Year 1731 (MDCCXXXI) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Friday of the 11-day slower Julian calendar).

Events of 1731

January - June

• March 16 - The Treaty of Vienna is signed between the Holy Roman Empire, Great Britain, the Dutch Republic and Spain.
• April 2 - The town of Raynham, Massachusetts in Bristol County is entered as a new town by the governor and court of Massachusetts, New England, America.

July - December

Undated

• John Bevis observes the Crab Nebula for the first time.
• Royal Colony of North Carolina Governor George Burrington asks the North Carolina General Assembly to pass an act establishing a town on the Cape Fear River, in what is seen as a political move to shift the power away from the powerful Cape Fear plantation class. The town is laid out in 1733 and later incorporated as Wilmington in 1740.
• The Royal Theatre of Mantua (Italy) is built by Ferdinando Galli Bibiena.
• Benjamin Franklin starts the Library Company of Philadelphia.

Births

• February - Charles Churchill, English poet (d. 1764)
• April 8 - William Williams, Signer of the Declaration of Independence (d. 1811)
• May 8 - Beilby Porteus, Bishop of London and abolitionist (d. 1809)
• June 21 - Martha Washington, First Lady of the United States (d. 1802)
• August - Henry Constantine Jennings, English gambler and collector (d. 1819)
• October 10 - Henry Cavendish, English scientist (d. 1810)
• November 9 - Benjamin Banneker, African-American astronomer and surveyor of the District of Columbia (d. 1806)
• November 15 - William Cowper, English poet (d. 1800)
• December 8 - Franti?ek Xaver Du?ek, Czech composer (d. 1799)
• December 12 - Erasmus Darwin, English scientist and grandfather of Charles Darwin (d. 1802)
• December 28 - José de Viera y Clavijo, Spanish writer

See also Category: 1731 births.

Deaths

• January 6 - Étienne François Geoffroy, French chemist (b. 1672)
• January 27 - Bartolomeo Cristofori, Italian maker of musical instruments (b. 1655)
• February 22 - Frederik Ruysch, Dutch physician and anatomist (b. 1638)
• March 8 - Ferdinand Brokoff, Czech sculptor (b. 1688)
• April 24/26 - Daniel Defoe, English writer (b. 1660)
• May 1 - Johann Ludwig Bach, German composer (b. 1677)
• August 27- Eudoxia Lopukhina, divorced wife of Peter the Great of Russia (b. 1669)
• December 17 - George Lockhart, writer, spy and politician (duel)
• December 26 - Antoine Houdar de la Motte, French writer (b. 1672)
• December 29 - Brook Taylor, English mathematician (b. 1685)

See also Category: 1731 deaths.

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