1695
Events
January–March
- January 7 – The United Kingdom's last joint monarchy, the reign of husband-and-wife King William III and Queen Mary II comes to an end with the death of Queen Mary, at the age of 32. Princess Mary had been installed as the monarch along with her husband and cousin, Willem Hendrik von Oranje, Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic, in 1689 after King James II was deposed by Willem during the "Glorious Revolution".
- January 14 – The Royal Navy warship HMS Nonsuch is captured near England's Isles of Scilly by the 48-gun French privateer Le Francois. Nonsuch is then sold to the French Navy and renamed Le Sans Pareil.
- January 24 – Milan's Court Theater is destroyed in a fire.
- January 27 – A flotilla of six Royal Navy warships under the command of Commodore James Killegrew aboard HMS Plymouth captures two French warships, the Content and the Trident, the day after the French ships had mistaken the English fleet to be a group of merchant ships to attack.
- February 6 – Mustafa II succeeds his uncle, Ahmed II as Sultan of the Ottoman Empire.
- March 5 – The funeral of Queen Mary II of England takes place, accompanied by music written for the occasion by Henry Purcell.
- March 10 – Almost all French Army soldiers in a column of 1,300 troops, commanded by Brigadier General Urbain Le Clerc de Juigné, are killed or captured in the Battle of Sant Esteve d'en Bas against a smaller Spanish Empire force led by Ramon de Sala i Saçala during the War of the Grand Alliance.
- March 7 – John Trevor, Speaker of the English House of Commons, is expelled from the House by vote of the members, after being found guilty of accepting a bribe of 1000 pounds sterling from the City of London Corporation.
- March 14 – Paul Foley is elected as the new Speaker of the House after the expulsion of John Trevor.
- March 26 – John Hungerford is expelled from the English House of Commons when members vote to find him guilty of accepting a bribe in return for using his committee chairmanship to promote the pending Orphans Bill.
April–June
- April 17 – The House of Commons of England decides not to renew the Licensing Order of 1643, and states its reasoning, beginning with "Because it revives, and re-enacts, a Law which in no-wise answered the End for which it was made". The lifting of censorship creates a more open society, and an explosion of print results. Within 30 years, the number of printing houses in England increases from 20 to 103.
- April 22 – Sürmeli Ali Pasha is fired from his position as Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, after coming into a disagreement with the new Sultan, Mustafa II. Sürmeli is initially sent into exile, but executed on the Sultan's orders on May 29.
- April 27 – Russo-Turkish War : Russia begins the Azov campaigns against the Ottoman Empire, with 31,000 troops departing to the Ottoman fortress at Azov on the Don River.
- May 18 – The 7.8 magnitude Linfen earthquake in Shanxi Province, Qing Dynasty kills over 50,000 people.
- June 11 – An annular eclipse of the sun is visible across South America.
- June 24 – The Commission of Enquiry into the Massacre of Glencoe in Scotland in 1692 reports to the Parliament of England, blaming Sir John Dalrymple, Secretary of State over Scotland, and declares that a soldier should refuse to obey a "command against the law of nature".
July–September
- July 12 – The Siege of Namur begins in the Spanish Netherlands.
- July 15 – The siege of the Ottoman fortress at Azaq by the Russian Army begins, but is unsuccessful and is discontinued after October 2.
- July 17 – The Bank of Scotland is founded.
- August 8 – The Wren Building is started in Williamsburg, Virginia.
- August 10 – A naval skirmish occurs between English and Swedish ships in the Strait of Dover
- August 13–15 – Nine Years' War: Brussels is bombarded by French troops.
- September 1 – Nine Years' War: France surrenders Namur, Spanish Netherlands to forces of the Grand Alliance, led by King William III of England, Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic, following the 2-month Siege of Namur.
- September 7 – English pirate Henry Every perpetrates one of the most profitable raids in history, with the capture of the Grand Mughal ship Ganj-i-Sawai. In response, Emperor Aurangzeb threatens to put an end to all English trading in India.
- September 24 – All but eight of the remaining 305 crew of the Royal Navy ship are killed when the ship founders in the Florida Keys. According to the ship's logbook, an epidemic of yellow fever began on August 1 and had killed 45 people before the hurricane struck, and left all but seven crew members too ill to walk.
October–December
- October 11 – King William III of England dissolves Parliament in the wake of a scandal involving former Speaker of the House of Commons John Trevor and other Tory MPs.
- October 25 – The 48-gun English Navy ship HMS Berkeley Castle is captured by the French Navy.
- November 22 – The new Parliament, with 513 members of the House of Commons is opened by King William III. Commons is composed of 257 Whigs, 203 Tories and 53 members of other parties or independents.
- December 6 – A total eclipse of the sun is visible across the Middle East and western Asia.
- December 31 – A window tax is imposed in England. Some windows are bricked up to avoid it.
Date unknown
- English manufacturers call for an embargo on Indian cloth, and silk weavers picket the House of Commons of England.
- A £2 fine is imposed for swearing in England.
