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18th century

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For other uses, see 18th century (disambiguation).
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Political boundaries at the beginning of year 1700
Storming of the Bastille, July 14, 1789, an iconic event of the French Revolution
Development of the Watt steam engine in the late 18th century was an important element in the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain.
The American Revolutionary War took place in the late 18th century.

The 18th century lasted from January 1, 1701 to December 31, 1800. During the 18th century, elements of Enlightenment thinking culminated in the American, French, and Haitian revolutions. The age saw violent slave trading and human trafficking on a global scale. The reactions against monarchical and aristocratic power helped fuel the revolutionary responses against it throughout the century.

The period is also known as the "century of lights" or the "century of reason". In continental Europe, philosophers dreamed of a brighter age. For some, this dream turned into a reality with the French Revolution of 1789, though this was later compromised by the excesses of the Reign of Terror. At first, many monarchies of Europe embraced Enlightenment ideals, but in the wake of the French Revolution they feared loss of power and formed broad coalitions for counter-revolution. The Ottoman Empire experienced an unprecedented period of peace and economic expansion, taking part in no European wars from 1740 to 1768. As a consequence the empire did not share in Europe's military improvements during the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), causing its military to fall behind and suffer defeats against Russia in the second half of the century.

18th century music includes works characteristic of the Late Baroque period (including Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel) and the classical period (including Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart).

The 18th century also marked the end of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth as an independent state. The formerly powerful and vast kingdom, which had once conquered Moscow and defeated great Ottoman armies, collapsed under numerous invasions. Its semi-democratic government system was not robust enough to rival the neighboring monarchies of the Kingdom of Prussia, the Russian Empire and the Austrian Empire which divided the Commonwealth territories between themselves, changing the landscape of Central European politics for the next hundred years.

European colonization of the Americas and other parts of the world intensified and associated mass migrations of people grew in size as the Age of Sail continued.

Great Britain became a major power worldwide with the French and Indian War in the 1760s and the conquest of large parts of India, especially Bengal. However, Britain lost many of its North American colonies after the American Revolution and Indian wars.

In Central Asia, Nader Shah caused major invasions and led successful military campaigns and the Durrani Empire was founded.

In the Indian subcontinent, the death of the Islamic Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb marks the end of medieval India and the beginning of modern India and the era of extensive European intervention in the subcontinent. The victory of the British East India Company over the Nawab of Bengal and their French allies[1] in the Battle of Plassey caused the deindustrialization of Bengal and the beginning of the British Industrial Revolution which radically changed human society and the environment. The British invasion since then expanded to cover much of South Asia.

French-Italian emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, formed one of the Franco-Indian alliances with the major economic power Kingdom of Mysore,[2] governed by Tipu Sultan and his father Hyder Ali, who pioneered the use of Rocket artillery and the world's first iron-cased rockets, the Mysorean rockets, through the compilation of the Fathul Mujahidin.[3][4] The Anglo-Mysore Wars were fought and the Treaty of Mangalore was initiated in 1784.

The defeat of the British resulted in the formation of the newly independent United States.

Western historians have occasionally defined the 18th century otherwise for the purposes of their work. For example, the "short" 18th century may be defined as 1715–1789, denoting the period of time between the death of Louis XIV of France and the start of the French Revolution, with an emphasis on directly interconnected events.[5][6] To historians who expand the century to include larger historical movements, the "long" 18th century[7] may run from the Glorious Revolution of 1688 to the Battle of Waterloo in 1815[8] or even later.[9]

Events

Main article: Timeline of the 18th century

1701–1750

Europe at the beginning of the War of the Spanish Succession, 1700
The Battle of Poltava in 1709 turned the Russian Empire into a European power.
John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough
Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah with the Persian invader Nader Shah.
Qianlong Emperor
The extinction of the Scottish clan system came with the defeat of the clansmen at the Battle of Culloden in 1746.[17]

1751–1800

Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia.
Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers
George Washington
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
Napoleon at the Bridge of the Arcole

Significant people

World leaders, politicians, military

See also: Founding Fathers of the United States and Enlightened absolutism
Peter the Great
Louis XV
Frederick II the Great
Joseph II of Austria
Queen Marie Antoinette
Charles III of Spain
Prince Alexander Suvorov
Horatio Nelson
Toussaint Louverture
Benjamin Franklin
Robespierre

Show business, theatre, entertainers

See also: Theatre Royal, Drury Lane; Haymarket Theatre; and Sichuan opera
Farinelli
Beaumarchais

Musicians, composers

Main articles: List of Classical era composers and List of Baroque composers
Johann Sebastian Bach
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
George Frideric Händel

Visual artists, painters, sculptors, printmakers, architects

Main articles: History of painting, Rococo, and Neoclassicism
Antoine Watteau
Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin
Joshua Reynolds
Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun
Jacques-Louis David

Writers, poets

Voltaire
Alexander Pope
Mary Wollstonecraft
Friedrich Schiller

Philosophers, theologians

Montesquieu
Denis Diderot
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
John Wesley

Scientists, researchers

Jean le Rond d'Alembert
Alessandro Volta
Carl Linnaeus
Leonhard Euler
Mikhail Lomonosov
James Watt

Other

Edward Teach

Inventions, discoveries, introductions

Main articles: Timeline of historic inventions § 18th century, and Timeline of scientific discoveries § 18th century
The Spinning Jenny
The Chinese Putuo Zongcheng Temple of Chengde, completed in 1771, during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor.

