1712

• Future Prussian King Frederick II.
• French moral philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
• English politician George Grenville.
• English politician and playwright Richard Glover.
• English author Edward Moore.
• English composer John Stanley.
• Italian painter Francesco Guardi.
• English economist Josiah Tucker.
• English physician John Fothergill.
• Italian art critic Count Francesco Algarotti.
• German painter Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich.
• Scottish poet Allison Rutherford (Cockburn)
• German mathematician Johann Samuel König.

• Italian astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini.
• Tokugawa Ienobu, shogun of Japan.
• Richard Cromwell, onetime Lord Protector of England.
• German composer Friedrich Wilhelm Zachau (Georg Friederic Handel's teacher).
• German anatomist Johann Konrad Peyer.
• Dutch painter Jan van der Heyden.
• English actor Edward Kynaston.
• English politician Thomas Osborne, first Earl of Danby.
• French mathematician Denis Papin.
• Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah.  His son Jahandar Shah succeeds him.

• Louis XIV grants Antoine Crozat a charter for the economic exploitation of Louisiana. Crozat appoints Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac as the governor of a colony with a population of 400.
• Important developments regarding slavery in North America.
• Pennsylvania bans the slave trade.
• A slave riot in New York City leads to the deaths of 8 whites.  25 slaves are later executed, whether in reprisal or as punishment is anyone's guess.
• West Indian slaveowner William Lynch makes a speech explaining to American slaveowners how to use terror and psychological manipulation to keep their slaves under control.
• Queen Anne divides the Carolina colony into North Carolina and South Carolina.
• Great Northern War:
• Sweden transports an army under Magnus Stenbock into Pomerania but the Danish fleet destroys the ships that transported it.  Rather than invading Poland, Stenbock has to retreat into Holstein.
• Polish king Friedrich Augustus tries to get political reforms through the Sejm but fails; Poland remains a feudal-style kingdom.
• Swedish king Charles XII is encamped in Moldavia, making trips to Istanbul to get the Ottoman Empire to go to war against Russia.
• The War of the Spanish Succession (aka Queen Anne's War) winds down:
• The French under Marshal Claude de Villars defeat the Austrians under Prince Eugene at the Battle of Denain.
• All of the parties (except Austria) meet in Utrecht to begin peace negotiations.
• French privateers plunder the Dutch colony of Guyana.
• Tuscarora Indians raid into North Carolina.
• Tsar Peter The Great:
• Marries former Lithuanian peasant girl Ekaterina Alexeievna.
• Formally moves the capital of Russia from Moscow to St. Petersburg.
• Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI is crowned king of Hungary.
• A Protestant victory at the Battle of Villmergen leads to the Treaty of Aargau giving political ascendancy to Swiss Protestants over their Catholic countrymen.
• Jonathan Swift publishes A Proposal for Correcting, Improving, and Ascertaining the English Tongue.
• Dr John Arbuthnot publishes The History of John Bull as well as The Art of Political Lying.
• Rob Roy MacGregor is about to buy some cattle for the Duke of Montrose, but his assistant absconds with the money. The Duke has Rob Roy declared an outlaw.
• Jane Wenham becomes the last person tried for witchcraft in England.  Convicted, but not executed.
• Sikh scholar Bhai Mani Singh publishes a biography (Janam Sakhi) of guru Gyan Ratnavli.
• The first sperm whale is caught by a Nantucket whaling ship.

1711 - 1712 - 1713

How they Were Made - 18th Century