1745

May 11: King Louis XV leads France to victory in the Battle of Fontenoy.
June 4: Frederick the Great of Prussia leads troops to victory at the Battle of Hohenfriedberg.
1745 in various calendars
Gregorian calendar1745
MDCCXLV
Ab urbe condita2498
Armenian calendar1194
ԹՎ ՌՃՂԴ
Assyrian calendar6495
Balinese saka calendar1666–1667
Bengali calendar1151–1152
Berber calendar2695
British Regnal year18 Geo. 2 – 19 Geo. 2
Buddhist calendar2289
Burmese calendar1107
Byzantine calendar7253–7254
Chinese calendar甲子年 (Wood Rat)
4442 or 4235
    — to —
乙丑年 (Wood Ox)
4443 or 4236
Coptic calendar1461–1462
Discordian calendar2911
Ethiopian calendar1737–1738
Hebrew calendar5505–5506
Hindu calendars
 - Vikram Samvat1801–1802
 - Shaka Samvat1666–1667
 - Kali Yuga4845–4846
Holocene calendar11745
Igbo calendar745–746
Iranian calendar1123–1124
Islamic calendar1157–1158
Japanese calendarEnkyō 2
(延享2年)
Javanese calendar1669–1670
Julian calendarGregorian minus 11 days
Korean calendar4078
Minguo calendar167 before ROC
民前167年
Nanakshahi calendar277
Thai solar calendar2287–2288
Tibetan calendarཤིང་ཕོ་བྱི་བ་ལོ་
(male Wood-Rat)
1871 or 1490 or 718
    — to —
ཤིང་མོ་གླང་ལོ་
(female Wood-Ox)
1872 or 1491 or 719

1745 (MDCCXLV) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar, the 1745th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 745th year of the 2nd millennium, the 45th year of the 18th century, and the 6th year of the 1740s decade. As of the start of 1745, the Gregorian calendar was 11 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.

Events

January–March

  • January 7War of the Austrian Succession: The Austrian Army, under the command of Field Marshal Károly József Batthyány, makes a surprise attack at Amberg and the winter quarters of the Bavarian Army, and scatters the Bavarian defending troops, then captures the Bavarian capital of Munich.[1]
  • January 8 – The Quadruple Alliance treaty is signed at Warsaw by Great Britain, Austria, the Dutch Republic and the Duchy of Saxony.[2]
  • January 20 – Less than two weeks after the disastrous Battle of Amberg leaves Bavaria undefended, the electorate's ruler (and Holy Roman Emperor) Charles VII dies from gout at the age of 47, leaving the duchy without an adult to lead it. His 17-year-old son, Maximilian III Joseph, signs terms of surrender in April.
  • February 22 – The ruling white colonial government on the island of Jamaica foils a conspiracy by about 900 black slaves, who had been plotting to seize control and to massacre the white residents.[3]
  • February 23 – The royal wedding of the crown prince of France takes place at Versailles: the Dauphin Louis Ferdiand, eldest son of King Louis XV, is united in marriage to Princess Maria Teresa Rafaela of Spain, daughter of King Philip V.[4] The Dauphin never takes the throne, dying in 1765, eight years before the death of his father.
  • February 27 – Pierre Bouguer appears before the French Academy of Sciences to deliver his report of the data gathered in the French Geodesic Mission, including the first precise measurement of the Earth's circumference.[5] His determination that the circumference is 24,854.85 miles (40,000.00 km) and that the distance from the pole to equator is roughly 6,214 miles (10,000 km) eventually leads to the Academy's calculation of the metre and the metric system.
  • March 1Augustus III, the King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, declares his candidacy to become the next Holy Roman Emperor, but loses in September to Francis, Duke of Tuscany.[6]

April–June

  • April 4 (March 24, old style) – Under the command of British Army General William Pepperrell, the first 4,300 American colonists in the New England Army depart Boston to liberate the French North American colony of Nova Scotia. The flotilla of 80 military transports and 18 armed escorts is scattered by a storm, but the first troops disembark at Canso, Nova Scotia, on April 15 and begin training while waiting for the arrival of the Royal Navy squadron commanded by Admiral Peter Warren.[7]
  • April 15War of the Austrian Succession: Battle of Pfaffenhofen – The Austrian Army drives the French Army out of Bavaria, forcing the Electorate of Bavaria to withdraw from the war.
  • April 22 – Having recently turned 18, Bavaria's ruler Maximilian III agrees to sign the Treaty of Füssen with Austria, withdrawing Bavaria from further participation in the War of the Austrian Succession, and agreeing to support Austria's candidate for the next Holy Roman Emperor.[8]
  • April 29 – The French Navy frigate Renommée approaches the French colony of Nova Scotia, after having been dispatched to warn French forces at Louisbourg of the impending attack by British American forces. However, the Massachusetts privateer HMS Shirley Galley, commanded by John Rous, attacks the Renommée and forces it to sail away. The command at Louisbourg is thus not warned of the impending attack. [7]
  • May 11War of the Austrian Succession: Battle of Fontenoy – French forces defeat an Anglo-Dutch-Hanoverian army, including the British 42nd Regiment of Foot, also known as Black Watch.[9][10]
  • June 4 – Second Silesian War: Battle of Hohenfriedberg – In the battle that earns him the descriptor of "Frederick the Great", King Frederick II of Prussia decisively defeats the armies of Austria and Saxony.
  • June 16 – King George's War: The British capture Cape Breton Island in North America from the French.[9]

