1720

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Year '1720' ('MDCCXX') was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Friday
^[1]
of the 11-day slower Julian calendar.

Contents

Events of 1720

January - June

July - December

Undated

Ongoing events

Births

Deaths

Notes

Events of 1720

January - June

★ January 6 - The Committee of Inquiry on the South Sea Bubble publishes its findings.

★ February 11 - Sweden and Prussia sign the (Treaty of Stockholm (Great Northern War)) declaring peace.

★ February 17 - Spain signs the Treaty of The Hague, ending the War of the Quadruple Alliance.

★ February 29 - Queen Ulrike Eleonora of Sweden resigns to let her husband Frederick I take over as king of Sweden.

July - December

★ September - South Sea Bubble: The English stock market crashes with dropping prices for stock in The South Sea Company, an English company granted a monopoly to trade with South America.

★ November 16 - Pirate Jack Rackham is brought to trial at St. Jago de la Vega in Jamaica.

Undated

★ The Town on Queen Anne's Creek, North Carolina is renamed Edenton in honor of North Carolina Governor Charles Eden. It is later incorporated in 1722.


★ The Tuscarora fled North Carolina as a result of European colonisation.

★ Edmond Halley appointed as Astronomer Royal.

★ The Academia Real da Historia is founded in Lisbon, Portugal.

★ Jonathan Swift begins Gulliver's Travels.

★ Emperor Kangxi announced that all western businessmen could only trade in Guangzhou.

★ ''Il Teatro alla Moda'', satirical pamphlet by Benedetto Marcello, published anonymously in Venice.

Ongoing events

★ Great Northern War (1700-1721).

Births

★ January 4 - Johann Friedrich Agricola, German composer (died 1774)

★ January 13 - Richard Hurd, English bishop and writer (died 1808)

★ January 27 - Samuel Foote, English dramatist and actor (died 1777)

★ January 30 - Charles De Geer, Swedish industrialist and entomologist (died 1778)

★ February 8 - Emperor Sakuramachi of Japan (died 1750)

★ March 9 - Philip Yorke, 2nd Earl of Hardwicke, English politician (died 1790)

★ March 13 - Charles Bonnet, Swiss naturalist and writer (died 1793)

★ March 22 - Nicolas-Henri Jardin, French architect (died 1799)

★ April 23 - Vilna Gaon, Lithuanian rabbi (died 1797)

★ May 11 - Karl Friedrich Hieronymus Freiherr von Münchhausen, German officer and adventurer (died 1797)

★ May 15 - Maximilian Hell, Slovakian astronomer (died 1792)

★ July 18 - Gilbert White, English naturalist and cleric (died 1793)

★ August 8 - Carl Fredrik Pechlin, Swedish politician (died 1796)

★ August 12 - Konrad Ekhof, German actor (died 1778)

★ August 18 - Laurence Shirley, 4th Earl Ferrers, English murderer (died 1760)

★ August 30 - Samuel Whitbread, English brewer and politician (died 1796)

★ October 3 - Johann Peter Uz, German poet (died 1796)

★ October 4 - Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Italian artist (died 1778)

★ October 8 - Jonathan Mayhew, American minister and patriot (died 1766)

★ October 19 - John Woolman, American Quaker preacher and abolitionist (died 1772)

★ November 1 - Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte, French admiral (died 1791)

★ November 16 - Carlo Antonio Campioni, French-born composer (died 1788)

★ December 14 - Justus Möser, German statesman (died 1794)

★ December 26 - Gian Francesco Albani, Italian Catholic cardinal (died 1803)

★ December 31 - Charles Edward Stuart, pretender to the British throne (died 1788)
: ''See also .''

Deaths

★ January - Francis Daniel Pastorius, founder of Germanstown, Pennsylvania (born 1651)

★ January 31 - Thomas Grey, 2nd Earl of Stamford, English privy councillor (born c.1645)

★ February 27 - Samuel Parris, English-born Puritan minister (born 1653)

★ April 2 - Joseph Dudley, colonial Governor of Massachusetts (born 1647)

★ April 21 - Antoine Hamilton, French writer (born 1646)

★ June 27 - Guillaume Amfrye de Chaulieu, French poet (born 1639)

★ August 3

★
★ Anthonie Heinsius, Dutch statesman (born 1641)

★
★ Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, English poet (born 1661)

★ August 9 - Simon Ockley, English orientalist (born 1678)

★ August 17 - Anne Lefèvre, French scholar (born 1654)

★ September 3 - Henri de Massue, Marquis de Ruvigny, 1st Viscount Galway, French soldier and diplomat (born 1648)

★ October 10 - Antoine Coysevox, French sculptor (born 1640)

★ November 17 - Calico Jack, English pirate

★ November 20 - Peder Tordenskjold, Norwegian naval hero (born 1691)
: ''See also .''

Notes

1.
"Calendar in year 1720 (Russia)" (full Julian calendar), webpage:
Julian-1720
(Russia used the Julian calendar until 1919).