1716

Events

January–March

January 16 - The application of the Nueva Planta decrees to Catalonia make it subject to the laws of the Crown of Castile, and abolishes the Principality of Catalonia as a political entity, concluding the unification of Spain under Philip V.
January 27 - The Tugaloo massacre changes the course of the Yamasee War, allying the Cherokee nation with the British province of South Carolina against the Creek Indian nation.
January 28 - The town of Crieff, Scotland, is burned to the ground by Jacobites returning from the Battle of Sheriffmuir.
February 3 - The 1716 Algiers earthquake sequence begins with a 7.0 mainshock that causes severe damage and kills 20,000 in Algeria.
February 10 - James Edward Stuart flees from Scotland to France with a handful of supporters, following the failure of the Jacobite rising of 1715.
February 24 - Jacobite leaders James Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Derwentwater and William Gordon, 6th Viscount of Kenmure are executed in London.
March 6 - At night, an aurora borealis is seen throughout Europe, from Ireland to Italy.
March 8 - King Charles XII of Sweden leads an invasion of Norway, crossing the border at Basmo, near the modern-day town of Marker.
March 10 - Simon Fraser, a former Scottish rebel who had helped end the Siege of Inverness during the first Jacobite rising, is given a pardon by King George I of Great Britain.
March 18 - Italian Jesuit missionary Ippolito Desideri arrives in Lhasa to become one of the first Europeans to attempt to bring Christianity to Buddhist Tibet.
March 23 - Jeremias III becomes the new Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, leader of the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church.

April–June

April 13 - Austria, ruled by King Charles VI, renews its alliance with the Republic of Venice, leading the Ottoman Empire, ruled by Ahmed III, to declare war.
May 20 - John Law founds the Banque Générale Privée in Paris.
May 26 - Two regular companies of field artillery, each 100 men strong, are raised at Woolwich, by Royal Warrant of King George I of Great Britain.
May 28 - John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, suffers a paralytic stroke.
June 9 - In India, 600 imprisoned members of the failed Sikh Khalsa rebellion against the Mughal Empire are executed on orders of the Emperor Farrukhsiyar. Banda Singh Bahadur, leader of the rebellion, is brutally tortured and mutilated before being killed.
June 19 - The new Tokugawa Shogun of Japan, Tokugawa Yoshimune, assumes control of the monarchy's military after the illness and death of the six-year-old Ietsugu, last of the male descendants of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Yoshimune's ascendancy begins Year 1 of the Kyōhō Era, which continues until Year 21 in 1736.
June 25 - With the Holy Roman Empire having been ceded the "Southern Netherlands" from Spain, Prince Eugene of Savoy arrives in Brussels as the first Governor-General of the Austrian Netherlands. Eugene soon returns home and leaves administration of the area to a dictatorial Hercule-Louis Turinetti.

July–September

July 5 - Prince Ernest Augustus is created Duke of York and Albany, in the peerage of Great Britain.
July 8 - The Battle of Dynekilen: The Swedish fleet is defeated by a Danish–Norwegian fleet.
July 8–August 21 - Seventh Ottoman–Venetian War: The Ottoman Empire Corfu (1716)|unsuccessfully lays siege] to Corfu, the last bastion of the Republic of Venice in the Greek islands.
August 3 - Natchez, one of the oldest towns on the Mississippi River, is founded by French civilians at the site of Fort Rosalie.
August 4 - George Seton, 5th Earl of Winton, under sentence of death for his part in the Jacobite rising of 1715, escapes from the Tower of London and flees into exile on the continent.
August 5 - Battle of Petrovaradin: 83,300 Austrian troops of Prince Eugene of Savoy defeat 150,000 Ottoman Turks under Silahdar Damat Ali Pasha.
August 24 - Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, returns from Italy.
September 15 - "Maria", an African slave of the Dutch West [India Company] on the Caribbean island of Curaçao, murders the plantation overseer, Christiaan Muller, then leads a rebellion, killing Muller's family and much of the white staff on the company's plantation. The uprising is suppressed after 10 days, and Maria is executed by burning at the stake on November 9.
September 26 - Alexei Petrovich, Tsarevich of Russia, eldest son of the Tsar Peter the Great and heir to the throne, flees from Saint Petersburg with his mistress, Efrosinya Fedorova, along with her brother and three servants. After spending more than a year in Austria, he returns to Russia where he is arrested and dies in prison in 1718.

October–December

October 12 - During the war between the Habsburg Empire ruling Austria and the Ottoman Empire ruling Turkey, the Temeşvar (1716)|six week siege] of the fortified city of Temeşvar ends with it being surrendered by the Turks to the Austrians. Under a flag of truce, the Turks are permitted to depart but have to leave behind their artillery as they give up their claim to Hungary. Austro-Hungarian rule lasts until World War One, and in 1919, the city of Timișoara becomes part of the Kingdom of Romania.
November 1 - Two new laws go into effect in the Highlands of Scotland to prevent a threat to Britain's ruling House of Hanover by the Jacobites who supported the restoration of the House of Stuart. The Disarming Act requires government authorization to carry swords and firearms, and the amendments to the Treason Act 1714 permit trials for treason to take place in any court in England, regardless of where the crime was committed.
December 4 - Fifty people are killed, and 150 houses burned, when a fire breaks out in Wapping, London. The blaze comes two days after a fire at the Spring Gardens at St. James's, London, which destroyed the French Chapel there and which was put out by several rescuers, including the future King George II.
December 12 - Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend, is demoted from his office as Secretary of State for the Northern Department in the British government, and replaced by James Stanhope, 1st Earl Stanhope. This is a move towards the Whig Split of 1717.