1718 - Definition and Overview

Events

• May 15 - James Puckle, a London lawyer, patents the world's first machine gun.
• July 21 - Treaty of Passarowitz signed
• November 22 - Off the coast of Virginia, English pirate Edward Teach (best known as "Blackbeard") is killed in battle when a British boarding party cornered and then shot and stabbed him more than 25 times.
• November 30 - After the death of Charles XII, Ulrika Eleonora becomes Queen of Sweden

Ongoing events

• Great Northern War (1700-1721)

Births

• May 16 - Maria Gaetana Agnesi, mathematician (d. 1799)
• September 18 - Nikita Ivanovich Panin, Russian statesman (d. 1783)

Deaths

• July 30 - William Penn
• November 22 - Blackbeard the pirate
• November 30 - Charles XII of Sweden