Kent's Directory published
Excise crisis: Sir Robert Walpole wanted to add excise tax to tobacco and wine - Pulteney and Bolingbroke oppose the excise tax
Law forbidding the use of Latin in parish registers generally obeyed - some continued in Latin for a few years
John Kay invents the flying shuttle, revolutionised the weaving industry
Covent Garden Opera House opens
Invention of seed drill by Jethro Tull [others say 1701]
Invention of sextant by John Hadley
Irish famine
Treaty of Seville signed between Britain, France and Spain - Britain maintained control of Port Mahon and Gibraltar
George I dies - George II Hanover becomes king
Board of Manufacturers established in Scotland
First circulating library opened in Edinburgh
Invention of the chronometer by John Harrison
Rapid growth of gin drinking in England
Longman's founded (Britain's oldest publishing house)
Excise tax levied for coffee, tea, and chocolate
The Waltham Black Acts add 50 capital offences to the penal code - people could be sentenced to death for theft and poaching - repealed in 1827
The Workhouse Act or Test - to get relief, a poor person has to enter Workhouse
Last trial for witchcraft in Scotland
Knatchbull's Act, poor laws
Robert Walpole (Whig) becomes first Prime Minister (to 1742)
South Sea Bubble, a stock-market crash on Exchange Alley - government assumes control of National Debt
Manufacturing towns start to increase in population - rise of new wealth
Wallpaper becomes fashionable in England
Third abortive Jacobite rising
First Masonic Lodge opens in London
Value of the golden guinea fixed at 21 shillings
The Septennial Act of Britain leads to greater electoral corruption - general elections now to be held once every 7 years instead of every 3 (until 1911)
Climate: Thames frozen so solid that a spring tide lifted the ice bodily 13ft without interrupting the frost fair
Second Jacobite rebellion in Scotland, under the Old Pretender ('The Fifteen')