The 1750s (pronounced "seventeen-fifties") was a decade of the Gregorian calendar that began on January 1, 1750, and ended on December 31, 1759. The 1750s was a pioneering decade. Waves of settlers flooded the New World (specifically the Americas) in hopes of re-establishing life away from European control, and electricity was a field of novelty that had yet to be merged with the studies of chemistry and engineering. Numerous discoveries of the 1750s forged the basis for contemporary scientific consensus. The decade saw the end of the Baroque period.
February 15– After Spain and Portugal agree that the Uruguay River will be the boundary line between the two kingdoms' territory in South America, the Spanish Governor orders the Jesuits to vacate seven Indian missions along the river (San Angel, San Nicolas, San Luis, San Lorenzo, San Miguel, San Juan and San Borja).[2]
March 5– The Murray-Kean Company, a troupe of actors from Philadelphia, gives the first performance of a play announced in advance in a newspaper, presenting Richard III at New York City's Nassau Street Theatre.[3]
April 13–Dr. Thomas Walker and five other men (Ambrose Powell, Colby Chew, William Tomlinson, Henry Lawless and John Hughes) cross through the Cumberland Gap, a mountain pass through the Appalachian Mountains, to become the first white people to venture into territories that had been inhabited exclusively by various Indian tribes.[4] On April 17, Walker's party continues through what is now Kentucky and locates the Cumberland River, which Walker names in honor of Prince William, Duke of Cumberland.
A group of West African slaves, bound for the Americas, successfully overpowers the crew of the British slave ship Snow Ann, imprisons the survivors, and then navigates the vessel back to Cape Lopez in Gabon.[5] Upon regaining their freedom, the rebels leave the survivors on the Gabonese coast.
April 25– The Acadian settlement in Beaubassin, Nova Scotia, is burnt by the French army, and the population is forcibly relocated, after France and Great Britain agree that the Missaguash River should be the new boundary between peninsular British Nova Scotia and the mainland remnant of French Acadia (now New Brunswick) [7]
May 16– Two weeks after police in Paris arrest six teenagers for gambling in the suburb of Saint-Laurent, rioting breaks out when a rumor spreads that plainclothes policemen are hauling off small children between the ages of five to ten years old, in order to provide blood to an ailing aristocrat.[8] Over the next two weeks, rioting breaks out in other sections of Paris. Police are attacked, including one who is beaten to death by the mob, until order is restored and police reforms are announced.[9]
June 19– At a time when mountain climbing is still relatively uncommon, Eggert Ólafsson and Bjarni Pálsson scale their first peak, the 4,892 foot (1,491m) high Icelandic volcano, Hekla.[10]
June 24– Parliament passes Britain's Iron Act, designed to restrict American manufactured goods by prohibiting additional ironworking businesses from producing finished goods. At the same time, import taxes on raw iron from America are lifted in order to give British manufacturers additional material for production.[11] By 1775, the North American colonies have surpassed England and Wales in iron production and have become the world's third largest producer of iron.
June 29– An attempt in Lima to begin a native uprising against Spanish colonial authorities in the Viceroyalty of Peru is discovered and thwarted.[12] One of the conspirators, Francisco Garcia Jimenez, escapes to Huarochirí and kills dozens of Spaniards on July 25.
July–September
July 9– Traveller Jonas Hanway leaves St. Petersburg to return home, via Germany and the Netherlands. Later the same year, Hanway reputedly becomes the first Englishman to use an umbrella (a French fashion).
July 31–José I takes over the throne of Portugal from his deceased father, João V. King José Manuel appoints the Marquis of Pombal as his Chief Minister, who then strips the Inquisition of its power.
August 8– In advance of the Province of Georgia changing in status from a corporate-owned American settlement to a British colony, Royal Assent is given to an act that lifts the province's ban on slavery; effective January 1, "it shall and may be lawful to import or bring Black Slaves or Negroes in to the Province of Georgia of America and to keep and to use the same therein".[14]
September 30–Crispus Attucks, an African-American slave who will later become the first person killed in the Boston Massacre of 1770, escapes from the Framingham, Massachusetts estate of slaveowner William Brown.[17][18] In an unsuccessful attempt to recapture the fugitive, Brown runs an advertisement on October 2 in the Boston Gazette, but Attucks eludes recapture.
