1754

Events that took place in 1754

January 28 - Horace Walpole, in a letter to Horace Mann, coins the word serendipity.
May 28 - The Battle of Jumonville Glen begins the French and Indian War in North America.
June - Alexandrine-Jeanne d'Etioles took ill in the convent of Assumption in Paris.
June 19 - The Albany Congress of New England Colonies proposes an American Union.

July - Columbia University founded as King's College by royal charter of King George II of England. The college was originally located in Lower Manhattan. Instruction was suspended in 1776 and the school would be reopened in 1784 as Columbia College. With the college's growth in the 19th Century, it would be renamed Columbia University in 1896.
December 13 - Change of emperor of the Ottoman Empire from Mahmud I (1730-1754) to Osman III (1754-1757).

Surveyor William Churton lays out what will become the county seat of Orange County, North Carolina. The town is named Corbin Town for Francis Corbin, a member of the North Carolina governor's council. Corbin Town is renamed Childsburgh in 1759 and finally Hillsborough in 1766.

Richard Martin, Irish founder of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (died 1834)
Jacques Pierre Brissot, French politician (died 1795)

January 30 - John Lansing, Jr., American statesman (died 1829)
February 2 - Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, French politician (died 1838)
March 4 - Benjamin Waterhouse, Cambridge physician and medical professor (smallpox vaccine pioneer) (died 1846)
March 17 - Madame Roland (Jeanne Marie Manon Philipon), French politician (died 1793)
March 23 - Baron Jurij Vega, Slovenian mathematician, physicist, and artillery officer (died 1802)
May 31 - Dominique Catherine de Pérignon, Marshal of France (died 1818)
June 4 - Franz Xaver, Baron Von Zach, German scientific editor and astronomer (died 1832)
July 11 - Thomas Bowdler, English physician (died 1825)
August 2 - Pierre Charles L'Enfant, French architect (died 1825)
August 21 - William Murdoch, Scottish inventor (died 1839)
August 23 - King Louis XVI of France (died 1793)
September 9 - William Bligh, English sailor (died 1817)
September 26 - Joseph Proust, French chemist (died 1826)
september 20 - Emperor Paul I of Russia (died 1801)
December 24 - George Crabbe, English poet (died 1832)
date unknown

January 10 - Edward Cave, English editor and publisher (born 1691)
January 28 - Ludvig Holberg, Norwegian dramatist and writer (born 1684)
February 16 - Richard Mead, English physician (born 1673)
March 6 - Henry Pelham, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (born 1696)
March 23 - Johann Jakob Wettstein, Swiss theologian (born 1693)
April 2 - Thomas Carte, English historian (born 1686)
April 9 - Christian Wolff, German philosopher, mathematician, and scientist (born 1679)
April 15 - Jacopo Riccati, Italian mathematician (born 1676)
May 14 - Pierre-Claude Nivelle de La Chaussée, French writer (born 1692)
May 23 - John Wood, the Elder, English architect (born 1704)
June 2 - Ebenezer Erskine, Scottish religious dissenter (born 1680)
July 4 - Philippe Néricault Destouches, French dramatist (born 1680)
October 4 - Tanacharison, Catawba Indian chief (born c.1700)
October 8 - Henry Fielding, English novelist (born 1707)
November 27 - Abraham de Moivre, French mathematician (born 1667)
December 12 - Wu Jingzi, Chinese writer (born 1701)
December 13 - Mahmud I, Ottoman Sultan (born 1696)