1717

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Year 1717 (MDCCXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the 11-day slower Julian calendar).

Events of

January - June

January 4 - The Netherlands, Britain & France sign the Triple Alliance.
February 1 - The Silent Sejm, in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, marks the beginning of the Russian Empire's increasing influence and control over the Commonwealth.
February 26-March 6 - What is now the northeastern United States is paralyzed by a series of blizzards that bury the region.
March 2 - Dancer John Weaver performs in the first ballet in Britain shown in Drury Lane, The Loves of Mars and Venus.
March 31 - Bishop Benjamin Hoadly, acting on the advice of King George, begins the Bangorian Controversy by saying that God favors churches with no government.
April 26 - The Whydah Gally, flagship of "Black Sam" Bellamy, is wrecked in a storm off Wellfleet, Massachusetts. The Whydah sinks with a reputed four and a half tons of treasure on board, and all but two of her crew are lost, including Bellamy.
June 24 - The Premier Grand Lodge of England, the 'Modern' and first Free-Masonic Grand Lodge (which later merges with the Antient Grand Lodge of England in 1813 to form the United Grand Lodge of England), is founded in London, England.

July - December

September - The first known Druid revival ceremony is held by John Toland at Primrose Hill, in London, at the Autumnal Equinox, to found the Mother Grove, what is later to become the Ancient Order of Druids (AOD).
November - Crews on two ships commanded by Benjamin Hornigold and Edward Teach attack and capture the British-built French guineyman "Concorde" in the eastern Caribbean. Hornigold soon accepts a British amnesty for all pirates, but Teach rejects it and subsequently becomes known as Blackbeard.
December - Blackbeard teams up with Stede Bonnet but later takes his ship and demotes Bonnet to guest. The "Queen Anne's Revenge" and "Revenge" take several ships as prizes in the Caribbean. Blackbeard eventually adds two more ships to his party and sails north to the North American coast.
December 24/25 - A disastrous flood hits the North Sea coast between the Netherlands and Denmark. Thousands die or lose their houses.

Undated

Voltaire is sentenced to the Bastille for a year because of his satirical writings.
Spain unites its South American colonies as New Granada.
Montevideo, Uruguay, is founded by the Portuguese.
A rift between George I of Great Britain and his son the Prince of Wales leads to the latter being thrown out of the royal household.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, wife of the British ambassador to Istanbul, has her son inoculated.

Ongoing events

Great Northern War (1700–1721)
Maharaja Pamheiba of Manipur is converted to Hinduism by Shantidas Goswami, and decrees Hinduism the official religion of Manipur.

Births

January 2 - Edward Seymour, 9th Duke of Somerset, son of Edward Seymour, 8th Duke of Somerset and Mary Webb (died 1792)
January 5 - William Barrington, 2nd Viscount Barrington, British statesman (died 1793)
January 21 - Antonio María de Bucareli y Ursúa, Spanish military officer (died 1779)
January 23 - Benjamin Beddome, English Baptist minister and hymnist (died 1795)
January 28 - Mustafa III, Ottoman Sultan (died 1774)
January 29 - Jeffrey Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst, British soldier and conqueror of Quebec (died 1797)
February 2 - Ernst Gideon Freiherr von Laudon, Austrian field marshal (died 1790)
February 17 - Adam Friedrich Oeser, German etcher (died 1799)
February 19 - David Garrick, English actor (died 1779)
February 27 - Johann David Michaelis, German biblical scholar and teacher (died 1791)
April - Pieter Barbiers, Dutch artist (died 1780)
April 9 - Georg Matthias Monn, Austrian composer (died 1750)
May 8 - Charles-Guillaume Le Normant d'Étiolles, husband of Madame de Pompadour (died 1799)
May 13 - Maria Theresa of Austria, Archduchess of Austria and Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, married with the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (died 1780)
June 5 - Emanuel Mendez da Costa, English botanist (died 1791)
June 8 - John Collins, American politician (died 1795)
June 19 - Johann Stamitz, Czech-born composer (died 1757)
June 20 - Jacques Saly, French sculptor (died 1776)
June 27 - Louis Guillaume Lemonnier, French botanist (died 1799)
July 5 - Peter III of Portugal, consort of Queen Maria I of Portugal (died 1786)
August 13 - Louis François I de Bourbon, prince de Conti, French military leader (died 1776)
August 15

Louis Carrogis Carmontelle, French dramatist (died 1806)
John Metcalf, English roadbuilder (died 1810)

September 4 - Job Orton, English dissenting minister (died 1783)
September 7

A-kuei, Chinese noble general for the Ch'ing dynasty (died 1797)
Martin Dobrizhoffer, Austrian Jesuit missionary (died 1791)

