1737 - Definition and Overview

Events

• 12 February - The San Carlo, the oldest working opera house in Europe, is inaugurated.
• Benjamin Franklin created the Philadelphia police force - the first city-paid force.
• In Britain the Theatrical Licensing Act requires plays to be submitted to the Lord Chamberlain for censorship.
• Georg August University of Göttingen Founded
• The Direct male line of the Medici family becomes extinct
• Richmond, Virginia founded
• San Carlo The oldest Opera House in Europe, opens in Naples, Italy
• Austro-Turkish War begins
• Our Lady of Guadalupe is designated the patron saint of Mexico City
• The (Belfast) News Letter newspaper founded in Ireland
• Lancaster County Prison is first constructed
• North Adams, Massachusetts first settled
• New Salem, Massachusetts first settled
• Hardwick, Massachusetts first settled
• Westminster, Massachusetts first settled

Births

• January 23 - John Hancock, statesman and U.S. revolutionary (+ 1793)
• January 29 - Thomas Paine, patriot, radical, pamphleteer (+ 1809)
• April 27 - Edward Gibbon, historian
• May 20 - William Petty Fitzmaurice, later 2nd Earl of Shelburne & 1st Marquess of Landsdowne, British statesman (+ 1805)
• September 9 - Luigi Galvani Italian Physician and Physicist
• September 19 - Charles Carroll of Carrollton Signer of the US Declaration of Independence
• Frances Abington - English actress
• John Hunter - second governor of New South Wales
• Abraham Van Buren father of Martin Van Buren
• Johann Friedrich Struensee Danish Royal Physician
• Tokugawa Ieharu Tenth Shogun of the Japanese Shogunate

Deaths

• November 20 - Caroline of Ansbach Queen Consort of George II of Great Britain
• December 18 - Antonio Stradivari Italian luthier
• December 19 - James Sobieski, Crown Prince of Poland
• Emperor Nakamikado of Japan
• Gian Gastone de' Medici, last Medici Duke of Tuscany