Events

• February 16 - Louis XV of France attains his majority

Births

• February 24 - John Burgoyne, British general.
• March 31 - King Frederick V of Denmark
• April 30 - Mathurin Jacques Brisson, French zoologist and natural philosopher (died 1806)
• June 5 - Adam Smith, Scottish economist (baptized this day, exact date of birth unknown) (died 1790)
• July 11 - Jean-François Marmontel, French novelist and dramatist (died 1799)
• July 16 - Sir Joshua Reynolds, English painter (died 1792)
• November 8 - John Byron, English vice-admiral, grandfather of the poet Lord Byron (died 1786)
• November 30 - William Livingston, American politician and journalist (died 1790)
• December 22 - Karl Friedrich Abel, German baroque composer (died 1787)
• William Blackstone, English jurist (died 1780)

Deaths

• February 25 - Sir Christopher Wren, architect, astronomer, mathematician (b. 1632)
• March 15 - Johann Christian Gunther, German poet (b. 1695)
• March 31 - Edward Hyde, 3rd Earl of Clarendon, Governor of New York and New Jersey (b. 1661)
• August 10 - Guillaume Dubois, French cardinal and statesman (b. 1656)
• August 23 - Increase Mather, New England Puritan minister (b. 1639)
• October 19 - Godfrey Kneller, artist (b. 1646)
• October 31 - Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (b. 1642)
• December 2 - Philippe II of Orléans (b. 1674)
• December 7 - Jan Santini Aichel, architect
• Anton van Leeuwenhoek, Dutch pioneer of microscopic research (b. 1632)
• Increase Mather, American colonial and religious leader (b. 1639)