Alexander Pope (1688-1744), c. 1736, attributed to Jonathan Richardson (1665–1745). Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. English poet, born in London, lived in Berkshire. Works include The Rape of the Lock, An Essay on Criticism, An Essay on Man, and translations of The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer.
"In 1736 I lost one of my sons, a fine boy of four years old, by the small-pox, taken in the common way. I long regretted bitterly and still regret that I had not given it to him by inoculation. This I mention for the sake of parents who omit that operation on the supposition that they should never forgive themselves if a child died under it, by example showing that the regret may be the same either way and that, therefore, the safer should be chosen." Benjamin Franklin
January 19 - Inventor James Watt was born in Greenock, Renfrewshire, Scotland. His improvements to the steam engine brought about fundamental changes in production kick-started the Industrial Revolution.
January 26-27 - The last king of Poland, Stanislaw Lesczynski, flees and abdicates the Polish throne.
February 5 - Methodists John and Charles Wesley arrive in Savannah, Georgia.
February 19 - Georg F Handel's "Alexander's Feast," premieres
May 26 - British troops and Chickasaw Indians defeat the French in Louisiana at the Battle of Ackia.
May 29 - Patrick Henry was born in Hanover County, Virginia.
September 16 - German physicist Gabriel Fahrenheit dies. His scientific achievements include inventing the alcohol thermometer (1709) and mercury thermometer (1714) and developing the Fahrenheit temperature scale.
December 7 – Benjamin Franklin builds the first volunteer fire company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
