Events

• Affiches, Annonces et Avis Divers — A newspaper of the times, in which the advertisements of fiefs of counties were often sold.

• 1718-20: War of the Quadruple Alliance — a minor European war fought mostly in Italy, between Spain on the one side, and the Quadruple Alliance of The Holy Roman Empire, France, Great Britain, and the United Provinces.
• 1733-38: War of the Polish Succession — a European war and a Polish civil war, with considerable interference from other countries, to determine the succession to Augustus II, King of Poland, as well as an attempt by the Bourbon powers to check the power of the Habsburgs in western Europe.
• 1741-48: War of the Austrian Succession — Emperor CHARLES VI. (in German : Karl VI.) had no male heir. In order to insure the inheritance of his daughter MARIA THERESIA in all the Habsburgian possessions, the PRAGMATIC SANCTION was set up. Austrian diplomacy, by making a number of concessions, achieved the recognition of this document by most of the powers, including France. The French court, however, was determined to use the opportunity of Charles VI.' death in 1740 to weaken the Habsburg monarchy. While France herself did not take any action against Austria, she supported those who declared their candidacy for the Imperial crown (Charles of Bavaria; Charles Emmanual III. of Savoy, Augustus III. of Saxony) and those who were to use the opportunity to conquer and annex a part of the Habsburg territories. —Since 1737, Austria, in alliance with Russia, was involved in another war with the Ottoman Empire; in 1739, peace was concluded, at the expense of the cession of Serbia and Little Wallachia to the Ottoman Empire, to free Habsburg forces in the event of Emperor Charles' death.
• 1756-63: Seven Years' War
• 1789-99: The French Revolution
• 1792-15: The Great French War — the period of conflict beginning on April 20, 1792 and continuing until November 20, 1815. The conflict began when France declared war on Austria following a gradual increase in tensions following the French Revolution in 1789.

• 1745: Second Jacobite Rebellion began in Scotland.

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) — The most significant writer of France during the eighteenth century was not Voltaire but the Swiss-born Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He taught the essential goodness of human nature, the rightness of our instincts, and the corruption of civilised institutions. He was the man of feeling in an age when intellect was worshipped. He was a reformer of education, an inspirer of revolutionary ideas in government and economics, and in literature a forerunner of romanticism. He has probably had more influence on ideas than any other man of the eighteenth century.
• Voltaire (1694-1778) — Attacked bigotry and superstition, and championed the victims of religious persecution and of political injustice. More than any other man he embodies the spirit of the age of reason. But most of his voluminous writings were too much concerned with questions of his own day to endure permanently. Only his letters and a few of his tales are now much read.
• Denis Diderot (1713-1784) — Director-in-chief of the famous Encyclop+¬die, which was designed both as a storehouse of information and as an arsenal of weapons to attack ignorance, superstition, and intolerance. In purely literary matters the taste of the age was still classical. Voltaire's poetic tragedies, for instance, were modelled largely on those of Corneille and Racine. Diderot was more of an innovator. His plays, in particular, testify to the ever-increasing importance and power of the middle class.
• Pierre de Marivaux (1688-1763) — Writer of comedies.
• Pierre Beaumarchais (1732-1799) — Writer of comedies.

1701: Seed drill: Jethro Tull
1709: Iron smelting using coke: Abraham Darby I
1709: The first piano was built by Bartolomeo Cristofori
1710: Thermometer: Ren+¬ Antoine Ferchault de R+¬aumur
1711: Tuning fork: John Shore
1712: Steam piston engine: Thomas Newcomen
1714: Gabriel Fahrenheit invents the mercury thermometer
1717: The diving bell was successfully tested by Edmond Halley, sustainable to a depth of 55 ft.
1730: The sextant navigational tool was developed by John Hadley in England, and Thomas Godfrey in America
1733: Flying shuttle: John Kay
1736: Europeans discovered rubber - the discovery was made by Charles-Marie de la Condamine while on expedition in South America. It was named in 1770 by Joseph Priestly
1740: Modern steel was developed by Benjamin Huntsman
1741: Vitus Bering discovered Alaska
1742: Franklin stove: Benjamin Franklin
1745: The Leyden jar invented by Ewald von Kleist was the first electrical capacitor
1750: Flatboat: Jacob Yoder
1750: Joseph Black describes latent heat
1751 - 1785: The French Encyclop+¬die
1751: Benjamin Franklin: Lightning is electrical
1752: Lightning rod: Benjamin Franklin
1755: The English Dictionary by Samuel Johnson
1761: The problem of Longitude was finally resolved by the fouth chronometer of John Harrison
1764: Spinning jenny: James Hargreaves/Thomas Highs
1765: James Watt enhances Newcomen's steam engine, allowing new steel technologies.
1767: Carbonated water: Joseph Priestley
1768 - 1779: James Cook mapped the boundaries of the Pacific Ocean and discovered many Pacific Islands
1769: Steam car: Nicolas Cugnot
1769: Steam engine: James Watt
1769: Water frame: Richard Arkwright/Thomas Highs
1775: new kind of Boring machine: John Wilkinson
1775: Submarine Turtle: David Bushnell
1776: Steamboat: Claude de Jouffroy
1776: The Wealth of Nations, foundation of the modern theory of economy, was published by Adam Smith
1777: Card teeth making machine: Oliver Evans
1777: Circular saw: Samuel Miller
1779: Photosynthesis was first discovered by Jan Ingenhouse of the Netherlands
1779: Spinning mule: Samuel Crompton
1780: Iron rocket: Tipu Sultan in India
1783: Hot air balloon: Montgolfier brothers
1783: Multitubular boiler engine: John Stevens
1783: Parachute: Jean Pierre Blanchard
1784: Argand lamp: Ami Argand
1784: Bifocals: Benjamin Franklin
1784: Shrapnel shell: Henry Shrapnel
1785: Automatic flour mill: Oliver Evans
1785: Power loom: Edmund Cartwright
1785: William Withering: publishes the first definitive account of the use of foxglove (digitalis) for treating dropsy
1786: Threshing machine: Andrew Meikle
1787: Jacques Charles: Charles' law of ideal gas
1787: Non-condensing high pressure Engine: Oliver Evans
1789: Lavoisier: law of conservation of mass, basis for chemistry
1790: Cut and head nail machine: Jacob Perkins
1791: Artificial teeth: Nicholas Dubois De Chemant
1793: Cotton gin: Eli Whitney
1793: Optical telegraph: Claude Chappe
1796: Georges Cuvier: Establishes extinction as a fact
1797: Cast iron plow: Charles Newbold
1798: Edward Jenner publishes a treatise about smallpox vaccination
1798: Lithography: Alois Senefelder
1798: Vaccination: Edward Jenner
1799: Rosetta stone discovered by Napoleon's troops.
1799: Seeding machine: Eliakim Spooner
1799: William Smith: Publishes geologic map of England, first geologic map ever, first applicaton of stratigraphy