1696

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January 27: HMS Sovereign of the Seas accidentally burns.

Capture of Azov (1696)

1696 (MDCXCVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar, the 1696th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 696th year of the 2nd millennium, the 96th year of the 17th century, and the 7th year of the 1690s decade. As of the start of 1696, the Gregorian calendar was 10 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.

Events[]

January–March[]

• January 21 – The Recoinage Act, passed by the Parliament of England to pull counterfeit silver coins out of circulation, becomes law.^[1]
• January 27 – In England, the ship HMS Royal Sovereign (formerly HMS Sovereign of the Seas, 1638) catches fire and burns at Chatham, after 57 years of service.
• January 31 – In the Netherlands, undertakers revolt after funeral reforms in Amsterdam.
• January – Colley Cibber's play Love's Last Shift is first performed in London.^[2]
• February 8 (January 29 old style) – Peter the Great who had jointly reigned since 1682 with his mentally-ill older half-brother, Tsar Ivan V, becomes the sole Tsar of Russia when Ivan dies at the age of 29.
• February 15 – A plot to ambush and assassinate King William III of England, in order to restore King James and the House of Stuart to the throne. The plot is foiled when the King cancels his usual plan to return from a hunting trip by way of the road between Turnham Green and Brentford. The King's guard is alerted by the Earl of Portland, William Bentinck, who had been approached on February 13 by Sir Thomas Prendergast.^[3]
• February 23 – A royal proclamation is issued to arrest suspected Jacobite conspirators who had plotted the assassination of King William III, including gunman Robert Charnock and organizers George Barclay, and Sir John Fenwick. Barclay eludes capture, but Charnock and Fenwick are executed.^[3]
• March 7 – King William III of England departs from the Netherlands.
• March 9 – Spanish missionaries in the province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México in North America first learn of plans for a revolt among the Pueblo Indians and send warnings to the Governor, asking for Spanish troops. The uprising begins on June 4.^[4]
• March 18 – Robert Charnock, who had been arrested for the Jacobite plot to kill King William is hanged at the Tower of London.

April–June[]

• April 23 – Russo-Turkish War (1686–1700): Russia begins the second of the Azov campaigns (1695–96).
• April – A fire destroys the Gra Bet (Left Quarter) of Gondar, the capital of Ethiopia. The fire starts "in the house of a prostitute" and destroys many buildings, including the churches of St. George, Takla Haymanot and Iyasu.^[5]
• May 31 – John Salomonsz is elected chief of Sint Eustatius in the Caribbean Netherlands.
• June 4 – A second Pueblo Revolt occurs in Santa Fe de Nuevo México. The Tiwas of Taos and Picuris, the Tewas of San Ildefonso and Nambe, the Tanos of Jemez and San Cristobal, and the Keres of Santo Domingo and Cochiti attack during the full moon and kill 21 Spanish civilians and five priests.^[6]
• June 12 – China's Kangxi Emperor leads troops in the Battle of Jao Modo (about 37 miles (60 km) from the modern Mongolain capital, Ulan Bator and defeats 5,000 Mongolian troops of the Dzungar Khanate, under the command of Galdan Boshugtu Khan. Galdan escapes capture.
• June 17 – The throne of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth becomes vacant with the death of Jan Sobieski, prompting a competition between Friedrich Augustus, Elector of Saxony and Prince François Louis of France to compete under the Commonwealth's "Golden Liberty" system for an elective monarchy of the new King by the nobility. Jerzy Albrecht Denhoff, the Grand Chancellor, remains the head of the Polish-Lithuanian government during the vacancy of the ceremonial throne.

July–September[]

• July 18 – Azov campaign: The Russian fleet occupies Azov at the mouth of the river Don.
• July 29 – King Louis XIV of France and Victor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy, sign the Treaty of Turin, ending Savoy's involvement in the Nine Years' War.
• August 13 – The Dutch state of Drenthe makes William III of Orange its Stadtholder.
• August 22 – Forces of the Republic of Venice and the Ottoman Empire clash near Andros.
• August 29 – The Treaty of Turin between France and the Duchy of Savoy, ending Savoy's participation in the Nine Years' War. In return for Savoy's withdrawal from the Grand Alliance and the dismantling of its fortifications at Pinerolo, France returns all parts of Savoy captured during the war.
• September 8 – The Parliament of Scotland passes the Education Act 1696, providing for locally-funded, Church-supervised schools to be established in every parish in Scotland.
• September 11 – England's Royal Navy scuttles and deliberately sinks its 32-gun battleship HMS Sapphire in the Bay Bulls Harbour in Newfoundland, rather than let it be captured by the French Navy following a disastrous battle.
• September 17 – On Canada's Hudson Bay, in what is now the province of Manitoba, the English Navy recaptures the York Factory from France, three years after the French had captured it and renamed the site "Fort Bourbon".^[7]

October–December[]

• October 7 – The Convention of Vigevano is signed, bringing a general ceasefire in Italy and an end to the Nine Years' War between France and the remaining members of the Grand Alliance (the Holy Roman Empire and Spain.
• October 20 – The Imperial Russian Navy is founded on the recommendation of Tsar Peter the Great and approval by the Russian Parliament, the Duma.
• November 21 – John Vanbrugh's play The Relapse, or Virtue in Danger is first performed in London.
• November 25 – In England, the House of Commons approves the bill of attainder to convict Sir John Fenwick of high treason for plotting to lead the assassination of and coup d'etat against King William III, on its third and final reading, voting 187 to 161 in favor of conviction. The measure then moves to the House of Lords.^[8]
• November 30 – Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville captures and destroys St. John's, Newfoundland after a three-day siege.^[9]
• December 7 – Connecticut Route 108, one of Connecticut's oldest highways is laid-out to Trumbull.
• December 19 – Jean-François Regnard's verse comedy Le Joueur ("The Gamester") premieres in Paris.
• December 23 – By a vote of 66 to 60, the English House of Lords narrowly approves the bill of attainder for the conviction of Sir John Fenwick for high treason. The measure then moves to the House of Lords.^[10] Fenwick is beheaded on January 28, 1697.
• December 24 – The Inquisition in Portugal carries out the sentence of burning at the stake against several Marrano Jews in Évora.

