1698

Events

January–March

• January 1 – The Abenaki tribe and Massachusetts colonists sign a treaty, ending the conflict in New England.
• January 4 – The Palace of Whitehall in London, England is destroyed by fire.
• January 23 – George Louis becomes Elector of Hanover upon the death of his father, Ernest Augustus. Because the widow of Ernest Augustus, George's mother Sophia, was heiress presumptive as the cousin of Anne, Queen of Great Britain, and Anne's closest eligible heir, George will become King of Great Britain.
• January 30 – William Kidd, who initially seized foreign ships under authority as a privateer for the British Empire before becoming a pirate, becomes an outlaw and uses his ship, the Adventure Galley, to capture an Indian ship, the valuable Quedagh Merchant, near India.
• February 17 – The Maratha Empire fort at Gingee falls after a siege of almost nine years by the Mughal Empire as King Rajaram escapes to safety. General Swarup Singh Bundela, who led the scaling of the fortress walls and Gingee's capture, is rewarded by Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb with command of the area.
• March 8 – The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, the oldest Anglican mission organization in the world, is founded by English clergyman Thomas Bray and four other people at Lincoln's Inn in London, along with Sir Humphrey Mackworth, Maynard Colchester, Lord Guilford and John Hooke.
• March
• * English Bishop Jeremy Collier publishes his pamphlet A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage, accusing several contemporary playwrights of undermining public morality in their popular comedies by using profanity, blasphemy and indecency.
• * Samuel Cranston becomes the governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

  April–June

• April 1 – Scottish pirate William Kidd and his crew arrive at Île Sainte-Marie off of the coast of Madagascar in Kidd's Adventure Galley bringing with them the cargo of the captured ships Quedagh Merchant and Rouparelle. Upon arrival, all but 13 of Kidd's crew desert to work for another pirate, Robert Culliford. The Adventure Galley, which is leaking and falling apart, sinks and the Rouparelle is sunk by the deserters. Kidd and his 13 henchmen depart on Quedah Merchant.
• April 10 – A total solar eclipse is visible in central America.
• May 1 – The Banishment Act of 1697 goes into effect for Roman Catholic church officials in Ireland, having been the deadline for all "popish archbishops, bishops, vicars general, deans, jesuits, monks, friars, and other regular popish clergy" to have reported to Irish ports for deportation. Re-entry to Ireland after May 4, 1698, is a criminal offense with a penalty of 12 months imprisonment and expulsion, while a second re-entry is punishable by death as treason.
• May 4 – At the imperial capital at Inwa, Sanay Min of the Toungoo dynasty becomes the new King of Burma upon the death of his father, Minye Kyawhtin.
• May 17 – The British Royal Navy ship HMS Hastings, a 32-gun fifth rate, is launched.
• June 20 – An earthquake of magnitude 7.2–7.9 damages an extended region around Ambato, Ecuador, including the Tungurahua, Cotopaxi and Chimborazo provinces. Ambato and Latacunga are completely destroyed and several thousand casualties are reported.
• June 21 – John Churchill, Earl of Marlborough is reinstated in the English Army, with readmission to the Privy Council by King William III. On July 26, he is selected as one of the Lords Justice.
• June 22 – The executions of 57 leaders of the Streltsy uprising begin and continue until June 28.
• June 24 – The Trade with Africa Act 1697 goes into effect in English overseas possessions, ending the monopoly of the Royal African Company on the triangular trade by opening it to any English merchants who pay a 10 percent fee to the RAC.

  July–September

• July 2 – Thomas Savery patents the first steam engine.
• July 7 – The English House of Commons is dissolved and new elections are held between July 19 and August 10 for a parliament to be summoned on August 24.
• July 14 – Darien scheme: The first Scottish settlers leave for an ill-fated colony in Panama.
• July 25 – English engineer Thomas Savery obtains a patent for a steam pump.
• August 24 – King William III opens the newly elected House of Commons at Westminster.
• August 25 – Peter the Great arrives back in Moscow; General Patrick Gordon has already crushed the Streltsy Uprising, with 341 rebels sentenced to be decapitated.
• September 5
• * In an effort to move his people away from Asiatic customs, Tsar Peter I of Russia imposes a beard tax.
• * A charter is granted by King William III of England to the new East India Company of England, called "the New Company" or "the English Company" to break the monopoly that has existed in India since 1689 with the existing British East India Company.
• September 8 – The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth defeats the Tatars in the Battle of Podhajce, the last battle between the Ottoman Empire and the Polish and Lithuanians.

