18th century

As a means of recording the passage of time, the 18th century refers to the century that lasted from 1701 through 1800 in the Gregorian calendar.

European history scholars will sometimes specifically refer to the 18th century as 1715-1789, denoting the period of time between the death of Louis XIV of France and the start of the French Revolution.

Events

1700s

1701-1714: War of the Spanish Succession
1703: Saint Petersburg founded by Peter the Great. Russian capital until 1918.
1707: Act of Union passed merging the Scottish and the English Parliaments, thus establishing The Kingdom of Great Britain.
1707: After Aurangzeb's death, the Mughal Empire enters a long decline.

1710s

1715: Louis XIV died leaving France deep in debt.
1718: City of New Orleans founded by the French in North America

1720s

1720: The South Sea Bubble
1721: Robert Walpole becomes the first Prime Minister of Great Britain (de facto).
1721: Treaty of Nystad signed, ending the Great Northern War.
1722-23: Russo-Persian War
1722: Afghans conquer Iran, ending the Safavid dynasty.
1722: Kangxi Emperor of China dies.

1730s

1733-38: War of the Polish Succession
1735-99: The Qianlong Emperor of China oversees a huge expansion in territory.
1736: Nadir Shah assumes title of Shah of Persia and founds the Afsharid dynasty. Rules until his death in 1747.
1739: Nadir Shah defeats the Mughals and sacks Delhi.

1740s

1740: Frederick the Great crowned King of Prussia.
1740-48: War of the Austrian Succession
1741: Russians begin settling the Aleutian Islands.
1745: Second Jacobite Rebellion in Scotland begins.
1747: Ahmed Shah Durrani founds the Durrani Empire in modern day Afghanistan.

1750s

1750: Peak of the Little Ice Age
1755: The Lisbon earthquake
1756-63: Seven Years' War fought among European powers in various theaters around the world.
1757: Battle of Plassey signals the beginning of British rule in India.

Significant people

Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Italian mathematician and linguist
Ahmad Shah Abdali, Afghan King
Ueda Akinari, Japanese writer
Jean le Rond d'Alembert, French mathematician, physicist, and encyclopedist
Queen Anne, British monarch
Marie Antoinette, Austrian-born French Queen
Aurangzeb, Mughal Emperor
Johann Sebastian Bach, German composer
George Berkeley, Irish empiricist philosopher
Pierre Beaumarchais, French writer
Jeremy Bentham, English philosopher and reformer
Daniel Bernoulli, Swiss mathematician and physicist
William Blake, English artist and poet
François Boucher, French painter
Edmund Burke, British statesman and philosopher
Robert Burns, Scottish poet
Catherine the Great, Russian Tsaritsa
Alexis Clairault, French mathematician
James Cook, British navigator
François Couperin, French composer
Denis Diderot, French writer and philosopher
Eugenio Espejo, Ecuadorian scientist
Leonhard Euler, Swiss mathematician
Jean-Honoré Fragonard, French painter
Benjamin Franklin, American scientist and statesman
Frederick the Great, Prussian monarch
Thomas Gainsborough, English painter
Carl Friedrich Gauss, German mathematician, physicist and astronomer
King George III, British monarch
Christoph Willibald Gluck, German composer
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German writer
George Frideric Handel, German composer
Alexander Hamilton, American statesman
Joseph Haydn, Austrian composer
William Hogarth, English painter and engraver
David Hume, Scottish philosopher
Thomas Jefferson, American statesman
Samuel Johnson, British writer and literary critic
Kangxi Emperor, China
Immanuel Kant, German philosopher
Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, French writer
Joseph Louis Lagrange, Italian-French mathematician and physicist
Pierre Simon Laplace, French physicist and mathematician
John Law, Scottish economist
Mikhail Lomonosov, Russian scientist
Antoine Lavoisier, French chemist
Adrien-Marie Legendre, French mathematician
Louis XV of France, French monarch
Louis XVI of France, French monarch
James Madison, American statesman
Maria Theresa of Austria, Austrian Empress
Michikinikwa, Miami tribe chief and war leader
Honoré Mirabeau French writer and politician
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Austrian composer
Nadir Shah, Persian King
Thomas Paine, British intellectual
Pius VI, Roman Pope
François-André Danican Philidor, French composer and chess master
Marquis of Pombal, Portuguese Prime Minister
Alexander Pope, British poet
Qianlong Emperor, China
Francis II Rákóczi, prince of Hungary and Transylvania, Revolutionary leader
Jean-Philippe Rameau, French composer
Bartolomeo Rastrelli, Italian-born Russian architect
Sir Joshua Reynolds, British painter
Maximilien Robespierre, French revolutionary leader and dictator
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, French writer and philosopher
Domenico Scarlatti, Italian composer.
Friedrich Schiller, German writer
John Small (Hambledon cricketer), English cricketer
Adam Smith, Scottish economist and philosopher
Laurence Sterne, British writer
Edward "Lumpy" Stevens, English cricketer
Alexander Suvorov, Russian military leader
Jonathan Swift, Anglo-Irish satirist
Toussaint L'Ouverture, Haitian revolutionary leader
Tupac Amaru II, Peruvian revolutionary
Antonio Vivaldi, Italian composer
Voltaire, French writer and philosopher
Robert Walpole, British Prime Minister
George Washington, American general and first president
James Watt, Scottish scientist and inventor
Antoine Watteau, French painter
John Wesley, British churchman, founder of Methodism
William Pitt, British Prime Minister

See Founding Fathers of the United States

Inventions, discoveries, introductions

Industrial Revolution begins
The Encyclopédie by the Encyclopedists
The English Dictionary by Samuel Johnson
Economics by Adam Smith
Rosetta stone discovered by Napoleon's troops.
Vitus Bering discovered Alaska.
James Cook mapped the boundaries of the Pacific Ocean and discovered many Pacific Islands.
Wahhabism by Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab

Decades and years

18th century | Centuries | Industrial Revolution | Romanticism

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Events

Significant people

Inventions, discoveries, introductions

Decades and years