: The
Great Storm of 1703 strikes Britain (November 26 by the calendar in use locally)
January–March •
January 9 – The
Jamaican town of
Port Royal, a center of trade in the
Western Hemisphere and at this time the largest city in the
Caribbean, is destroyed by a fire. British ships in the harbor are able to rescue much of the merchandise that has been unloaded on the docks, but the inventory in market-places in town is destroyed. •
January 14 –
1703 Apennine earthquakes: The magnitude 6.7 Norcia earthquake affects
Central Italy with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (
Extreme). With a death toll of 6,240–9,761, it is the first in a sequence of three destructive events. •
January 16 –
1703 Apennine earthquakes: The magnitude 6.2 Montereale earthquake causes damage at Accumoli, Armatrice, Cittareale and Montereale, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (
Severe). •
January 30 (
December 14 of previous year in the
Chinese calendar) – Akō incident: In Japan,
forty-seven rōnin (independent
samurai) assassinate
daimyō Kira Yoshinaka, the enemy of their former lord
Asano Naganori, at his own mansion as a vengeance; for which they are compelled to commit suicide on March 20. •
February 2 –
1703 Apennine earthquakes: The magnitude 6.7 L'Aquila earthquake affects Central Italy, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (
Extreme). In the final large event (an example of
Coulomb stress transfer), damage occurs as far distant as Rome, with landslides, liquefaction, slope failures and at least 2,500 deaths. •
February 20–
March 10 –
War of the Spanish Succession:
Siege of Kehl – French forces under the command of the
Duc de Villars capture the fortress of the
Holy Roman Empire at
Kehl, opposite
Strasbourg on the
Rhine. •
February – Soldiers at
Fort Louis de la Mobile celebrate
Mardi Gras in Mobile, starting the tradition for
Mobile, Alabama. •
March 1 – The
Recruiting Act 1703 goes into effect in England, providing for the forcible enlistment of able-bodied but unemployed men into the English Army and Royal Navy in order to fight in
Queen Anne's War in
North America. The Act expires at the end of February 1704. •
March 15 – The landmark English court case of
Rose v Royal College of Physicians is decided by the
Court of Queen's Bench, beginning the end of the monopoly that the
Royal College of Physicians has over the practice of medicine. •
March 19 – The
Siege of Guadeloupe begins as an English expeditionary force, led by
Christopher Codrington and
Hovenden Walker, lands at
Basse-Terre and attempts to take over the French-held island. The English fleet departs on May 15 after being unable to capture Guadeloupe. •
March 20 (
February 4 in the Chinese calendar) – 46 of the
forty-seven rōnin of Japan carry out an order of
seppuku (ritual suicide) for the killing they committed on January 30. The punishment is given by the
shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi. The story continues to be dramatized more than 300 years later in
Chūshingura theater, novels and film. •
March 21 –
Jeanne Guyon is freed from the
Bastille in
Paris after more than seven years imprisonment for heresy.
April–June •
April 21 – The
Company of Quenching of Fire (i.e., a
fire brigade) is founded in
Edinburgh, Scotland. •
May 26 – Portugal joins the
Grand Alliance. •
May 27 (May 16
OS) – The city of
Saint Petersburg, Russia is founded, following
Peter the Great's reconquest of
Ingria from
Sweden during the
Great Northern War. •
June 15 –
Rákóczi's War of Independence: Hungarians rebel under Prince
Francis II Rákóczi. •
June 19 – Bavarian troops, who during the so-called
Bavarian Rummel have invaded
Tyrol, besiege
Kufstein. Fires break out on the outskirts that engulf the town, destroy it and reach the powder store of the supposedly impregnable
fortress. The enormous gunpowder supplies explode and Kufstein has to surrender on
June 20. This same day the Tyrolese surrender in
Wörgl; two days later
Rattenberg is captured and
Innsbruck is cleared without a fight on
June 25. •
June 30 –
Battle of Ekeren (War of the Spanish Succession): The French surround a smaller Dutch force, which however breaks out and retires to safety. •
June – The completed
1703 Icelandic census is presented in the
Althing, the first complete
census of any country.
July–September •
July 26 – After their victories at the Pontlatzer Bridge and the
Brenner Pass, Tyrolese farmers drive out the Bavarian Elector,
Maximilian II Emanuel, from North Tyrol and thus prevent the Bavarian Army, which is allied with France, from marching on Vienna during the War of the Spanish Succession. This success, at low cost, is the signal for the rebellion of the Tyrolese against Bavaria, and Elector Maximilian II Emanuel has to flee from Innsbruck. The Bavarian Army withdraws through
Seefeld in Tirol back to Bavaria. •
July 29–
31 –
Daniel Defoe is placed in a
pillory in London, then imprisoned until mid-November for the crime of
seditious libel after publishing his
satirical political
pamphlet The Shortest Way with the Dissenters (1702). •
August 23 –
Edirne event: Sultan
Mustafa II of the
Ottoman Empire is dethroned. •
September 7 –
War of the Spanish Succession: The town of
Breisach is retaken for France by
Camille d'Hostun, duc de Tallard. •
September 12 –
War of the Spanish Succession:
Habsburg Archduke
Charles is proclaimed King of Spain, but never exercises full rule.
October–December •
October 11 – Nine Roman Catholic residents of the French village of
Sainte-Cécile-d'Andorge are massacred by a mob of more than 800 French Huguenot Protestants, the
Camisards. A reprisal against Protestants in the nearby village of Branoux is made less than three weeks later. •
October 23 –
Hannah Twynnoy, a 24-year-old barmaid in
Malmesbury,
Wiltshire, becomes the first person to be killed in
Great Britain by a
tiger. While working at the White Lion Inn, where a group of wild animals is on exhibit, she is mauled after bothering the tiger. •
October 30 – More than 47
Huguenots in the village of
Branoux-les-Taillades are massacred by Roman Catholic vigilantes in reprisal for the October 11 attack on nearby Sainte-Cécile, slightly more than two miles away. •
November 15 •
War of the Spanish Succession:
Battle of Speyerbach (in modern-day Germany) – The French defeat a German relief army, allowing the French to take the besieged town of
Landau two days later, for which Tallard is made a Marshal of France. •
Rákóczi's War of Independence:
Battle of Zvolen (in modern-day
Slovakia) – The
Kurucs defeat the Austrians and their allies (
Denmark,
Hungary and the
Serbs). •
November 19 – The so-called
Man in the Iron Mask dies in the
Bastille. He is buried under the name of "Marchioly". •
November 30 –
Isaac Newton is elected president of the
Royal Society of London, a position he will hold until his death in
1727. •
December 7–
10 (November 26–29
O.S.) – The
Great Storm of 1703, an
extratropical cyclone, ravages southern England and the
English Channel, killing at least 8,000, mostly at sea. The
Eddystone Lighthouse off
Plymouth is destroyed in the storm together with its designer
Henry Winstanley and many buildings on land are damaged. •
December 27 – Portugal and England sign the
Methuen Treaty, which gives preference to Portuguese wines imported into England. •
December 28 –
Ahmed III succeeds the deposed
Mustafa II as
Ottoman Emperor.
Date unknown • French-born imposter
George Psalmanazar arrives in London. • Between 1702 and 1703 – An epidemic of
smallpox breaks out in
Quebec, in which 2,000-3,000 people die (300-400 in
Quebec City). == Births ==