Date unknown[]

• The Great Famine of 1695–1697 wipes out almost a third of the population of Finland, while the Great Famine of Estonia (1695–97) takes out a fifth of the population of Estonia; and the "seven ill years" of famine in Scotland are ongoing.
• Polish replaces Ruthenian as an official language of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
• Abington, Pennsylvania, is settled.
• William Penn offers an elaborate plan for intercolonial cooperation largely in trade, defense, and criminal matters.
• Edward Lloyd (coffeehouse owner) probably begins publication of Lloyd's News, a predecessor of Lloyd's List, in London.

Births[]

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

• January 5 – Giuseppe Galli-Bibiena, Italian architect, painter (d. 1757)
• March 5 – Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Italian painter (d. 1770)
• March 27 – Antoine Court, French Huguenot minister (d. 1760)
• April 2 – Francesca Cuzzoni, Italian operatic soprano (d. 1778)
• June 11 – Francis Edward James Keith, Scottish soldier and Prussian field marshal (d. 1758)
• June 27 – William Pepperrell, English colonial soldier (d. 1759)
• July 14 – William Oldys, English antiquarian and bibliographer (d. 1761)
• July 24 – Benning Wentworth, colonial governor of New Hampshire (d. 1770)
• July 27 – Samuel Whittemore, American farmer and oldest known colonial combatant of the American Revolution (d. 1793)
• August 2 – Mahmud I, Ottoman Sultan (d. 1754)
• August 12 – Maurice Greene, English composer (d. 1755)
• September 27 – Alphonsus Liguori, Italian founder of the Redemptorist Order (d. 1787)
• October 10 – Chen Hongmou, Chinese scholar and philosopher (d. 1771)
• October 13 – John Hervey, 2nd Baron Hervey, English statesman and writer (d. 1743)
• November 2 – Conrad Weiser, Pennsylvania's ambassador to the Iroquois Confederacy (d. 1760)
• December 22 – James Oglethorpe, English general and founder of the state of Georgia as a colony (d. 1785)
• date unknown
  • Christine Kirch, German astronomer (d. 1782)
  • Carlo Zimech, Maltese priest and painter (d. 1766)^[11]

Deaths[]

John III Sobieski

• January 11 – Charles Albanel, French missionary explorer in Canada (b. 1616)
• February – Ahom King Supaatphaa or Gadadhar Singha
• February 4 – Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton, English soldier (b. 1613)
• February 8 – Tsar Ivan V of Russia (b. 1666)
• February 19 – Giovanni Pietro Bellori, Italian art historian (b. 1613)
• March 14 – Jean Domat, French jurist (b. 1625)
• March 16 – Louis Laneau, French bishop active in the kingdom of Siam (b. 1637)
• March 17 – Élisabeth Marguerite d'Orléans, French noble (b. 1646)
• March 18 – Robert Charnock, English conspirator (b. c. 1663)
• March 25 – Henry Casimir II, Prince of Nassau-Dietz, Stadholder of Friesland and Groningen (b. 1657)
• April 17 – Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné, French writer (b. 1626)
• April 27 – Simon Foucher, French polemicist (b. 1644)
• April 30 – Robert Plot, British naturalist (b. 1640)
• May 10 – Jean de La Bruyère, French writer (b. 1645)
• May 16 – Mariana of Austria, queen consort of Spain (b. 1634)
• May 26 – Countess Albertine Agnes of Nassau, Regent of Friesland, Groningen and Drenthe (1664–1679) (b. 1634)
• May 28 – William Gregory, English politician and judge (b. 1625)
• May 30 – Henry Capell, 1st Baron Capell, First Lord of the British Admiralty (b. 1638)
• May 31 – Heinrich Schwemmer, German music teacher and composer (b. 1621)
• June – Greta Duréel, Swedish noblewoman and bank fraud
• June 17 – John III Sobieski, King of Poland (b. 1629)
• June 24 – Philip Henry, English minister (b. 1631)
• July 11 – William Godolphin, English politician (b. 1635)
• August 2 – Robert Campbell of Glenlyon, Scottish military commander at the Massacre of Glencoe (b. 1630)
• September 4 – Celestino Sfondrati, Italian Catholic cardinal (b. 1644)
• September 9 – Princess Eleonore Erdmuthe of Saxe-Eisenach, Electress of Saxony (b. 1662)
• September 13 – Caleb Banks, English politician (b. 1659)
• September 24 – Sir Ralph Verney, 1st Baronet, of Middle Claydon, English Baronet (b. 1613)
• November 26 – Gregório de Matos, Brazilian poet and lawyer (b. 1636)
• December 4 – Meishō, empress of Japan (b. 1624)
• December 8 – Charles Porter, English-born judge (b. 1631)
• December 12 – John Hampden (1653–1696), English politician (b. 1653)
• December 13 – Georg Matthäus Vischer, Austrian cartographer (b. 1628)
• December 29 – Miguel de Molinos, Spanish mystic (b. 1628)
• date unknown – Daibhidh Ó Duibhgheannáin (b. 1651)

References[]