October–December
October 5–Treaty of Madrid: Spain and Great Britain sign a treaty temporarily eliminating their hostility over their colonies in North and South America.[19] In addition to both sides dropping their claims for damages against each other, Spain agrees to pay the South Sea Company £100,000 for damage claims.
October 14– The Louvre Museum is created in Paris four years after art critic Lafond de Saint-Yenne calls on the King to allow the display of the royal art collection to the general public. Abel-François Poisson, the Marquis de Marigny, arranges for the display of 110 of the Crown's paintings at the Palais du Luxembourg.[20]
December 29– Two physicians in Jamaica, Dr. John Williams and Dr. Parker Bennet, fight a duel "with swords and pistols" after having had an argument the day before about the treatment of bilious fever. Both are mortally wounded during the fight.[24]
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Heather S. Nathans, Early American Theatre from the Revolution to Thomas Jefferson: Into the Hands of the People (Cambridge University Press, 2003) p30
Herbert Eugene Bolton, Texas in the Middle Eighteenth Century— Studies in Spanish Colonial History and Administration (University of California Press, 1915) p303
"Child Abduction Panic", in Outbreak!: The Encyclopedia of Extraordinary Social Behavior, ed. by Hilary Evans and Robert E. Bartholomew (Anomalist Books, LLC, 2009) pp83-84
Halldór Hermannsson, Islandica: An Annual Relating to Iceland and the Fiske Icelandic Collection in Cornell University Library (Cornell University Library, 1922) p23
Cornelius Walford, ed., The Insurance Cyclopeadia: Being an Historical Treasury of Events and Circumstances Connected with the Origin and Progress of Insurance (C. and E. Layton, 1876) p52
"The First Transfer at the Louvre in 1750: Andrea del Sarto's La Charite", by Gilberte Emile-Male, in Issues in the Conservation of Paintings (Getty Publications, 2004) p278
"In a Porcelain Mirror: Reflections of Russia from Peter I to Empress Elizabeth", by Lydia Liackhova, in Fragile Diplomacy: Moisson Porcelain for European courts ca. 1710-63 (Yale University Press, 2007) p74
Fielding H. Garrison, An Introduction to the History of Medicine: With Medical Chronology, Suggestions for Study and Bibliographic Data (W.B. Saunders Company, 1913) p394
Benjamin Franklin. Nathan G. Goodman; Peter Conn (eds.). The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin: Penn Reading Project Edition. University of Pennsylvania Press. p.92.
James L. Chen; Adam Chen (2015). A Guide to Hubble Space Telescope Objects: Their Selection, Location, and Significance. Springer. p.53. Bibcode:2015ghst.book.....C.
Elizabeth A. H. John, Storms Brewed in Other Men's Worlds: The Confrontation of Indians, Spanish, and French in the Southwest, 1540-1795 (University of Oklahoma Press, 1996) p324
"Afghan-Sikh Wars (Durrani-Sikh Wars)", by Melodee M. Baines, in Afghanistan at War: From the 18th-Century Durrani Dynasty to the 21st Century, ed. by Tom Lansford (ABC-CLIO, 2017) p20
"Fires, Great", in The Insurance Cyclopeadia: Being an Historical Treasury of Events and Circumstances Connected with the Origin and Progress of Insurance, Cornelius Walford, ed. (C. and E. Layton, 1876) p52
"A. P. Gannibal: On the Occasion of the Three Hundredth Anniversary of the Birth of Alexander Pushkin's Great-Grandfather", by N. K. Teletova, in Under the Sky of My Africa: Alexander Pushkin and Blackness, ed. by Catharine Theimer Nepomnyashchy, et al. (Northwestern University Press, 2006) p69
Dianne Marshall, Heroes of the Acadian Resistance: The Story of Joseph Beausoleil Broussard and Pierre II Surette 1702-1765 (Formac Publishing, 2011) p105
"Aboriginal Rights v. Government Legislation", by Graydon Nicholas, in The Maritimes: Tradition, Challenge, ed. by George Peabody, et al. (Maritext, Ltd., 1987) p257
"Shylock as the American Capitalist", by Elaine Brousseau, in Merchants, Barons, Sellers and Suits: The Changing Images of the Businessman through Literature, ed. by Christa Mahalik (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010) p95
