The 18th Century

1734 - 1749

1735 Carolus Linnaeus and his colleagues divide all living organisms into just two kingdoms: plants and animals. (Their system placed humans and apes in the same category, basically they were the first to suggest humans and apes sharing ancestory.) Since, biologists have realized that there are enough fundamental differences between living organisms to warrant adding four additional kingdoms, recognising Plants, Animals, Fungi, Protists, Monera, and Archaea.

1738 Parties of Hats and Caps first appear in Sweden.

1740 Benjamin Huntsman introduces the crucible steel process. Captain Vitus Bering discovers Alaska.

1741 Handel writes Messiah. Thomas Arne pubishes Rule, Brittania!

1743 King Louis XV of France have the world's first indoor elevator installed in his palace, calling it a "flying chair," the device being operated by weights. (For centuries, monks had been using baskets to elevate people to their clifftop monastries.)

1745 E.G. von Kleist invents the leyden jar, the first electrical capacitor.

1748 Montesquieu publishes De l'Esprit de lois (on The Spirit of Laws), writing, "There are no other word that has more different meaning... than liberty."

1749 Henry Fielding publishes Tom Jones. John Harrison invents the marine chronometer.

1750 - 1766

1751 The Encyclopedie published in France, planned by publisher Andre Le Breton, co-operating with some of the most eminent scholars of his time: mathematician Jean D'Alembert; writer and philosopher Denis Diderot; social critic Jean-Jacques Rousseau; essayist Voltaire; and financier Jacques Necker. (17 volumes were published from 1751 to 1765; and 11 volumes of illustration plates were issued from 1762 to 1772. 5 more volumes were published in 1776 and 1777, followed by an index in 1780.) Benjamin Franklin sent up a kite during a thunderstorm and discovered that lightning is a form of electricity. Upholsterer and cabinet maker Thomas Chippendale publishes the first English book on furniture designs. A Belgian creates roller skates by replacing the blades of ice skates with wheels.

1752 Britain adopts Gregorian calendar. The first eraser put on the end of a pencil. Benjamin Franklin invents the lightening rod.

1755 Samuel Johnson publishes Dictionary. US Postal Services established. The Frankist Affair: a Jew called Jacob Frank announced himself as the successor to Shabbetai and claims to be the Messiah. His followers indulged in sexual orgies and other open forms of sin announcing that this was permissible in the messianic time. They are excommunicated by the Jews and finally baptised into Christianity, continuing as a sect for a few decades.

1756 John Smeaton invents hydraulic cement.

1758 Dolland invents a chromatic lens.

1759 Voltaire publishes Candide. Haydn composes his Symphony No. 1. British capture Quebec from French.

1760 George III becomes King of Britain. Benjamin Franklin invents bifocal spectacles.

1761 First street lights in New York.

1762 Jean Jacques Rousseau publishes Du Contrat Social. Harrison invents the chronometer. Mozart tours Europe as 6-year-old prodigy. Catherine the Great (Catherine II) becomes Czarina of Russia.

1763 First publication of the Almanac of Gotha, which lists births, unions, successions, fortunes and misfortunes of the royals. also recording the family links between royals.

1764 James Hargreaves invents the Spinning Jenny. Jesuits expelled from France.

1765 Stamp Act passed in Britain. The age of steam power arrives with James Watt's rotary steam engine, a modification of the reciprocating Newcomen engine of 1712.

1766 Oliver Goldsmith publishes Vicar of Wakefield.