July–September

October –December

  • October 4 – Francis is crowned as the new Holy Roman Emperor.[12]
  • October 8 – The Empress Elizabeth of Russia agrees to provide the Electorate of Saxony with aid in its war against Prussia, but the agreement comes too late.[6]
  • October 11 – At Köslin (modern Koszalin in Poland) Prussian scientist Ewald Georg von Kleist independently invents the first electrical capacitor to store and discharge electricity.[13] The invention, commonly called the Leyden jar is later credited to a subsequent inventor Pieter van Musschenbroek.
  • October 14 – In Amritsar in India's Punjab region, the Sikh parliament (the Sarbat Khalsa) votes for a major reorganization of the Sikh nation's army, the Dal Khalsa, with 25 cavalry regiments and support troops under the command of General Nawab Kapur Singh.[14]
  • November 1Pope Benedict XIV issues the encyclical Vix pervenit, referred to in English as "On Usury and Other Dishonest Profit", to the bishops of Italy, condemning the charging of interest on loans as a sin against the Roman Catholic Church. [15]
  • November 8 – Jacobite rising of 1745: Charles Edward Stuart crosses from Scotland into England for the first time. He arrives at Longtown, Cumbria, and spends the night at a nearby village, the Riddings, then leads his army south along the right bank of the River Eden the next day.[16]
  • November 23 – Battle of Hennersdorf (Second Silesian War): The Prussian army defeats that of Saxony.
  • November 28 – King George's War: A combined force of troops from the French Army and of the Wabanaki Confederacy (Mi'kmaq, Maliseet, Passamaquoddy, Abenaki and Penobscot tribes) destroys the British American settlement at Fort Saratoga (modern Schuylerville, New York), burning the fort and surrounding buildings to the ground, and killing 15 people.[17] Another 103 survivors are taken prisoner.
  • December 4 – Jacobite rising of 1745: The Scottish Jacobite army reaches as far south as Derby in England, causing panic in London; two days later it begins to retreat.[9]
  • December 17 – Two days after Prussian troops rout the Saxons at the Battle of Kesselsdorf, the Saxon capital of Dresden falls to Prussia's King Frederick the Great.[6]
  • December 18 – Jacobite rising of 1745: Clifton Moor Skirmish – The Jacobites are victorious[9] in the last action between two military forces on English soil.[18]
  • December 23 – Jacobite rising of 1745: Battle of Inverurie – The Jacobites are victorious over British royal troops.
  • December 25 – The Treaty of Dresden gives Prussia full possession of Silesia.
  • December 28 – For 5 days, fire destroys buildings in Istanbul.

Births

Alessandro Volta

Deaths

Robert Walpole
Jonathan Swift

References

  1. ^ "War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748)", in Wars That Changed History: 50 of the World's Greatest Conflicts: 50 of the World's Greatest Conflicts, ed. by Spencer C. Tucker (ABC-CLIO, 2015) p214
  2. ^ "Treaty of Quadruple Alliance", International Military Alliances, 1648-2008, ed. by Douglas M. Gibler (Congressional Quarterly Press, Oct 15, 2008) p94
  3. ^ William Reed, The History of Sugar and Sugar-yielding Plants (Longmans, Green, and Co., 1866) p50
  4. ^ Marion F. Godfroy, Kourou and the Struggle for a French America (Springer, 2015) p193
  5. ^ Larrie D. Ferreiro, Measure of the Earth: The Enlightenment Expedition That Reshaped Our World (Basic Books, 2011) p253
  6. ^ a b c Maureen Cassidy-Geiger, Fragile Diplomacy (Yale University Press, 2007) p66-74
  7. ^ a b Spencer Tucker, Almanac of American Military History (ABC-CLIO, 2013) p137
  8. ^ "War of the Austrian Succession (1740—1748)" in Wars That Changed History: 50 of the World's Greatest Conflicts, by Spencer C. Tucker (ABC-CLIO, 2015) p214
  9. ^ a b c d e Williams, Hywel (2005). Cassell's Chronology of World History. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. pp. 310–311. ISBN 0-304-35730-8.
  10. ^ "42nd Royal Highland Regiment". British Empire. Retrieved 23 January 2025.
  11. ^ Palmer, Alan; Palmer, Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 217–218. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2.
  12. ^ "War of Austrian Succession", in Germany at War: 400 Years of Military History, ed. by David T. Zabecki (ABC-CLIO, 2014) p1371
  13. ^ J. L. Heilbron, Electricity in the 17th and 18th Centuries: A Study of Early Modern Physics (University of California Press, 1979) p311
  14. ^ Mahinder N. Gulati, Comparative Religious And Philosophies: Anthropomorphlsm And Divinity (Atlantic Publishers, 2008) p307
  15. ^ Mark Anielski, The Economics of Happiness: Building Genuine Wealth (New Society Publishers, 2007) p197
  16. ^ "The White Rose on the Border", by Alison Buckler, in The Gentleman's Magazine (July 1896) p28
  17. ^ David R. Starbuck, The Great Warpath: British Military Sites from Albany to Crown Point (University Press of New England, 1999) p28
  18. ^ Unless the Battle of Graveney Marsh (1940) is counted.
  19. ^ "Robert Walpole, 1st earl of Orford | prime minister of Great Britain". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved September 1, 2021.