Jacques de Vaucanson stages the first demonstration of an early
automaton, The Flute Player at the Hotel de Longueville in Paris, and continues to display it until March 30.[4]
July 1 – English metallurgist
William Champion is granted a patent for his process of extracting
zinc from other materials in a furnace.[11]
July 10 –
Thomas Pellow of
Cornwall finally escapes captivity, 23 years after having been captured by
Barbary pirates and held as a slave in
Morocco. He arrives in British territory when the ship he is on sails into Gibraltar Bay on July 21, and later recounts his story in the book The Adventures of Thomas Pellow, of Penryn, Mariner: Three and Twenty Years in Captivity Among the Moors.[12]
December 27 – After setting off from Rotterdam in August with 240 immigrants to America, the British ship
Princess Augusta is wrecked near
Block Island off of the coast of the colony of
Rhode Island.[15] During the voyage, 200 passengers and seven crew died from illness spread by contaminated water. Another 20 die after the crew leaves and rows to shore. The wreck later becomes the subject of the legend of the "Palatine Light" ghost ship and of
John Greenleaf Whittier's 1867 poem "The Palatine".
Date unknown
China's Qing government announces that all western businessmen have to use the
Cohong in
Guangzhou to trade.
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, having completed a law degree, is hired as a court musician by Crown Prince Frederick of Prussia, the future
Frederick the Great (Bach will remain in Frederick's service until
1768).
^Corfield, Justin. "Paul, Lewis". The Encyclopedia of the Industrial Revolution in World History. p. 710.
^Francisco A. Eissa-Barroso, The Spanish Monarchy and the Creation of the Viceroyalty of New Granada (1717-1739) (Brill, 2016) p232
^Bennet Woodcroft, Titles of Patents of Invention, Chronologically Arranged, From March 2, 1617 (14 James I.) to October 1, 1852 (16 Victoriae). 1617-1823 (The Queen's Printing Office, 1854) p104-105
^Thomas Pellow, The Adventures of Thomas Pellow, of Penryn, Mariner (reprinted by T. Fisher Unwin, 1890) pp. 813-816
^C. H. von Manstein, Memoirs of Russia, Historical, Political and Military, from the Year 1727 to 1744 (Beckett & DeHondt, 1770) pp203-210
^Pedar Foss and John J. Dobbins, The World of Pompeii (Routledge, 2009) p29
^Jill Farinelli, The Palatine Wreck: The Legend of the New England Ghost Ship (University Press of New England, 2017) pp. 101-105
^"Rémy Martin". www.remymartin.com. Retrieved March 24, 2016.