1759 - Definition and Overview

Events

• January 11 - In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the first American life insurance company is incorporated.
• January 13 - The Távora family is executed following the accusation of attempted regicide on Joseph I of Portugal
• January 15 - The British Museum opens
• April 13 - a French army defeats Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick at Brunswick
• June 27 - British Troops under Jeffrey Amherst take Fort Ticonderoga
• July 25 - Seven Years' War (French and Indian War): In Canada, British forces capture Fort Niagara from French, who subsequently abandon Fort Rouillé.
• Ferdinand VI of Spain is succeeded by his half-brother Carlos III of Spain
• September 13 - Seven Years' War (French and Indian War): French Canada falls to British forces following General Wolfe's victory in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham outside Quebec. Both the French Commander (the Marquis de Montcalm) and the British General James Wolfe are fatally wounded.
• George Washington marries Martha Dandridge Custis
• Adam Smith publishes Theory of Moral Sentiments, embodying some of his Glasgow lectures
• Publication of Voltaire's Candide
• The town of Egedesminde (modern Aasiaat) is founded in Greenland.

Ongoing events

• French and Indian War (1754-1763)
• Seven Years' War (1756-1763)

Births

• January 25 - Robert Burns, poet
• February 15 - Friedrich August Wolf, philologist and archaeologist (+ 1824)
• May 20 - William Thornton, original architect of the United States Capitol
• May 28 - William Pitt the Younger, British Prime Minister (+ 1806)
• September 19 - William Kirby, English entomologist (d. 1850)
• October 25 - Sophie Marie Dorothea of Württemberg, later Empress consort to Paul I of Russia (+ November 5, 1828)
• November 10 - Friedrich Schiller, German poet, historian, and dramatist (+ May 9, 1805)

Deaths

• April 14 - George Friderich Handel, composer
• August 10 - Ferdinand VI of Spain
• September 13 - General James Wolfe
• September 14 - Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, French General