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18th century
From Encyclopedia Jr, free information reference for Kids
As a means of recording the passage of time, the 18th century refers to the century that lasted from 1701 through 1800 in the Gregorian calendar.
Some history scholars will sometimes specifically refer to the 18th century as 1715-1789, denoting the period of time between the death of Louis XIV of France and the start of the French Revolution, or even 1688-1789, denoting the period of time between the Glorious Revolution in England and the start of the French Revolution. British historians such as Frank O'Gorman sometimes refer to the "Long Eighteenth Century" running from the Revolution of 1688 to the Great Reform Act of 1832.
The storming of the Bastille, July 14, 1789, an iconic event of the French Revolution.
Events
Union flag of The Kingdom of Great Britain
- 1720: The South Sea Bubble
- 1721: Robert Walpole becomes the first Prime Minister of Great Britain (de facto).
- 1721: Treaty of Nystad signed, ending the Great Northern War.
- 1722-23: Russo-Persian War
- 1722: Afghans conquer Iran, ending the Safavid dynasty.
- 1722: Kangxi Emperor of China dies.
- 1733-38: War of the Polish Succession
- 1735-99: The Qianlong Emperor of China oversees a huge expansion in territory.
- 1736: Nadir Shah assumes title of Shah of Persia and founds the Afsharid dynasty. Rules until his death in 1747.
- 1739: Nadir Shah defeats the Mughals and sacks Delhi.
- 1740: Frederick the Great crowned King of Prussia.
- 1740-48: War of the Austrian Succession
- 1741: Russians begin settling the Aleutian Islands.
- 1745: Second Jacobite Rebellion in Scotland begins.
- 1747: Ahmed Shah Durrani founds the Durrani Empire in modern day Afghanistan.
- 1750: Peak of the Little Ice Age
- 1755: The Lisbon earthquake
- 1756-63: Seven Years' War fought among European powers in various theaters around the world.
- 1757: Battle of Plassey signals the beginning of British rule in India.
Frederick II the Great, King of Prussia
A Phrygian cap from 1790s France
- 1791-1804: The Haitian Revolution
- 1792-1815: The Great French War starts as the French Revolutionary Wars which lead into the Napoleonic Wars.
- 1792: New York Stock & Exchange Board founded.
- 1793: Upper Canada bans slavery.
- 1795: Pinckney's Treaty between the United States and Spain grants the Mississippi Territory to the US.
- 1796: British eject Dutch from Ceylon.
- 1797: Napoleon's invasion and partition of the Republic of Venice ends over 1,000 years of independence for the Serene Republic.
- 1798-1800: Quasi-War between the United States and France.
- 1799: Napoleon stages a coup d'état and becomes dictator of France.
- 1799: Dutch East India Company is dissolved.
Significant people
- Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Italian mathematician and linguist
- Ahmad Shah Abdali, Afghan King
- Ueda Akinari, Japanese writer
- Jean le Rond d'Alembert, French mathematician, physicist, and encyclopedist
- Queen Anne, British monarch
- Marie Antoinette, Austrian-born French Queen
- Aurangzeb, Mughal Emperor
- Johann Sebastian Bach, German composer
- George Berkeley, Irish empiricist philosopher
- Pierre Beaumarchais, French writer
- Jeremy Bentham, English philosopher and reformer
- Daniel Bernoulli, Swiss mathematician and physicist
- William Blake, English artist and poet
- François Boucher, French painter
- Edmund Burke, British statesman and philosopher
- Robert Burns, Scottish poet
- Catherine the Great, Russian Tsaritsa
- Cao Xueqin, Chinese writer
- Alexis Clairault, French mathematician
- James Cook, British navigator
- François Couperin, French composer
- Denis Diderot, French writer and philosopher
- Eugenio Espejo, Ecuadorian scientist
- Leonhard Euler, Swiss mathematician
- Jean-Honoré Fragonard, French painter
- Benjamin Franklin, American scientist and statesman
- Frederick the Great, Prussian monarch
- Thomas Gainsborough, English painter
- Carl Friedrich Gauss, German mathematician, physicist and astronomer
- King George III, British monarch
- Christoph Willibald Gluck, German composer
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German writer
- George Frideric Handel, German composer
- Alexander Hamilton, American statesman
- Joseph Haydn, Austrian composer
- Eliza Haywood, English writer
- William Hogarth, English painter and engraver
- David Hume, Scottish philosopher
- Thomas Jefferson, American statesman
- Jiang Tingxi, Chinese artist and scholar
- Samuel Johnson, British writer and literary critic
- Joseph II, Austrian Emperor
- Kangxi Emperor, China
- Immanuel Kant, German philosopher
- Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, French writer
- Joseph Louis Lagrange, Italian-French mathematician and physicist
- Pierre Simon Laplace, French physicist and mathematician
- John Law, Scottish economist
- Mikhail Lomonosov, Russian scientist
- Antoine Lavoisier, French chemist
- Adrien-Marie Legendre, French mathematician
- Carolus Linnaeus (Carl von Linné), Swedish biologist
- Louis XV of France, French monarch
- Louis XVI of France, French monarch
- James Madison, American statesman
- Maria Theresa of Austria, Austrian Empress
- Michikinikwa, Miami tribe chief and war leader
- Honoré Mirabeau French writer and politician
- Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu, French thinker
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Austrian composer
- Nadir Shah, Persian King
- Thomas Paine, British intellectual
- Peter I of Russia (Peter the Great), Russian Tsar
- Pius VI, Roman Pope
- François-André Danican Philidor, French composer and chess master
- Marquis of Pombal, Portuguese Prime Minister
- Alexander Pope, British poet
- Qianlong Emperor, China
- Francis II Rákóczi, prince of Hungary and Transylvania, Revolutionary leader
- Jean-Philippe Rameau, French composer
- Bartolomeo Rastrelli, Italian-born Russian architect
- Sir Joshua Reynolds, British painter
- Maximilien Robespierre, French revolutionary leader and dictator
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau, French writer and philosopher
- Marquis de Sade, French writer and philosopher
- Domenico Scarlatti, Italian composer.
- Friedrich Schiller, German writer
- John Small, English cricketer
- Adam Smith, Scottish economist and philosopher
- Laurence Sterne, British writer
- Edward "Lumpy" Stevens, English cricketer
- Alexander Suvorov, Russian military leader
- Emanuel Swedenborg, Swedish scientist, thinker and mystic
- Jonathan Swift, Anglo-Irish satirist
- Toussaint L'Ouverture, Haitian revolutionary leader
- Tupac Amaru II, Peruvian revolutionary
- Kitagawa Utamaro, Japanese printmaker and painter
- Antonio Vivaldi, Italian composer
- Voltaire, French writer and philosopher
- Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab, Arab islamic theologian and founder of Wahhabism
- Robert Walpole, British Prime Minister
- George Washington, American general and first president
- James Watt, Scottish scientist and inventor
- Antoine Watteau, French painter
- John Wesley, British churchman, founder of Methodism
- Mary Wollstonecraft, British writer and feminist
- William Pitt, British Prime Minister
- Yuan Mei, Chinese poet, scholar and artist
See Founding Fathers of the United States
Inventions, discoveries, introductions
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Main articles: Timeline of invention#18th century and Timeline of scientific discoveries#1700s
Decades and years
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