1760
On the 25th of October 1760, King George II of Great Britain died, and his 22-year-old grandson stepped forward to claim one of the most powerful thrones in the world. George III would go on to reign for 59 years. That single handover of power rippled outward into a world already in upheaval. The Seven Years' War was grinding toward its conclusion across four continents. Slave rebellions were reshaping colonial life in the Caribbean. A mathematician in Paris was doing something that had never been done before, using numbers to model how disease moves through a population. And on a stage in London, a Belgian entertainer was about to make history on wheels, then immediately regret it. The year 1760 was not a year of one story. It was a year of dozens, each unfolding at the same time, on different continents, in different languages, under different flags. What follows traces the threads.
On the 22nd of January, British general Sir Eyre Coote defeated French forces under the Marquis de Bussy-Castelnau at the Battle of Wandiwash in India, a blow that would eventually cost France its foothold on the subcontinent. The Seven Years' War was entering its final, decisive phase, and Britain was winning on almost every front.
In North America, the prize was Canada. On the 28th of April, British and French forces clashed at the Battle of Sainte-Foy to settle who would control Quebec. Marshal Francois Gaston de Levis had marched 7,000 troops out of Montreal for just this purpose. The British defenders under Brigadier General James Murray brought 3,500 men to meet them. When the fighting ended, Murray's side had lost 259 dead and 845 wounded; Levis's French force lost 193 dead and 640 wounded. Murray retreated. Levis moved to besiege the city.
What saved Quebec for Britain was not reinforcements from the south but ships from the sea. On the 16th of May, three Royal Navy vessels under Commodore Robert Swanton arrived before Levis could finish the job. The French relief fleet that might have changed the outcome, six ships under Captain Francois Chenard de la Giraudais, had left Bordeaux too late. Two of the six ran into a British blockade led by Admiral Edward Boscawen. A third sank before reaching North America. By the time Giraudais reached the Gaspe Peninsula and captured seven British merchant ships, he learned the British had already moved up the St. Lawrence without him.
The formal end of French Canada came on the 8th of September, when General Jeffery Amherst's British troops captured Montreal, bringing Canada entirely under British control. On the 8th of July, the last naval battle fought in New France had already concluded at the Battle of Restigouche, a British victory. And on the 29th of November, French Army Colonel Francois-Marie Picote de Belestre formally surrendered Detroit to British Army Major Robert Rogers, who raised the Union Jack over Fort Detroit for the first time.
The war reached into Europe as well. Russian troops entered Berlin on the 9th of October. Frederick the Great of Prussia defeated Austrian Marshal Laudon at the Battle of Legnica on the 30th of August through a series of maneuvers that kept the Austrian forces from joining together. Then, on the 3rd of November, Frederick fought yet again at the Battle of Torgau, where he defeated Daun's Austrians once more, forcing them across the Elbe. By the 3rd of April, Britain and Prussia had already agreed to begin peace negotiations.
On the 7th of April, a slave rebellion began in Jamaica that would burn for 18 months. Known as Tacky's War, the uprising killed 60 white residents of the island before it was suppressed. The cost of crushing it was far higher on the other side: more than 400 Black rebels died, and another 500 were deported to British Honduras.
The colonial government's response reached far beyond military suppression. On the 18th of December, the Assembly of the British colony of Jamaica outlawed the African religious practice of obeah. The legislation imposed penalties ranging from banishment to execution. It also specified, in precise detail, the material objects that practitioners were forbidden to possess: animal blood, feathers, parrots' beaks, dogs' teeth, alligators' teeth, broken bottles, grave dirt, rum, and eggshells. The specificity of that list says something about how seriously colonial authorities took obeah as an organizing force. The rebellion's leadership had been drawn from African-born enslaved people, and the legislature's response treated their spiritual practices as inseparable from the threat of organized resistance.
The 1760 ban on obeah was one of the earliest pieces of legislation in the British colonial world to formally criminalize African religious practice, and it would echo through Caribbean legal history for generations.
France's Minister of the Navy Nicolas Rene Berryer received permission on the 10th of April to send ships to Quebec. The permission came too late. The fleet of six ships that departed Bordeaux under Captain Giraudais was already racing against a clock that had run out. Quebec had fallen to Britain the previous year, and the window to reverse that outcome was closing fast.
Marshal Levis had understood this. His march from Montreal up the St. Lawrence with 7,000 troops was a calculated gamble. He landed at Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures, adjacent to Quebec City, on the 26th of April, just two days before General Murray marched out to meet him. The Battle of Sainte-Foy on the 28th of April went to Levis on the battlefield. But winning the battle was not enough. He needed to take the city before British reinforcements arrived, and Commodore Swanton's three ships appeared on the 16th of May before Levis could force a surrender.
Giraudais's fleet, meanwhile, was intercepted piecemeal. Captain John Byron, commanding HMS Fame, located the French captain on the 22nd of June but ran aground on the 25th before he could engage. The contest for New France was decided not by any single battle but by the cumulative weight of British naval dominance at sea. The formal capture of Montreal on the 8th of September closed the chapter.
On the 30th of April, Swiss mathematician Daniel Bernoulli presented a paper at the French Academy of Sciences in Paris. It contained something that had no precedent: a mathematical model used for the first time to study the population dynamics of infectious disease. The framework Bernoulli introduced that day would shape how scientists thought about epidemics for centuries to come.
