1708

January–June

• January 1 - Charles XII of Sweden invades Russia, by crossing the frozen Vistula River with 40,000 men.
• January 7 – Bashkir rebels besiege Yelabuga.
• January 12 - Shahu I becomes the fifth Chhatrapati of the Maratha Empire in the Indian subcontinent.
• February 26 - HMS Falmouth, a 50-gun fourth-rate ship of the line built at Woolwich Dockyard for the British Royal Navy, is launched.
• March 11 - Anne, Queen of Great Britain, withholds Royal Assent from the Scottish Militia Bill, the last time a British monarch vetoes legislation.
• March 23 - James Francis Edward Stuart, Jacobite pretender to the throne of Great Britain, unsuccessfully tries to land from a French fleet in the Firth of Forth in Scotland.
• April 8 - Easter Sunday: The first performance of George Frideric Handel's oratorio La resurrezione takes place in Rome.
• April 9 - Ottoman princess Emine Sultan, daughter of Sultan Mustafa II, marries Grand Vizier Çorlulu Ali Pasha.
• April 28 - The Great Hoei fire breaks out in Kyoto, Japan, destroying the Imperial Palace and a large portion of the old capital.
• June 8 - War of the Spanish Succession: Wager's Action, a naval confrontation, takes place between a British squadron under Charles Wager and the Spanish treasure fleet off Cartagena in the Caribbean Sea. Spanish galleon San José explodes and sinks with the loss of almost all her 600 crew and an estimated 8.8 million ounces troy weight in gold; her wreck is located in 2015.

  July–December

• July 1 - Tewoflos becomes Emperor of Ethiopia.
• July 11 - War of the Spanish Succession: Battle of Oudenarde - Allied forces under the command of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, defeat the French in the Spanish Netherlands.
• August - The future Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor weds Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.
• August 3 - In the Battle of Trenčín, 8,000 soldiers of the Imperial Army of the Habsburgs are victorious over the 15,000 Hungarian Kuruc forces of Francis II Rákóczi.
• August 18 - War of the Spanish Succession: Menorca is captured by British forces.
• August 23 - Meidingu Pamheiba is crowned King of Manipur.
• August 29 - A French-Native American attack in Haverhill, Massachusetts kills 16 settlers.
• September 28 ; September 29 ; October 9 - Great Northern War: Battle of Lesnaya - Peter the Great of Russia defeats the forces of the Swedish Empire.
• October 12 - War of the Spanish Succession: British forces capture Lille after a two-month siege, although the citadel continues to hold out for another six weeks.
• October 26 - Topping out of new St Paul's Cathedral in London.
• December 14 - The première of Electre by Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon takes place in Paris.
• December 17 - Deborah Churchill, British pickpocket and prostitute, is executed before a large crowd for being an accomplice to murder.

  Date unknown

• Fearful of a Swedish attack, the Russians blow up the city of Tartu, Estonia.
• The Russians burn the city of Porvoo, Finland.
• One third of the population of Masuria dies of the plague.
• Johann Sebastian Bach is appointed as chamber musician and organist, at the court in Weimar.
• Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico delivers his inaugural lecture to the University of Naples, which will be published in 1709 as his first book, De Nostri Temporis Studiorum Ratione.
• Calcareous hard-paste porcelain is produced for the first time in Europe, at Dresden, Saxony, by Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus, and developed after his death by Johann Friedrich Böttger.
• The Company of Merchants of London Trading merges with the East Indies, and the more recently established English Company Trading to the East Indies, to form the United Company of Merchants of England Trading to the East Indies, known as the Honourable East India Company.

