Explore 108 historical events from 1720–1729.
Roger Sherman was an early American politician, lawyer, and a Founding Father of the United States. Representing Connecticut, he is the only person to sign all four great state pap…
Roger Sherman, American lawyer and politician (died 1793)
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his prolific output across a variety of instruments and forms, including the or…
Johann Sebastian Bach leads the first performance of his cantata Du Hirte Israel, höre, BWV 104, illustrating the topic
Florimond Claude, comte de Mercy-Argenteau was an Austrian diplomat, statesman of French noble ancestry, in the service of the Holy Roman Empire.
Florimond Claude, Comte de Mercy-Argenteau, Belgian-Austrian minister and diplomat (died 1794)
Anthony Hamilton PC (Ire), also known as Antoine and comte d'Hamilton, was a soldier and a writer. As a Catholic of Irish and Scottish ancestry, his parents brought him to France i…
Antoine Hamilton, Irish-French soldier and author (born 1646)
John Leverett was an early Anglo-American lawyer, politician, educator, and President of Harvard College.
John Leverett the Younger, American lawyer, academic, and politician (born 1662)
Charles Beauclerk, 1st Duke of St. Albans, KG was an illegitimate son of King Charles II of England by his mistress Nell Gwyn.
Charles Beauclerk, 1st Duke of St Albans, English soldier and politician, Lord Lieutenant of Berkshire (born 1670)
Joseph Black was a Scottish physicist and chemist, known for his discoveries of magnesium, latent heat, specific heat, and carbon dioxide. He was professor of anatomy and chemistry…
Joseph Black, French-Scottish physician and chemist (died 1799)
The 1721 Tabriz earthquake occurred on April 26, with an epicenter near the city of Tabriz, Iran. It leveled some three-quarters of the city, including many prominent mosques and s…
A massive earthquake devastates the Iranian city of Tabriz
The Papal States, officially the State of the Church, were a conglomeration of territories on the Italian peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope from 756 to 1870. Th…
In the Papal States, Cardinal Michelangelo dei Conti is elected Pope, and takes the name Innocent XIII
Admiral Augustus Keppel, 1st Viscount Keppel, PC was a Royal Navy officer and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1755 to 1782. He saw action in command of various ship…
Augustus Keppel, 1st Viscount Keppel, English admiral and politician (died 1786)
Catherine II, commonly known as Catherine the Great, was the Empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. She came to power after a coup d'etat against her husband, Peter III. Her long rei…
Catherine the Great of Russia (died 1796)
Florian Leopold Gassmann was a German-speaking Bohemian opera composer of the transitional period between the baroque and classical eras. He was one of the principal composers of d…
Florian Leopold Gassmann, Czech composer (died 1774)
Giuseppe Parini was an Italian satirist and Neoclassical poet.
Giuseppe Parini, Italian poet and educator (died 1799)
George Leonard was an American lawyer, jurist, and politician from Norton, Massachusetts. Besides service on state court benches and in both houses of the state legislature, he rep…
George Leonard, American lawyer, jurist and politician (died 1819)
Baltimore, also known as Baltimore City, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. It is the 30th-most populous U.S. city with a population of 585,708 at the 2020 ce…
Founding of Baltimore, Maryland.
Louis Antoine de Noailles, Cardinal de Noailles, second son of Anne de Noailles, 1st Duke of Noailles, was a French bishop and cardinal. His signing of the Unigenitus bull in 1728 …
Louis Antoine de Noailles, French cardinal (born 1651)
Samuel Clarke was an English philosopher and Anglican priest. He is considered the major British figure in philosophy between John Locke and George Berkeley. Clarke's altered, Nont…
Samuel Clarke, English clergyman and philosopher (born 1675)
Élisabeth Claude Jacquet de La Guerre was a French musician, harpsichordist and composer. Jacquet de La Guerre was a significant figure in French Baroque music, particularly in the…
Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, French harpsichord player and composer (born 1665)
Edward Taylor was a colonial American poet, pastor and physician of English origin. His work remained unpublished for some 200 years but since then has established him as one of th…
Edward Taylor, American-English poet, pastor, and physician (born circa 1642)
Johann David Heinichen was a German Baroque composer and music theorist who brought the musical genius of Venice to the court of Augustus II the Strong in Dresden. After he died, H…
Johann David Heinichen, German composer and theorist (born 1683)
Joseph Black was a Scottish physicist and chemist, known for his discoveries of magnesium, latent heat, specific heat, and carbon dioxide. He was professor of anatomy and chemistry…
Joseph Black, French-Scottish physician and chemist (died 1799)
Robert Adam was a British neoclassical architect, interior designer and furniture designer. He was the son of William Adam (1689–1748), Scotland's foremost architect of the time, a…
Robert Adam, Scottish-English architect, designed Culzean Castle (died 1792)
Florimond Claude, comte de Mercy-Argenteau was an Austrian diplomat, statesman of French noble ancestry, in the service of the Holy Roman Empire.
Florimond Claude, Comte de Mercy-Argenteau, Belgian-Austrian minister and diplomat (died 1794)
Jean-Georges Noverre was a French dancer and ballet master, and is generally considered the creator of ballet d'action, a precursor of the narrative ballets of the 19th century. Hi…
Jean-Georges Noverre, French actor and dancer (died 1810)
Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Baron de l'Aulne, commonly known as Turgot, was a French economist and statesman. Sometimes considered a physiocrat, he is today best remembered as an e…
Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune, French economist and politician (died 1781)
Thomas Gainsborough was an English portrait and landscape painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. Along with his rival Sir Joshua Reynolds, he is considered one of the most important…
Thomas Gainsborough, English painter (died 1788)
Catherine I was Empress of Russia from 8 February 1725 until her death in 1727. She was previously empress consort of Russia from 1721 to 1725 as the second wife of Peter the Great…
Catherine I of Russia (born 1684)
Juan Francisco Buenaventura de Ayala y Escobar was a prominent Spanish soldier and administrator who governed Spanish Florida from October 30, 1716, to August 3, 1718. The succeedi…
Juan de Ayala y Escobar, Governor of Spanish Florida (1716–1718) (born 1635)
August Hermann Francke was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, philanthropist, and Biblical scholar. His evangelistic fervour and Pietism got him expelled as lecturer from the un…
August Hermann Francke, German-Lutheran pietist, philanthropist, and scholar (born 1663)
George I was King of Great Britain and Ireland from 1 August 1714 and ruler of the Electorate of Hanover within the Holy Roman Empire from 23 January 1698 until his death in 1727. …
George I of Great Britain (born 1660)
Simon Harcourt, 1st Viscount Harcourt, PC of Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire, was an English Tory politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons from 1690 until 1710.…
Simon Harcourt, 1st Viscount Harcourt, English politician, Lord Chancellor of Great Britain (born 1661)
Francis Cotes was an English painter who was one of the pioneers of English pastel painting and co-founded the Royal Academy in 1768.
Francis Cotes, English painter and academic (died 1770)
James Hutton was a Scottish geologist, agriculturalist, chemical manufacturer, naturalist and physician. Often referred to as the "Father of Modern Geology," he played a key role …
James Hutton, Scottish geologist and physician (died 1797)
Margaret Clap, better known as Mother Clap, ran a coffee house from 1724 to 1726 in Field Lane, Holborn, Middlesex, a short distance from the City of London. As well as running a m…
Five men arrested during a raid on Mother Clap's molly house in London are executed at Tyburn