1757

Born in 1757:

• English poet William Blake.
• Scottish engineer Thomas Telford.
• South Carolina politician Charles Pinckney, delegate to the US Constitutional Convention of 1787.
• Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette.

• Italian composer Domenico Scarlatti
• Bohemian composer Johann Stammitz
• French physicist René Réaumur
• British admiral John Byng, shot for dereliction of duty because of the Minorca incident the previous year.
• Siraj-ud-daulah, Nawab of Bengal, at Plassey.
• Ottoman Sultan Osman Khan II.

• French and Indian War/Seven Years' War:
• The Marquis de Montcalm captures Fort William Henry on Lake George. After the British and Colonial troops surrender the fort, Montcalm's Indian allies massacre all but 400 of the 2200 residents.
• Virginia sends an expeditionary force against the Shawnee Indians.
• A smallpox epidemic (possibly helped along by infected blankets graciously donated by British Lord Jeffrey Amherst) removes most of the Great Lakes Indian tribes from the war.
• William Pitt becomes Prime Minister.
• King Frederick the Great of Prussia loses 15,000 men at the Battle of Kölin in Bohemia.  The Russian army could have walked into Berlin, but they just stopped and sat down.
• Later in the year, Frederick defeats the Austrians at the Battle of Leuthen, and Austria loses its last chance of regaining Silesia.
• A Gloucestershire pharmacist responds to a smallpox outbreak by inoculating a few local lads (including Edward Jenner) using a dried smallpox scab.
• Pennsylvania sends Benjamin Franklin to London to complain about the system of taxation.
• At the "Battle" of Plassey, Robert Clive "defeats" the army of the Nawab ("Nabob") of Bengal, Suraj-ud-Daulah.  Clive had apparently bribed the Nawab's brother Mir Jafar and half his army to desert. Mir Jafar is installed as ruler of Bengal, but this can be properly called the beginning of British rule in India.
• David Hume publishes The Natural History of Religion.

1756 - 1757 - 1758