1759

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1759 (MDCCLIX) was a common year starting on Monday (dominical letter G) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Friday (dominical letter C) of the Julian calendar, the 1759th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 759th year of the 2nd millennium, the 59th year of the 18th century, and the 10th and last year of the 1750s decade. As of the start of 1759, the Gregorian calendar was 11 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1918. In Great Britain, this year was known as the Annus Mirabilis because of British victories in the Seven Years' War.

Events

January–June

January 15: British Museum.

• January 6 – George Washington marries Martha Dandridge Custis.
• January 11 – In Philadelphia, the first American life insurance company is incorporated.^[1]
• January 13 – Távora affair: The Távora family is executed following accusations of the attempted regicide of Joseph I of Portugal.
• By January 15 – Voltaire's satire Candide is published simultaneously in five countries.
• January 15 – The British Museum opens at Montagu House in London (after 6 years of development).
• March 4–November 20 – Étienne de Silhouette serves as Controller-General of France.
• April 14 – Seven Years' War – Battle of Bergen: A French army defeats Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick.
• May 1 – Josiah Wedgwood founds the Wedgwood pottery company in England.

July–December

August 12: Battle of Kunersdorf.

• July 19 – The Great Stockholm Fire 1759 breaks out at Södermalm in Stockholm, Sweden.
• July 25 – Seven Years' War (French and Indian War): In Canada, British forces capture Fort Niagara from French, who subsequently abandon Fort Rouillé.
• July 26 – Seven Years' War (French and Indian War): At the southern end of Lake Champlain, British forces capture Fort Carillon from French, and rename it Fort Ticonderoga.
• July 27 – Seven Years' War (French and Indian War): British troops under Jeffrey Amherst take Fort Ticonderoga.
• August 1 – Battle of Minden: Anglo–Hanoverian forces under Ferdinand of Brunswick defeat the French army of the Duc de Broglie, but due to the disobedience of the English cavalry commander Lord George Sackville, the French are able to withdraw unmolested.
• August 10 – Ferdinand VI of Spain dies and is succeeded by his half–brother Charles III. Charles resigns the thrones of Naples and Sicily to his third son, Ferdinand IV.
• August 12 – Battle of Kunersdorf: Frederick the Great is rebuffed in bloody assaults on the combined Austro–Russian army of Pyotr Saltykov and Ernst von Laudon. This is one of Frederick's greatest defeats.
• August 18 – Battle of Lagos: The British fleet of Edward Boscawen defeats a French force under Commodore Jean-François de La Clue-Sabran off the Portuguese coast.

Sept. 13: Battle – Plains of Abraham.

• September 10 – Battle of Pondicherry: An inconclusive naval battle is fought off the coast of India between the French Admiral d'Aché and the British under George Pocock. The French forces are badly damaged and sail home, never to return.
• September 13 – Seven Years' War (French and Indian War): Quebec falls to British forces following General Wolfe's victory in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham just outside the city. Both the French Commander (the Marquis de Montcalm) and the British General James Wolfe are fatally wounded.
• September 14 – Carrington Bowles publishes A Journey Through Europe, a board game designed by John Jefferys, the earliest board game whose designer's name is known.
• October 16 – Smeaton's Tower, John Smeaton’s Eddystone Lighthouse off the coast of South West England, is first illuminated.^[2]
• October 30 – Near East earthquakes of 1759 – The first event in an earthquake doublet occurs to the north of the Sea of Galilee with a surface wave magnitude of 6.6 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII–IX (Severe–Violent). About 2,000 were killed in Safed.
• November 20 – Battle of Quiberon Bay: The British fleet of Sir Edward Hawke defeats a French fleet under Marshal de Conflans near the coast of Brittany. This is the decisive naval engagement of the Seven Years' War – after this, the French are no longer able to field a significant fleet.

November 20: Battle of Quiberon Bay

• November 21 – Battle of Maxen: The Austrian army of Marshal von Daun cuts off and forces the surrender of a Prussian force under Friedrich von Finck.
• November 25 – Near East earthquakes of 1759 – The second and stronger event in an earthquake doublet occurs to the east of Beirut with a surface wave magnitude of 7.4 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), destroying all the villages in the Beqaa Valley.
• December 6 – The Germantown Union School (now called "Germantown Academy"), America's oldest nonsectarian day school, is founded.
• December 31 – The Guinness Brewery is leased by Arthur Guinness in St. James's Gate, Dublin, Ireland, for the brewing of Guinness.