- After 23 years of construction, Spain completes Castillo de San Marcos to protect St. Augustine, Florida, from foreign threats.
- After many years of construction, the Potala Palace in Lhasa is completed.
- Gold is discovered in Brazil.
- Johanne Nielsdatter is executed for witchcraft, the last such confirmed execution in Norway.
- In Amsterdam, the bank Wed. Jean Deutz & Sn. floats the first sovereign bonds on the local market. The scheme is designed to fund a 1.5 million guilder loan to the Holy Roman Emperor. From this date on, European leaders commonly take advantage of the low interest rates available in the Dutch Republic, and borrow several hundred millions on the Dutch capital market.
- A large unidentified tropical volcanic eruption causes colder temperatures, crop failure, food shortage and mortality in north-western Europe.
- A naval skirmish occurs between English and Swedish ships en-route to Portugal.
- The Great Famine of 1695–1697 begins as the Great Famine of Estonia in Swedish Estonia and spreads across Finland, Latvia, Norway and Sweden, while the "seven ill years" of famine in Scotland are ongoing.
Births
January–March
- January 2 – Sir Robert Cotton, 3rd Baronet, British politician
- January 6 – Giuseppe Sammartini, Italian composer and oboist
- January 9 – Ferdinand Ashmall, British clergy
- January 18 – Paul Bécart de Granville et de Fonville, French colonial officer
- January 25
- * Prince Francis Ernest of Hesse-Darmstadt, German aristocrat
- * Satake Yoshitada
- January 26 – José Quer y Martínez, Spanish botanist
- January 27 – Anne Howard, Countess of Effingham, British countess
- February 2
- * William Borlase, English antiquarian, geologist and naturalist
- * François de Chevert, French general
- * Christoph Sauer, German-American printer and publisher
- February 6 – Nicolaus II Bernoulli, Russian mathematician
- February 10 – Armand Jules de Rohan-Guéméné, French archbishop
- February 11
- * Françoise de Graffigny, French writer
- * Abraham Pelt, Danish industrialist and philanthropist
- February 13 – Francesco Maria Della Rovere, politician
- February 14 – Joseph Anton Glantschnigg, painter of German origin
- February 16 – Philippe-Claude de Montboissier de Beaufort, French politician
- February 21 – Anthony Grey, Earl of Harold, English noble
- March 2 – Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf, German music publisher
- March 3 – María Anna Águeda de San Ignacio, Mexican writer
- March 4 – Marie Huber, Genevan writer and theologian
- March 9 – Martín Sarmiento, Spanish scholar and writer
- March 10 – Adrien Manglard, French painter and engraver
- March 12 – Mihael Summa, Albanian clergyman and auxiliary bishop
- March 13 – Daniel Overbeek, Dutch colonial governor
- March 15
- * Infante António of Portugal, Portuguese infante
- * Alexander Joseph Sulkowski, Polish and Saxon general
- March 16
- * Christian Hilfgott Brand, German Austrian painter
- * William Greene, Governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations
- March 19
- * William Noel, English barrister, judge and politician,
- * Christian Seybold, German painter
- March 20 – Toki Yoritoshi, Daimyo in the Tokugawa shogunate
- March 27 – Johann Philipp Anton von Franckenstein, German priest
April–June
- April 8 – Johann Christian Günther, German poet
- April 14 – Pietro Guarneri, Italian luthier
- April 16 – Christoph Jacob Trew, German physician and botanist
- April 17 – Ludovico Valenti, Italian cardinal
- April 19
- * Roger Morris, English architect
- * Georg Albrecht of Saxe-Weissenfels, Count of Barby, German noble, Count of Barby
- May 1 – Pierre Saint-Sevin, French composer
- May 2 – Giovanni Niccolò Servandoni, French architect and painter
- May 3
- * Pacifico Bizza, Roman Catholic archbishop
- * Henri Pitot, French hydraulic engineer
- May 6 – Isaac Wilkinson, English businessman
- May 7
- * Sir Robert Grosvenor, 6th Baronet, British politician
- * Gabriel Huquier, French art dealer
- May 8 – John Lee, British politician
- May 16 – Louis-Urbain-Aubert de Tourny, French intendant
- May 22 – Anna Folkema, Engraver from the Northern Netherlands
- May 27 – Miguel Cabrera, Mexican painter
- May 28 – Alexander Leslie, 5th Earl of Leven, British politician
- June 3 – Francis Wise, Keeper of the archive at the University of Oxford
- June 5 – Johann Conrad Schlaun, German architect
- June 6 – Adriaan Valckenier, Dutch Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies
- June 14 – Johann Friedrich Walther, German teacher, organist and draughtsman
- June 17 – Henri-Michel Guedier de Saint-Aubin, French theologist
- June 21
- * Joseph Banks, English landowner and MP
- * Sir Peter Halkett, 2nd Baronet, politician
- June 23 – Louise Anne de Bourbon, French princess, the daughter of Louis III de Bourbon
- June 24 – Martin van Meytens, Austrian artist
- June 28 – Christiana Mariana von Ziegler, German poet