Abbé Charles-Michel de l'Epee opened a school for deaf education in Paris that year. It would become the Institut National de Jeunes Sourds de Paris, the world's first free school for the deaf. Simultaneously in Edinburgh, Thomas Braidwood established Braidwood's Academy for the Deaf and Dumb, the first school for the deaf in Britain. Two countries, two educators, one year.
Not every debut in 1760 went smoothly. On the 22nd of April, Belgian entertainer Joseph Mervin gave what is said to have been the first demonstration of roller skates, performing at the Carlisle House in London. The stunt ended in disaster. The source does not elaborate on what went wrong, which leaves the imagination with considerable room.
Anna Magdalena Bach, accomplished German singer and second wife of Johann Sebastian Bach, died on the 22nd of February. She had been born in 1701 and outlived her husband by nearly a decade.
On the 22nd of May, Israel ben Eliezer, known as the Baal Shem Tov, died in Poland. He had been born in 1698 and was the founder of Hasidic Judaism, a movement whose emphasis on spiritual joy and direct experience of the divine would reshape Jewish religious life across Eastern Europe and eventually the world.
Laurence Shirley, the 4th Earl Ferrers, was hanged on the 5th of May after being convicted of murder, one of the rare occasions in British history when a peer of the realm faced the gallows.
Among those born in 1760 were several figures who would shape the coming decades. Thomas Clarkson was born on the 28th of March; he would become one of the foremost English abolitionists. Luigi Cherubini, born on the 14th of September, would grow into a major Italian composer. And the artist born as Katsushika Tokitaro, later known as Hokusai, arrived around the 31st of October. He died in 1849, by which time his ukiyo-e prints had made him one of the most recognized Japanese artists in the world. Deborah Sampson, born on the 17th of December, would become the first American female soldier.
On the 20th of March, the Great Fire of Boston destroyed 349 buildings, making it the largest conflagration in the American colonies up to that time. Three months later, on the 3rd of July, a lightning strike caused a major fire at Portsmouth Royal Dockyard in England. Fire moved fast in 1760.
On the 15th of February, the British Royal Navy ship HMS Royal Katherine ran aground off Bolt Head in England. The disaster cost 699 lives.
The year's final diplomatic scene unfolded on the 4th of December, near the newly surrendered Fort Detroit. British authorities met with delegates from Native American tribes that had fought alongside the French, including the Wyandot and Ottawa, as well as tribes that had been British allies. The conference opened with the presentation of a wampum belt to the British. The principal chief spoke: "The ancient friendship is now renewed, and I wash the blood off the earth that had been shed during the present war, that you may bury the war hatchet in the bottomless pit."
The siege that began on the 6th of December at Pondicherry, a French stronghold in India, would end with the surrender to British Lieutenant General Eyre Coote on the 15th of January 1761, effectively extinguishing French military power on the Indian subcontinent.
Common questions
What major events happened in the year 1760?
The year 1760 saw Britain consolidate control over Canada after the Battle of Sainte-Foy on the 28th of April and the capture of Montreal on the 8th of September. King George II died on the 25th of October, and his 22-year-old grandson became George III. Tacky's War, a slave rebellion in Jamaica, began on the 7th of April and lasted 18 months.
Who became King of Great Britain after George II died in 1760?
George III became King of Great Britain after his grandfather George II died on the 25th of October 1760. George III was 22 years old at the time and went on to reign for 59 years until his death on the 29th of January 1820.
What was Tacky's War in 1760 and what happened after it?
Tacky's War was a slave rebellion that began in Jamaica on the 7th of April 1760 and lasted 18 months. More than 400 Black rebels died in its suppression, 60 white residents were killed, and 500 rebels were deported to British Honduras. In response, the Jamaican Assembly outlawed the African religious practice of obeah on the 18th of December 1760, imposing penalties from banishment to execution.
Who was Daniel Bernoulli and what did he present in 1760?
Daniel Bernoulli was a Swiss mathematician who presented a paper at the French Academy of Sciences in Paris on the 30th of April 1760. The paper used a mathematical model for the first time to study the population dynamics of infectious disease, a method that would influence how scientists understood epidemics for centuries afterward.
What was the first free school for the deaf and when was it founded?
The Institut National de Jeunes Sourds de Paris was the world's first free school for the deaf, founded by Abbe Charles-Michel de l'Epee in Paris in 1760. In the same year, Thomas Braidwood established Braidwood's Academy for the Deaf and Dumb in Edinburgh, the first school for the deaf in Britain.
Who died in 1760 that was the founder of Hasidic Judaism?
Israel ben Eliezer, known as the Baal Shem Tov, died on the 22nd of May 1760. Born in 1698 in Poland, he was the founder of Hasidic Judaism, a movement that emphasised spiritual joy and direct religious experience, reshaping Jewish life across Eastern Europe.
All sources
8 references cited across the entry
- 1BookCassell's Chronology of World HistoryHywel Williams — Weidenfeld & Nicolson — 2005
- 2BookThe Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of Britain, 1649–1815N. A. M. Rodger — Penguin Books; National Maritime Museum — 2006
- 5BookThe Chronology of British HistoryAlan Palmer et al. — Century Ltd — 1992