Literary and philosophical achievements

Musical works

References

  1. ^ Campbell, John; Watts, William (1760). Memoirs of the Revolution in Bengal, anno Dom. 1757. A. Millar, London.
  2. ^ Parthasarathi, Prasannan (2011), Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Economic Divergence, 1600–1850, Cambridge University Press, p. 207, ISBN 978-1-139-49889-0
  3. ^ Allana, Gulam (1988). Muslim political thought through the ages: 1562–1947 (2 ed.). Pennsylvania State University, Pennsylvania: Royal Book Company. p. 78. ISBN 9789694070919. Retrieved 18 January 2013.
  4. ^ "Bonaparte and Islam · Liberty, Equality, Fraternity". chnm.gmu.edu. Archived from the original on May 28, 2019. Retrieved October 19, 2019.
  5. ^ Anderson, M. S. (1979). Historians and Eighteenth-Century Europe, 1715–1789. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-822548-5. OCLC 185538307.
  6. ^ Ribeiro, Aileen (2002). Dress in Eighteenth-Century Europe 1715–1789 (revised ed.). Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-09151-9. OCLC 186413657.
  7. ^ Baines, Paul (2004). The Long 18th Century. London: Arnold. ISBN 978-0-340-81372-0.
  8. ^ Marshall, P. J., ed. (2001). The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume II: The Eighteenth Century (Oxford History of the British Empire). Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 978-0-19-924677-9. OCLC 174866045., "Introduction" by P. J. Marshall, page 1
  9. ^ O'Gorman, Frank (1997). The Long Eighteenth Century: British Political and Social History 1688–1832 (The Arnold History of Britain Series). A Hodder Arnold Publication. ISBN 978-0-340-56751-7. OCLC 243883533.
  10. ^ "War of the Spanish Succession, 1701–1714". Historyofwar.org. Retrieved 2009-04-25.
  11. ^ Ricklefs (1991), page 82
  12. ^ Historic uk – heritage of britain accommodation guide (2007-05-03). "The history of Scotland – The Act of Union 1707". Historic-uk.com. Archived from the original on 8 April 2009. Retrieved 2009-04-25.
  13. ^ Ricklefs (1991), page 84
  14. ^ "Welcome to Encyclopædia Britannica's Guide to History". Britannica.com. 1910-01-31. Archived from the original on 16 April 2009. Retrieved 2009-04-25.
  15. ^ "List of Wars of the Crimean Tatars". Zum.de. Archived from the original on 12 March 2009. Retrieved 2009-04-25.
  16. ^ "Len Milich: Anthropogenic Desertification vs 'Natural' Climate Trends". Ag.arizona.edu. 1997-08-10. Archived from the original on 2012-02-11. Retrieved 2009-04-25.
  17. ^ "A guide to Scottish clans". Unique-cottages.co.uk. Archived from the original on May 11, 2008. Retrieved 2009-04-25.
  18. ^ Wadsworth, Alfred P.; Mann, Julia De Lacy (1931). The Cotton Trade and Industrial Lancashire, 1600–1780. Manchester University Press. p. 433. OCLC 2859370.
  19. ^ "Saudi Arabia – The Saud Family and Wahhabi Islam". Countrystudies.us. Retrieved 2009-04-25.
  20. ^ "History". Columbia University.
  21. ^ Ricklefs (1991), page 102
  22. ^ "Sufism in the Caucasus". Islamicsupremecouncil.org. Archived from the original on February 23, 2009. Retrieved 2009-04-25.
  23. ^ "Yellow Fever Attacks Philadelphia, 1793". EyeWitness to History. Archived from the original on 7 June 2007. Retrieved 2007-06-22.
  24. ^ Riedel S (2005). "Edward Jenner and the history of smallpox and vaccination". Proc (Bayl Univ Med Cent). 18 (1): 21–5. doi:10.1080/08998280.2005.11928028. PMC 1200696. PMID 16200144.
  25. ^ Ricklefs (1991), page 106
  26. ^ Porter, Roy, ed. (2003). The Cambridge History of Science, Volume 4: The Eighteenth Century (The Cambridge History of Science). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-57243-9. OCLC 123123201., "The Philosopher's Beard: Women and Gender in Science" by Londra Schiebinger, pages 184–210
  27. ^ Encyclopædia Britannica's Great Inventions, Encyclopædia Britannica Archived August 7, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  28. ^ Meggs, Philip B. A History of Graphic Design. (1998) John Wiley & Sons, Inc. p 146 ISBN 978-0-471-29198-5

Media related to 18th century at Wikimedia Commons

Further reading

  • Jeremy Black and Roy Porter, eds. A Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century World History (1994) 890pp
  • Klekar, Cynthia. “Fictions of the Gift: Generosity and Obligation in Eighteenth-Century English Literature.” Innovative Course Design Winner. American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies: Wake Forest University, 2004. <Home | American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS)>. Refereed.
  • The Wallace Collection, London, houses one of the finest collections of 18th-century decorative arts from France, England and Italy, including paintings, furniture, porcelain and gold boxes.
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