January 14 - England and Spain sign the Second Convention of Pardo.
February 24 - At the Battle of Karnal, the army of Iranian ruler Nadir Shah defeats the forces of the Mughal emperor of India, Muhammad Shah.
March 20 - Nadir Shah occupies Delhi in India and sacks the city, stealing the jewels of the Peacock Throne.
May 1 - English theologian and evangelist John Wesley (1703-91) and a group of his followers, meeting in a shop on West Street, London, formed the first Methodist society. Two similar organizations were established in Bristol the same month. Late in 1739 the London society began to meet in a building called the Foundry, which served as the headquarters of Methodism for many years.
July 22 - Turks defeat the Holy Roman Empire at Crocyka Yugoslavia and threaten Belgrade.
July 30 - Caspar Wistar begins glass manufacturing in Allowaystown, N.J.
September 9 - Approximately 80 slaves armed themselves and attempted to march toward Spanish Florida from their home area of Stono, South Carolina. When confronted by a group of white militia, a battle ensued. Forty-four blacks and twenty-one whites perished.
September 18 - Turkey and Austria sign peace treaty. Austria cedes Belgrade to Turks.
September 23 - Russia and Turkey sign the Peace of Belgrade.
October 3 - The Treaty of Nissa is signed by the Ottoman Empire and Russia at the end of the Russian-Turkish War, 1736-1739.
October 30 - England declares war on Spain, called the War of Jenkin's Ear Although Spain and Britain had been engaged in a battle for supremacy in the Caribbean for more than two centuries, they had arrived at a relative peace during the early decades of the 1700s. But throughout history, British smugglers had flouted Spanish trade restrictions. By 1739 the political climate in Britain was finally ready for war. When Captain Robert Jenkins, merchant, came to the House of Commons in England, showing them what he claimed was his ear, cut off by the Spanish when they boarded his ship in 1731, British Prime Minister Robert Walpole reluctantly declares war on Spain.
