Year 1720 (MDCCXX) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Friday ^[1] of the 11-day slower Julian calendar.

Events of 1720

January - June

• January 6 - The Committee of Inquiry on the South Sea Bubble publishes its findings.
• February 11 - Sweden and Prussia sign the (Treaty of Stockholm (Great Northern War)).
• February 17 - Spain signs the Treaty of The Hague, ending the War of the Quadruple Alliance.
• February 29 - Queen Ulrike Eleonora of Sweden resigns to let her husband Frederick I take over as king of Sweden.

July - December

• September - South Sea Bubble: The English stock market crashes with dropping prices for stock in The South Sea Company, an English company granted a monopoly to trade with South America.
• November 16 - Pirate Jack Rackham is brought to trial at St. Jago de la Vega in Jamaica.

Undated

• The Town on Queen Anne's Creek, North Carolina is renamed Edenton in honor of North Carolina Governor Charles Eden. It is later incorporated in 1722.

• The Tuscarora flees North Carolina as a result of European colonization.
• Edmond Halley is appointed as Astronomer Royal.
• The Academia Real da Historia is founded in Lisbon, Portugal.
• Jonathan Swift begins Gulliver's Travels.
• Emperor Kangxi announces that all western businessmen can only trade in Guangzhou.
• Il teatro alla moda, a satirical pamphlet by Benedetto Marcello, is published anonymously in Venice.
• John Woolman Started his Journal
• The first yacht club in the world, the Royal Cork Yacht Club, is founded.

Ongoing events

• Great Northern War (1700-1721).

Births

• January 4 - Johann Friedrich Agricola, German composer (d. 1774)
• January 13 - Richard Hurd, English bishop and writer (d. 1808)
• January 27 - Samuel Foote, English dramatist and actor (d. 1777)
• January 30 - Charles De Geer, Swedish industrialist and entomologist (d. 1778)
• February 8 - Emperor Sakuramachi of Japan (d. 1750)
• March 9 - Philip Yorke, 2nd Earl of Hardwicke, English politician (d. 1790)
• March 13 - Charles Bonnet, Swiss naturalist and writer (d. 1793)
• March 22 - Nicolas-Henri Jardin, French architect (d. 1799)
• April 23 - Vilna Gaon, Lithuanian rabbi (d. 1797)
• May 11 - Karl Friedrich Hieronymus Freiherr von Münchhausen, German officer and adventurer (d. 1797)
• May 15 - Maximilian Hell, Slovakian astronomer (d. 1792)
• July 18 - Gilbert White, English naturalist and cleric (d. 1793)
• August 8 - Carl Fredrik Pechlin, Swedish politician (d. 1796)
• August 12 - Konrad Ekhof, German actor (d. 1778)
• August 18 - Laurence Shirley, 4th Earl Ferrers, English murderer (d. 1760)
• August 30 - Samuel Whitbread, English brewer and politician (d. 1796)
• October 3 - Johann Peter Uz, German poet (d. 1796)
• October 4 - Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Italian artist (d. 1778)
• October 8 - Jonathan Mayhew, American minister and patriot (d. 1766)
• October 19 - John Woolman, American Quaker preacher and abolitionist (d. 1772)
• November 1 - Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte, French admiral (d. 1791)
• November 16 - Carlo Antonio Campioni, French-born composer (d. 1788)
• December 14 - Justus Möser, German statesman (d. 1794)
• December 26 - Gian Francesco Albani, Italian Catholic cardinal (d. 1803)
• December 31 - Charles Edward Stuart, pretender to the British throne (d. 1788)

See also Category: 1720 births.

Deaths

• January - Francis Daniel Pastorius, founder of Germanstown, Pennsylvania (b. 1651)
• January 31 - Thomas Grey, 2nd Earl of Stamford, English privy councilor (b. c.1645)
• February 27 - Samuel Parris, English-born Puritan minister (b. 1653)
• March 29 - Charles Vane, English pirate
• April 2 - Joseph Dudley, colonial Governor of Massachusetts (b. 1647)
• April 21 - Antoine Hamilton, French writer (b. 1646)
• June 27 - Guillaume Amfrye de Chaulieu, French poet (b. 1639)
• August 3
  • Anthonie Heinsius, Dutch statesman (b. 1641)
  • Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, English poet (b. 1661)
• August 9 - Simon Ockley, English orientalist (b. 1678)
• August 17 - Anne Lefèvre, French scholar (b. 1654)
• September 3 - Henri de Massue, Marquis de Ruvigny, 1st Viscount Galway, French soldier and diplomat (b. 1648)
• October 10 - Antoine Coysevox, French sculptor (b. 1640)
• November 17 - John Rackham, English pirate, also known as Calico Jack
• November 20 - Peder Tordenskjold, Norwegian naval hero (b. 1691)
• Shahzada Assadullah Khan Abdali, Persian Governor of Herat (b. 1687)

See also Category: 1720 deaths.

Notes

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