  Births

January–March

• January 1 - Anton Wilhelm Plaz, German physician and botanist
• January 3 - Johannes Van Rensselaer, member of the prominent colonial Van Rensselaer family
• January 10 - Donat Nonnotte, French painter who specialized in portraiture
• January 14 - Charles Armand René de La Trémoille, French soldier and president of the States of Brittany
• January 15 - Giovanni Salvemini, Italian mathematician and astronomer
• January 17 - Henry Brydges, 2nd Duke of Chandos
• January 23 - Luigi Crespi, Italian painter
• January 25 - Pompeo Batoni, Italian painter
• January 26 - William Hayes, composer
• January 27
• * Robert Marsham, English naturalist considered to be the founding father of phenology
• * Jean-François-Joseph de Rochechouart, French Roman Catholic Cardinal
• January 30 - Georg Dionysius Ehret, botanist and entomologist known for his botanical illustrations
• February 3 - Johann Michael Hartung, German organ builder and public figure from Dürkheim
• February 8 - Václav Jan Kopřiva, Bohemian composer and organist
• February 11 - Egidio Duni, Italian composer who studied in Naples and worked in Italy
• February 15
• * Alexander Hume-Campbell, Scottish lawyer and politician
• * Hugh Hume-Campbell, 3rd Earl of Marchmont, Scottish politician
• February 19 - Scrope Berdmore, English clergyman
• February 23 - Chauncy Townsend, City of London merchant and a Member of Parliament in the Parliament of Great Britain
• February 25 - Felix Benda, Bohemian composer and organist
• February 29
• * Louis Charles du Chaffault de Besné, French naval commander
• * Peter Jefferson, father of US President Thomas Jefferson
• March 5
• * Susanna Boylston, prominent early-American socialite
• * Moritz Franz Kasimir von Wobersnow, Prussian major general of infantry and a general adjutant of Frederick the Great
• March 8 - John Campbell, Scottish author
• March 15 - John Hulse, British Anglican priest
• March 17 - Johanna Magdalene of Saxe-Weissenfels, Duchess consort of Courland
• March 22 - Ernst Henrich Berling, German-Danish book printer and publisher
• March 26 - Robert Rochfort, 1st Earl of Belvedere
• March 31 - Jean Chastel, farmer and inn-keeper from the province of Gévaudan in France

  April–June

• April 3
• * Johann Christian Cuno, German poet
• * Antoine-Gaspard Boucher d'Argis, French lawyer
• April 5 - Augustin-Joseph de Mailly, French general
• April 6 - Johann Georg Reutter, Austrian composer
• April 12 - Rose Fuller, West Indies plantation owner and politician
• April 18 - James Cholmondeley, British Army officer and Member of Parliament between 1731 and 1747
• April 23 - Friedrich von Hagedorn, German poet
• April 25 - John Seccombe, author
• April 28 - Johann Rudolf Engau, German jurist
• May 1 - Lionel Tollemache, 4th Earl of Dysart
• May 5 - Johann Adolf Scheibe, German-Danish composer and significant critic and theorist of music
• May 8 - Girolamo Colonna di Sciarra, Italian Catholic Cardinal of the noble Colonna di Sciarra family
• May 13
• * Maximilian Friedrich von Königsegg-Rothenfels, Archbishop-Elector of Cologne and the Bishop of Münster from 1761 to 1784
• * John Spencer, British nobleman and politician
• May 25 - Wriothesley Russell, 3rd Duke of Bedford, English nobleman and peer
• May 29 - Henry Bilson-Legge, English statesman and three times as Chancellor of the Exchequer
• May 30 - Daniel Gralath, physicist and a mayor of Danzig
• June 5 - Roger Townshend, British soldier and Member of Parliament
• June 17 - Annibale degli Abati Olivieri, Italian archaeologist
• June 19 - Johann Gottlieb Janitsch, German Baroque composer
• June 20 - François-Élie Vincent, French painter of portrait miniatures
• June 24 - Sir Henry Harpur, 5th Baronet, English baronet and politician
• June 25 - Nicolas Antoine II Coulon de Villiers, French military officer in the King George's War
• June 29 - Silvester Gardiner, physician

  July–September

• July 5 - Thomas Phillips, English Jesuit priest
• July 8
• * Claude-Henri de Fusée de Voisenon, French playwright and writer
• * Johann Jakob Zeiller, Austrian painter
• July 10 - Johannes Enschedé, Dutch printer
• July 17 - Frederick Christian, Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth, member of the House of Hohenzollern
• July 19 - Philip Francis, Anglo-Irish clergyman and writer
• July 22 - Nathaniel Ames, Colonial American physician
• August 26
• * Pierre-Joseph Bernard, French military man and salon poet with the reputation of a rake
• * Matteo Capranica, Italian composer
• August 29 - Olof von Dalin, Swedish nobleman
• August 31 - Sir John Rogers, 3rd Baronet
• September 2 - André le Breton, French publisher
• September 4 - Jean-Baptiste Nicolas Roch de Ramezay, officer of the marines, colonial administrator for New France
• September 6 - Charles Stanhope, Member of Parliament for Derby
• September 9 - Paul Egede, Dano-Norwegian theologian
• September 10 - Mathias Collett, Norwegian civil servant
• September 16 - Catharina Freymann, Norwegian educator and pietist leader
• September 24 - Manuel Rojo del Río y Vieyra, Archbishop of Manila
• September 25 - Thomas Wood, British politician and MP
• September 26 - Ignatius Sichelbart, German-Bohemian Jesuit missionary and painter