1738

Events of

February 4 - Court Jew Joseph Suss Oppenheimer is executed in Württemberg.
April 15 - Premiere in London of Serse, an Italian opera by George Frideric Handel.
May 24 - John Wesley is converted, essentially launching the Methodist movement; the day is celebrated annually by Methodists as Aldersgate Day.

Russo–Turkish War (1735–1739): Russian army fails to cross the Dniester. They are decimated by plague.
China's Qing government announces that all western businessmen have to use the Cohong in Guangzhou to trade.
The excavation of Herculaneum, a Roman city buried by Vesuvius in AD 79, begins.
Stanisław Leszczyński receives Lorraine in exchange for renouncing the Polish throne.
Pierre Louis Maupertuis publishes Sur la figure de la terre, which 'confirms Newton's view that the earth is a spheroid slightly flattened at the poles'.
Franz Ketterer invents the cuckoo clock.
Jacques de Vaucanson presents the world's first automaton, The Flute Player, to the French Academy of Sciences.

February 15 - Matthias Braun, Czech sculptor (born 1684)
March 16 - George Bähr, German architect (born 1666)
March 25 - Turlough O'Carolan, Irish harper and composer (born 1670)
May 1 - Charles Howard, 3rd Earl of Carlisle, English statesman (born c.1669)
May 15 - Sir John Chesshyre, English lawyer (born 1662)
June 5 - Isaac de Beausobre, French Protestant pastor (born 1659)
June 21 - Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend, English politician (born 1674)
September 23 - Herman Boerhaave, Dutch humanist and physician (born 1668)
December 22 - Constantia Jones, English prostitute (executed) (born c.1708)