1734 - Definition and Overview

Events

• January 8 - Premiere of George Frideric Handel's opera Ariodante at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
• June 17 - French troops take Philippsburg, but the Duke of Berwick is killed
• June 21 - In Montreal in New France, a black slave known by the French name of Marie-Joseph Angélique, was tortured then hanged by the French authorities in a public ceremony that involved her disgrace and the amputation of a hand.
• June 30 - Russian troops take Gdańsk which had been besieged since October 1733. Gdańsk is captured after the failure of a French expedition to relieve the city

Births

• September 3 - Joseph Wright, British painter (died 1797)
• October 7 - Sir Ralph Abercromby, British general.
• November 2 - Daniel Boone, US frontiersman (died 1820)
• December 15 - George Romney, English painter (died 1802)
• Franz Mesmer, Austrian physician (died 1815)

Deaths

• March 1 - Roger North, biographer (b. 1653)
• June 12 - James FitzJames, 1st Duke of Berwick, illegitimate son of deceased King James II of England and French military commander (born 1670)
• June 17 - Claude-Louis-Hector de Villars, French soldier
• June 21 - Marie-Joseph Angélique, African slave.
• December 28 - Rob Roy MacGregor, Scottish clan chief (born 1671)