"French and Indian War", by Matt Schumann, in The Encyclopedia of North American Indian Wars, 1607–1890: A Political, Social, and Military History, ed. by Spencer Tucker, et al. (ABC-CLIO, 2011) p310
William R. Nester, The Great Frontier War: Britain, France, and the Imperial Struggle for North America, 1607-1755 (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2000) p42
Maurice Esses, Dance and Instrumental Diferencias in Spain During the 17th and Early 18th Centuries: History and background, music and dance (Pendragon Press, 1992) pp535-536
"Fires, Great", in The Insurance Cyclopeadia: Being an Historical Treasury of Events and Circumstances Connected with the Origin and Progress of Insurance, Cornelius Walford, ed. (C. and E. Layton, 1876) p52
"Hallerstein and Gruber's Scientific Heritage", by Stanislav Joze Juznic, in The Circulation of Science and Technology: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference of the European Society for the History of Science (Societat Catalana d'Història de la Ciència i de la Tècnica, 2012) p358
"Johnson, Susannah", by Marcia Schmidt Blaine, in An Encyclopedia of American Women at War: From the Home Front to the Battlefields, ed. by Lisa Tendrich Frank (ABC-CLIO, 2013) pp332-333
Charles Hutton, et al., The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, from Their Commencement, in 1665, to the Year 1800, Volume X: From 1750 to 1755 (C. and R. Baldwin, 1809) p549
Federal Writers' Project, The WPA Guide to Texas: The Lone Star State (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1934, reprinted by Trinity University Press, 2013)
"Black (Joseph)", in Bibliotheca Osleriana: A Catalogue of Books Illustrating the History of Medicine and Science by Sir William Osler (McGill-Queen's University Press, 1969) p116
"Hallerstein and Gruber's Scientific Heritage", by Stanislav Joze Juznic, in The Circulation of Science and Technology: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference of the European Society for the History of Science (Societat Catalana d'Història de la Ciència i de la Tècnica, 2012) p358
"Periphery as Center: Slavery, Identity, and the Commercial Press in the British Atlantic, 1704-1755", by Robert E. Desrochers, Jr., in British North America in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, ed. by Stephen Foster (Oxford University Press, 2016)
Harvey M. Feinberg, Africans and Europeans in West Africa: Elminans and Dutchmen on the Gold Coast During the Eighteenth Century (American Philosophical Society, 1989) p108
Reiter, Frederick J. (1995). They built Utopia: the Jesuit missions in Paraguay, 1610-1768. Potomac, Md.: Scripta Humanistica. p.194. ISBN1-882528-11-5. OCLC32427398.
"Danish Business Delegation to Turkey"(PDF). Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2011-06-01. Retrieved 2010-12-11. Trade between our two countries can be dated centuries back. In 1756 Denmark and The Ottoman Empire signed a treaty on commerce and friendship, which paved the way for closer ties both human and commercial between our two people...
Newman, Frank G. (January 1965). "The Acquisition of a Life Insurance Company". The Business Lawyer. 20 (2). American Bar Association: 411–416. Retrieved 2016-04-04. The first life insurance company in America was organized in 1759 under the corporate title 'The Corporation for Relief of Poor and Distressed Presbyterian Ministers, and of the Poor and Distressed Widows and Children of Presbyterian Ministers'.
"Fires, Great", in The Insurance Cyclopeadia: Being an Historical Treasury of Events and Circumstances Connected with the Origin and Progress of Insurance, Cornelius Walford, ed. (C. and E. Layton, 1876) p53
Royal Observatory Greenwich souvenir guide. National Maritime Museum. 2012. pp.34–35. ISBN978-1-906367-51-0. the first precision watch and considered by many today as the most important timekeeper ever.