Music Premiere
Jan 8 Premiere of George Frideric Handel's opera "Ariodante" at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London
- Mar 10 Spanish army under Don Carlos (III) draws into Naples
- May 20 1st Jockey Club forms in South Carolina
- Jun 17 French troops occupy Philipsburg at Rhine
- Jun 21 In Montreal, New France (Quebec), black slave Marie-Joseph Angélique, having been convicted of the arson that destroyed much of the city, is tortured and hanged by the French authorities in a public ceremony
- Jun 30 Russian army occupies Danzig
- Nov 8 Vincent la Chapelle, master cook to various nobility and royalty, forms Free Masons Lodge in Netherlands
- Nov 17 Printer John Zenger, arrested for libel against NY colonial governor William Cosby; later acquitted
- Dec 13 Britain and Russia sign trade agreement
- Dec 24 Royal Alcázar of Madrid burns down in Madrid with the lost of many artworks, though paintings of Velázquez are saved