Date unknown

Harrison's marine chronometer

• Adam Smith publishes his Theory of Moral Sentiments, embodying some of his Glasgow lectures.
• The town of Egedesminde (modern Aasiaat) is founded in Greenland.
• English clockmaker John Harrison produces his "No. 1 sea watch" ("H4"), the first successful marine chronometer.^[3]
• Kew Gardens established in England by Augusta of Saxe-Coburg, the mother of George III.^[4]
• Churton Town, the Orange County, North Carolina county seat laid out in 1754, is renamed Childsburgh in honor of North Carolina attorney general Thomas Child. It is later renamed Hillsborough in 1766.
• Fire destroys 250 houses in Stockholm.
• Madame du Coudray publishes Abrégé de l'art des accouchements ("The Art of Obstetrics") and the French government authorizes her to carry her instruction "throughout the realm" and promises financial support.

Births

Friedrich Schiller

• January 25 – Robert Burns, Scottish poet (d. 1796)
• January 29 – Louis Augustin Guillaume Bosc, French botanist (d. 1828)
• February 15 – Friedrich August Wolf, German philologist and archaeologist (d. 1824)
• February 22 – Claude Lecourbe, French general (d. 1815)
• April 22 – James Freeman, first clergyman in America to call himself a Unitarian (d. 1835)
• April 27 – Mary Wollstonecraft, feminist author (d. 1797)
• May 15 – Maria Theresia von Paradis, musician and composer (d. 1824)
• May 20 – William Thornton, American architect (d. 1828)
• May 28 – William Pitt the Younger, statesman and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1806)
• June 21 – Alexander J. Dallas, American statesman and financier (d. 1817)
• August 24 – William Wilberforce, British abolitionist (d. 1833)
• September 10 – Lemuel Cook, American Revolutionary War veteran (d. 1866)
• September 19 – William Kirby, English entomologist (d. 1850)
• October 25
  • Sophie Marie Dorothea of Württemberg, empress of Paul I of Russia (d. 1828)
  • William Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1834)
• October 26 – Georges Danton, French Revolutionary leader (d. 1794)
• November 5 – Simon Snyder, American politician (d. 1819)
• November 10 – Friedrich Schiller, German writer (d. 1805)
• November 27 – Franz Krommer, Czech composer (d. 1831)
• November 23 – Felipe Enrique Neri, legislator and colonizer of Texas (d. 1820)
• December 2 – James Edward Smith, English botanist (d. 1828)
• Date unknown – Maria Petraccini, Italian anatomist and physician (d. 1791)
  • Salomea Deszner, Polish actress, singer and theater director (d. 1806)

Deaths

• January 12 – Anne, Princess Royal and Princess of Orange, regent of Friesland (b. 1709)
• March 11 – John Forbes, British general (b. 1707)
• April 6 – Johann Gottfried Zinn (b. 1727)
• April 14 – George Frideric Handel, German composer (b. 1685)
• May 12 – Lambert-Sigisbert Adam, French sculptor (b. 1700)
• June 20 – Margareta Capsia, Finnish artist (b. 1682)
• July 27 – Pierre Louis Maupertuis, French mathematician (b. 1698)
• August 6 – Eugene Aram, English philologist (b. 1704)
• August 8 – Carl Heinrich Graun, German composer (b. 1704)
• August 10 – King Ferdinand VI of Spain (b. 1713)
• August 24 – Ewald Christian von Kleist, German poet (b. 1715)
• September 10 – Ferdinand Konščak, Croatian explorer (b. 1703)
• September 13 – James Wolfe, British general (b. 1727)
• September 14 – Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, French general (b. 1712)
• October 13 – John Henley, English minister (b. 1692)
• November 14 – Grégoire Orlyk, Ukrainian-born French Lieutenant General (b. 1702)
• November 29 – Nicolaus I Bernoulli, Swiss mathematician (b. 1687)
• date unknown – King Thipchang of the Realm of Lampang

References