History
1717
General
Population: 676 Million*
- Entertainment: Writers include Cardinal de Retz Memoires (posthumous)
Art includes Watteau "Embarkation for the Isla of Cythera"
Music includes JS Bach (organ music), Handel "Water Music" - played on Thames, John Weaver "Loves of Mars and Venus" ballet
- Technology: Orffyreus supposedly creates perpetual motion wheel but lets no one see interior
Americas
- General: Spain establishes viceroyalty of New Granada to 1810 in South America consisting of Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Venezuela, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago
- Guatemala: Mt. Fuego erupts
Asia
- General: Mongol forces attack Manchu puppet regime in Tibet and destroy large Chinese army
- Tibet: Mongols occupy Lhasa - raid Tibet - later defeated by Chinese
Europe
- General: Prince Eugene defeats Turks at Belgrade
Triple alliance
- France: James III "The Old Pretender" (English) forced to leave France
Peter the Great visits Paris
First appearance of great French actress Adrienne Lecouvreur
John Law's Mississippi Company holds monopoly of trade with Louisiana
- German States: School attendance in Prussia made compulsory
- Great Britain: Rivalry between King of England and son Prince of Wales hits climax and prince expelled from palace
Burlington House in London remodled by Colin Campbell
Inoculation against smallpox introduced in England by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Mother Grand Lodge of Freemasons established in London
Value of golden guinea fixed at 21 shillings
Townshend dismissed from Govt. Walpole resigns
Lady Mary Wortley Montague introduces Turkish practice of smallpox vaccination into Britain – ignored because of her gender
- Holy Roman Empire: Armenian Mekhitarist monks settle on island of San Lazzaro in Venice
- Netherlands: Flood in The Hague
- Russia: Peter the Great visits Paris
- Spain: Spain seizes Sardinia from Austria
Middle East
- Afghanistan: Separate Afghan state under Abdalis of Herat
South
- Louisiana: John Law's Mississippi Company from France holds monopoly of trade with Louisiana