September 22 - Pehr Wilhelm Wargentin, Swedish astronomer (died 1783)
September 24 - Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford, British writer (died 1797)
September 28 - William Nassau de Zuylestein, 4th Earl of Rochford, British diplomat and statesman (died 1781)
October 5 - Marie-Anne de Mailly-Nesle duchess de Châteauroux, French mistress of King Louis XV of France (died 1744)
October 13 - John Armstrong, American civil engineer and soldier who served as a major general in the Revolutionary War (died 1795)
October 30 - Jonathan Hornblower, English pioneer of steam power (died 1780)
November 13 - Prince George William of Wales, member of the British Royal Family (died 1718)
November 16 - Jean le Rond d'Alembert, French mathematician and encyclopædist (died 1783)
November 17 - Caroline Townshend, 1st Baroness Greenwich, British peeress (died 1794)
November 25 - Alexander Sumarokov, Russian poet and playwright (died 1777)
December 9 - Johann Joachim Winckelmann, German classical scholar and archaeologist (died 1768)
December 16 - Elizabeth Carter, English writer (died 1806)
December 20 - Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes, French statesman and diplomat (died 1785)
December 25 - George Augustus Eliott, 1st Baron Heathfield (died 1790)
December 27 - Pope Pius VI (died 1799)
December 28 - Johann Heinrich Gottlob Justi, leading German Kameralist in the 18th century (died 1771)
date unknown

Giambattista Almici, Italian jurist (died 1793)
Claude Humbert Piarron de Chamousset, French philanthropist (died 1773)
Nicholas Cooke, first Governor of Rhode Island (died 1782)
Jean-François-Marie de Surville, French trader and navigator (died 1770)
Gottlieb Sigmund Gruner, cartographer and geologist (died 1778)
Antoine Guenée, French priest and Christian apologist (died 1803)
Elimelech of Lizhensk, Orthodox Jewish Rabbi and one of the great Hassidic Rebbes of the past (died 1577)
Henry Middleton, second President of the Continental Congress (died 1784)
James Paine, English architect (died 1789)
Isaac de Pinto, Dutch Jew of Portuguese origin (died 1787)
Anne Steele, hymn-writer (died 1778)
Matthew Stewart, Scottish mathematician born in Rothesay (died 1785)
Molla Panah Vagif, Azerbaijani poet (died 1797)
William Williams Pantycelyn, one of the key leaders of the 18th century Welsh Methodist revival (died 1791)

Deaths

January 13 - Maria Sibylla Merian, naturalist and scientific illustrator who studied plants and insects and made detailed paintings about them (born 1647)
February 23 - Magnus Stenbock, Swedish military officer (born 1664)
March 3 - Pierre Allix, French Protestant clergyman (born 1641)
March 5 - François de Callières, member of the Académie française (born 1645)
March 8 - Abraham Darby I, first of that name of three generations of an English Quaker family that was key to the development of the Industrial Revolution (born 1678)
March 19 - John Campbell, 1st Earl of Breadalbane and Holland, Scottish royalist (born 1636)
April 3 - Jacques Ozanam, French mathematician (born 1640)
April 5 - Jean Jouvenet, French painter (born 1647)
April 11 - Abraham ben Saul Broda, Bohemian Talmudist
April 26 - John King, 18th century pirate
May 10 - John Hathorne, American magistrate (born 1641)
May 20 - John Trevor, English Speaker of the House of Commons (born 1637)
June 3 - Fernando de Alencastre Noroña y Silva, duque de Linares, Spanish nobleman and military officer
June 9 - Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon, French mystic (born 1648)
July 17 - Juan María de Salvatierra, Catholic missionary to the Americas (born 1648)
August

William Blathwayt, civil servant and politician
William Cochrane, Scottish MP in the British Parliament

August 30 - William Lloyd, born at Tilehurst (born 1627)
September 17 - Robert Cotton, English politician (born 1644)
October - Philippe de Pastour de Costebelle, naval officer and Governor of Newfoundland (born 1661)
October 22 - Henry Luttrell (Colonel) shot and mortally wounded in his sedan chair in Dublin.
October 26 - Catherine Sedley, Countess of Dorchester, English mistress of James II of England (born 1657)
November 21 - Jean-Baptiste Santerre, French painter (born 1650)
November 26 - Daniel Purcell, English composer (born 1664)
December 4 - William Hamilton, surgeon in the British East India Company
December 5 - Richard Onslow, 1st Baron Onslow, English politician (born 1654)
date unknown

Jane Wiseman, English actress, poet and playwright (born ca. 1682)
Lambert Bos, Dutch scholar and critic (born 1670)
William Diaper, English poet of the Augustan era (born 1685)
Wang Hui, Chinese landscape painter (born 1632)
Osei Kofi Tutu I, founder of the Ashanti Confederacy
William Boyd, 3rd Earl of Kilmarnock, Scottish nobleman
Jan Dobrogost Krasiński, Polish nobleman (szlachcic)
Niccolao Manucci, Italian writer and traveller (born 1639)
Empress XiaoHui, second Consort of the Qing Dynasty Shun Zhi Emperor of China (born 1641)