  October–December

• October 11 – The Treaty of the Hague is signed between the Dutch Republic, England and France.
• October 24 – Iberville and Bienville sail from Brest to the Gulf of Mexico, to defend the southern borders of New France.
• November 2 – The Darien scheme Scottish settlers land in Panama and establish their ill-fated colony; 80% of them would die within the first year.
• November 14
• * The first Eddystone Lighthouse, built off Plymouth, England, is illuminated.
• * The Spanish king Carlos names his grandson Jozef Ferdinand as his heir.
• November 16 – A congress begins in Sremski Karlovci to discuss a treaty between the Ottoman Empire and the Holy League.
• November – Tani Jinzan, astronomer and calendar scholar, observes a fire destroy Tosa in Japan at the same time as a Leonid meteor shower, taking it as evidence to reinforce belief in the "Theory of Areas".
• December 8 – King William III of England issues a proclamation of "our most gracious pardon unto all such pirates in the East Indies, viz., all eastward of the Cape of Good Hope, who shall surrender themselves for piracies or robberies committed by them upon sea or land" before April 30, 1699, to Captain Thomas Warren, but specifically "excepting Henry Every, alias Bridgman, and William Kidd.
• December 9 – Francis Nicholson becomes the new British colonial governor of Virginia, succeeding Sir Edmund Andros.
• December 12 – Mombasa falls under control of the Emirate of Oman, with Imam Sa'if ibn Sultan as the first Omani Governor.

  Date unknown

• Bucharest becomes the capital of Wallachia.
• In Africa, Zanzibar is captured by Oman.
• The Whigs sponsor Captain Kidd of New York as a privateer against French shipping.
• Humphrey Hody is appointed regius professor of Greek at Oxford.
• Shepherd Neame Brewery founded.
• Ukraine suffers a great famine.
• Cinderella is made as a folktale

  Births

January–March

• January 1 – Leonardo VII Tocco, Italian noble, the Prince of Montemiletto and the titular Prince of Achaea
• January 3 – Metastasio,, Italian poet and opera librettist
• January 7 – Thomas Southwell, 2nd Baron Southwell, Irish peer, politician and freemason
• January 21 – Auguste Louise of Württemberg-Oels, Duchess of Württemberg-Oels by birth and by marriage Duchess of Saxe-Weissenfels-Barby
• February 4 – Heinrich August de la Motte Fouqué, Prussian Lieutenant general and General der Infanterie and a confidant of King Frederick the Great
• February 5 – Germain-François Poullain de Saint-Foix, 18th-century French writer and playwright
• February 7 – Nicolas Sarrabat, French mathematician and scientist
• February 16
• * Pierre Bouguer, French mathematician, geophysicist, geodesist, and astronomer
• * Johann Elias Ridinger, German painter
• February 19 – William FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Cleveland, English nobleman
• February 20
• * Gerard Arnout Hasselaer, burgomaster and counsellor of the city of Amsterdam
• * Bernardo Tanucci, Italian statesman
• February 22 – Giovanni Battista de' Rossi, Italian Roman Catholic priest
• February 23 – Thomas Bladen, colonial governor in North America and British MP
• February 28 – Sigismund von Schrattenbach, Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg
• March 6 – Johannes Alberti, Dutch theologian
• March 17 – Lady Jane Douglas, Scottish noblewoman
• March 26 – Václav Prokop Diviš, Czech priest, scientist and inventor

  April–June

• April 1 – Steven Hoogendijk, Rotterdam watch and instrument maker and physicist
• April 2 – Henry Edgar, Scottish Episcopal minister, Bishop of Fife from 1762 to 1765
• April 5 – Anne Hamilton, 2nd Countess of Ruglen, Scottish noblewoman
• April 19 – Daniel Gerdes, German Calvinist theologian and historian
• April 28 – John Phillipson, British Navy administrator, commissioner, MP for over 20 years
• May 1 – Francesco Robba, Italian sculptor
• May 8 – Henry Baker, British naturalist
• May 10
• * Cuthbert Ellison, British Army officer and MP for Shaftesbury
• * François Parfaict, 18th-century French theatre historian
• May 11 – Pierre Contant d'Ivry, French architect and designer
• May 17
• * Gio Nicola Buhagiar, Maltese painter
• * Sir John Major, 1st Baronet, British merchant
• May 22 – Lord William Beauclerk, British army officer and politician
• May 24 – John, Count Palatine of Gelnhausen
• June 2 – Henry Miles, English Dissenting minister, scientific writer, Fellow of the Royal Society
• June 15 – George Browne, Irish soldier of fortune in Russian service
• June 19
• * Aoki Konyō, Confucian scholar
• * Weliwita Sri Saranankara Thero, Last Sangharaja of Sri Lanka
• June 22 – Charles-Hugues Le Febvre de Saint-Marc, 18th-century French playwright and homme de lettres
• June 23 – Lord Nassau Powlett, English army officer and MP