1700

Year 1700 (MDCC) was an exceptional common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar, but a leap year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. The Gregorian calendar was 10 days ahead of the Julian calendar until February 28, 1700, then 11 days ahead since March 1, 1700.

Events of 1700

January 1 (Julian) - Russia begins numbering its calendar from the birth of Christ (Anno Domini) instead of since the Creation (Anno Mundi).
January 26 - The Cascadia Earthquake, one of the largest earthquakes on record, ruptures the Cascadia subduction zone offshore from Vancouver Island to northern California, creating a tsunami logged in Japan and oral traditions of the American First Nations.
February 12 - The Great Northern War begins in Central Europe.
February 27 - The island of New Britain is discovered.
March 1 (Gregorian) - Protestant Germany and Denmark-Norway adopt the Gregorian calendar.
March 1 (Swedish), March 11 (Gregorian), February 29 (Julian) - The Swedish calendar is adopted.
April - Fire destroys many buildings in Gondar, the capital of Ethiopia, including 2 in the palace complex.
May 5 - Within a few days of John Dryden's death (1 May O.S.), his last written work (The Secular Masque) is performed as part of Vanbrugh's version of The Pilgrim.
May 5 - William Penn begins monthly meetings for blacks advocating emancipation.
May - In Rhode Island (American colony), Walter Clarke, former governor 1679-1686, becomes governor again for 14 more years.

The Vietnamese gain control of the entire Indochina Peninsula.
The Great Northern War begins with Russia, Denmark and Saxony/Poland making a coordinated attack on Sweden (to 1703).

Control of Spain passes from the Habsburgs to the Bourbons.
Mission San Xavier del Bac is founded in New Spain near Tucson, as a Spanish Roman Catholic mission.
A fire destroys the larger part of Edinburgh, Scotland.
An inventory made for the Medici family of Florence documents the first piano, invented by their instrument keeper Bartolommeo Cristofori.
Lions became extinct in Libya around this date.
One scholar observes that the entire military class of Japan is living "as in an inn, that is, consuming now and paying later" (approximate date).
The value of sales of English manufactured products to the Atlantic economy - £3.9 million.

January 7 - Raffaello Fabretti, Italian antiquary (b. 1618)
January 21 - Henry Somerset, 1st Duke of Beaufort (b. 1629)
January 22 - Jacob Balthasar Schutz, composer (b. 1660)
February 12 - Aleksei Shein, Russian commander and statesman (b. 1662)
May - Louis Jolliet, Canadian explorer (b. 1645)
May 12 - John Dryden, English writer (b. 1631)
May 15 - John Hale, American witch hunter (b. 1636)
May 23 - Jens Juel, Danish diplomat (b. 1631)
July - John Lowther, 1st Viscount Lonsdale, English politician (b. 1655)
July 29 - William, Duke of Gloucester (b. 1689)
September 15 - André Le Nôtre, French landscape gardener (b. 1613)
September 27 - Pope Innocent XII (b. 1615)
October 16 - Patriarch Adrian, Russian Orthodox Church leader (b. 1627)
November 1 - Charles II of Spain (b. 1661)
November 25 - Stephanus Van Cortlandt, first native born mayor of New York (b. 1643)
date unknown