January–March •
January 13 •
Lanesborough, Massachusetts is created as a township. •
Conventicle Act of 1741 is introduced in
Denmark-Norway. •
February 13 – Sir
Robert Walpole, the
prime minister of Great Britain, popularizes the term "the
balance of power" in a speech in Parliament. •
February 14 – Irish-born actor
Charles Macklin makes his London stage debut as
Shylock in
The Merchant of Venice at the
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, pioneering a psychologically realistic style with
Shakespeare's text revived, replacing
George Granville's melodramatic adaptation
The Jew of Venice.
Kitty Clive plays the
travesti role of
Portia. •
March 9 –
War of the Austrian Succession:
Prussian troops bring down the Austrian fortress of
Glogau (modern-day Głogów in Poland). •
March 13 – The British
Royal Navy takes 180 warships, frigates and transport vessels, led by Admiral Edward Vernon, to threaten
Cartagena, Colombia, with more than 27,000 crew against the 3,600 defenders.
April–June •
April 6 – The
New York Slave Insurrection, a plot to set fire to
New York City, is discovered. •
April 10 –
War of the Austrian Succession: An
Austrian army is defeated by
Prussian troops of
Frederick the Great in the
Battle of Mollwitz. •
May 4 –
Vitus Bering sets out from
Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky to map the coasts of
Siberia and
Alaska. •
May 9 –
War of Jenkins' Ear:
Battle of Cartagena de Indias –
Spain's defenders in
New Grenada, under the command of General
Blas de Lezo, defeat
Edward Vernon's Royal Navy force, leading to a British retreat to Jamaica. •
May 14 –
HMS Wager, one of the vessels of
George Anson's voyage around the world, is wrecked on the coast of
Chile, killing most of the crew who have survived
scurvy. •
May 15 –
Nader Shah,
Emperor of Persia, narrowly escapes an assassination attempt. •
May 21 –
War of the Austrian Succession: King
George II of Great Britain orders the
British Army to prepare for an invasion of Prussia to defend his
Electorate of Hanover. •
June 11 –
1741 British general election, begun on April 30, concludes with Prime Minister
Robert Walpole's
Whigs retaining their majority in the House of Commons but losing 44 seats to candidates who have defected to the new
Patriot Whigs to oppose his policies. •
June 25 –
Maria Theresa of Austria is crowned
Queen Regnant of Hungary in
Bratislava.
July–September •
July 8 –
Jonathan Edwards repeats his
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God sermon at
Enfield, Connecticut. •
July 15 –
Alexei Chirikov sights land in
Southeast Alaska, and sends some men aboard his ship ashore in a
longboat, making them the first Europeans to visit
Alaska. •
August 4–
5 –
War of Jenkins' Ear:
Invasion of Cuba – British Admiral
Edward Vernon captures
Guantánamo Bay in
Cuba, which he renames Cumberland Bay, but which his forces are forced to abandon on
December 9. •
August 10 – Raja
Marthanda Varma of
Travancore defeats the
Dutch East India Company in the
Battle of Colachel, ending the Dutch colonial rule in India and marking the first "major" defeat of a European colonial military power in India. •
August 23 – At least 2,000 die along the shores of the Sea of Japan after a volcanic eruption on an island generated the
Kampo Tsunami. •
September 11 –
War of the Austrian Succession:
Linz falls to the
Bavarian Army.
October–December •
October 12 – George II, as Elector of Hanover, signs the Neustadt Protocol with France, but fails to inform his British government until after his return from Germany. •
November 25–
26 –
War of the Austrian Succession: Franco-Bavarian troops commanded by
Maurice of Saxony storm in
Battle of Prague city
Prague. •
December 6 (November 25, O.S.) –
Elizabeth of Russia becomes czarina after a palace coup. •
December 7 •
War of the Austrian Succession:
Charles Albert of Bavaria has himself proclaimed
King of Bohemia. •
Aleksei Chirikov of Russia presents the first written description of the northwest coast of North America. •
December 19 –
Vitus Bering dies during his expedition, east of
Siberia. •
December 25 –
Anders Celsius develops his own
thermometer scale,
Centigrade, the predecessor of the
Celsius scale.
Date unknown • Summer –
Upper Priory Cotton Mill is opened in
Birmingham, England, as the world's first mechanised
cotton mill by
Lewis Paul and
John Wyatt; although this is not a commercial success, other
Paul-Wyatt cotton mills follow. •
Stemmatographia by
Hristofor Zhefarovich, regarded as the first
Serbian and
Bulgarian
secular printed book, is printed in
Vienna. • The
Royal Order of Scotland in freemasonry is founded. == Births ==