January–March •
January 30 (January 19 O.S.) – At dawn, Emperor
Peter II of Russia dies of
smallpox, aged 14 in Moscow, on the eve of his projected marriage. •
February 26 (February 15 O.S.) –
Anna of Russia (Anna Ioannovna) becomes reigning
Empress of Russia following the death of her cousin Emperor
Peter II. •
February 28 –
Vitus Bering returns to the Russian capital of
Saint Petersburg after completing the
First Kamchatka expedition. •
March 5 – The
1730 papal conclave to elect a new Pope for the Roman Catholic church begins with 30 Cardinals, 12 days after the death of
Pope Benedict XIII. By the time his successor is elected on July 12, there are 56 Cardinals. •
March 9 – General
Nader Khan of
Persia opens the first campaign of the
Ottoman–Persian War (1730–1735), guiding the Persian Army from
Shiraz and starting the
Western Persia Campaign against the Ottoman Empire. •
March 12 –
John Glas is deposed from the
Church of Scotland; the
Glasite sect forms around him. •
March 16 – The establishment by
Thomas Cresap of
Wright's Ferry under the authority of the
Province of Pennsylvania becomes the basis for
Cresap's War, a nine-year-long conflict also known as the Maryland-Pennsylvania boundary dispute; the conflict mainly centers in
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and
York County, Pennsylvania on either bank of the
Susquehanna River.
April–June •
April 8 –
Congregation Shearith Israel, the first
synagogue in
New York City, is dedicated. •
May 9 (April 28 O.S.) – The coronation of
Anna of Russia as
Empress of Russia takes place in
Saint Petersburg. •
May 15 –
Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend, retires from his role in the government of Great Britain, leaving
Robert Walpole as sole and undisputed leader of the Cabinet (i.e., prime minister). In the new
Walpole ministry,
Sir William Strickland, 4th Baronet, becomes Secretary at War, and
Henry Pelham is Paymaster of the Forces;
Spencer Compton, 1st Earl of Wilmington briefly becomes Lord Privy Seal. •
June 1 – Enslaved woman
Sally Basset is put on trial for murder in
Bermuda; she will eventually be convicted and
burned at the stake. •
June 19 – At the urging of
Sir William Gooch, the
Virginia House of Burgesses passes the
Virginia Tobacco Inspection Act to regulate the quality of
tobacco in Virginia, 46 to 5. •
June 27 – French explorer Alphonse de Pontevez, commanding the frigate
Le Lys, claims an
Indian Ocean atoll for France and names it after himself as the
Alphonse Atoll. The next day, he claims and names the
St. François Atoll.
July–September •
July 8 –
1730 Valparaíso earthquake: An earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 9.1 strikes
Valparaíso, in modern-day
Chile but at this time in the
Viceroyalty of Peru. •
July 12 – The
papal conclave selects Cardinal Lorenzo Corsini over Cardinal
Pietro Marcellino Corradini as the successor to
Pope Benedict XIII. Corsini becomes
Pope Clement XII as the 246th
pope. •
August 4 – Maria Madlener becomes the last person to be executed after the
Galgeninsel witch trials in
Bavaria, and is beheaded by sword. •
August 5 –
Prince Frederick of Prussia, the eldest son of King
Frederick William and a high-ranking officer, attempts to flee to England after deserting the Prussian Army and is captured along with his fellow officer
Hans Hermann von Katte. Katte is executed, and Crown Prince Frederick is imprisoned at
Küstrin (modern-day
Kostrzyn nad Odrą in
Poland) for a year before being forgiven by his father. Prince Frederick later succeeds his father as King and will be remembered as
Frederick the Great. •
August 12 – General
Nader Khan of
Persia captures
Tabriz from the Ottoman Empire, bringing an end to the
Western Persia Campaign, the first major action in the
Ottoman–Persian War (1730–1735). Tabriz becomes a permanent part of Iran. Nader leaves the city four days later to begin the
Herat Campaign of 1731. •
August 25 – French Protestant
Marie Durand is imprisoned in the Tower of Constance at
Aigues-Mortes for her defiance of the Roman Catholic government, and is kept captive for the next 38 years. During her incarceration, she continues to resist converting to Catholicism as a condition of release. She is finally set free on April 14, 1768 and lives 8 more years. •
September 1 – A volcano erupts on
Lanzarote, the easternmost of the
Canary Islands and threatens the Spanish inhabitants. On
Gran Canaria, the regent of the islands reports to Madrid that the flames are visible even from away. •
September 17 –
Mahmud I (d.
1754) succeeds
Ahmed III (ruled since
1703) as
Ottoman Emperor.
October–December •
November 6 – After being convicted of treason for attempting to desert the
Prussian Army with Crown Prince
Frederick,
Hans Hermann von Katte is beheaded at the
Küstrin Prison. Frederick's father, King
Frederick William, forces the prince to watch the execution. •
December 27 – The
Dutch East India Company ends an almost 11-year effort of trying to maintain a colony around
Delagoa Bay in southern Africa in modern-day
Mozambique. The entire population of the settlement, Fort Lydzammheid (near modern-day
Maputo) is evacuated by the ships
Snuffelaar,
Zeepost and
Feyenoord and the group returns to
Cape Town. == Births ==