History
1748
General
Population: 813 Million*
- Entertainment: Writers include Carlo Goldoni (Venetian comedy), Carlo Gozzi Turnadot, Klopstock, Samuel Richardson, Tobias Smollett,
Archibald Bower (Papal history), David Hume (philosophy), Peter Whalley (Shakespeare), Voltaire
Art includes Thomas Gainsborough "Cornard Wood", Hogarth "Calais Gate"
Music includes Bach
- Medicine: John Fothergill describes diphtheria
- Science: Leonhard Euler writes about analytical mathematics
Thomas Lowndes founds chair of astronomy at Cambridge
- Sports: Court of King's Bench rules that "cricket is a legal sport"
- Deaths: Hymn composer Isaac Watts, Mohammed Shad the Great Mogul
Asia
- India: France and England compete for trade with India
- Japan: Samurai plays presented
Europe
- General: Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle – general recognition of Pragmatic Sanction and of Francis I as HRE and it leaves the map of Europe as it was before with the exception of Silesia
Platinum arrives in Europe from South America
- France: Marie-Therese Geoffrin opens salon as meeting place for Parisian men of letters
- Great Britain: End of King George's War
Holywell Music Room in Oxford opened
Abolition of hereditary jurisdiction in Scotland
Famine
- Holy Roman Empire: End of War of Austrian Succession
- Italian States: Pompeii discovered and excavation begins
- Russia: Russian troops march through Bohemia toward the Rhine
Middle East
- General: Death of Mohammed Shad the Great Mogul
- Persia: Shah Rukh grandson of Nadir Shah rules
General
- Business: Franklin retires from printing
South
- South Carolina: Subscription library opened in Charleston
- Virginia: Ohio Company organized