1700-1800 The American counterpart to the religious movement in Europe known as Pietism and Quietism was known as the Great Awakening. The Great Awakening was a religious revival in the American colonies in the early 18th century. It was one of the first great movements to give colonists a sense of unity and special purpose in God's providential plans. The Great Awakening was part of a religious ferment that swept across Western Europe that was know on the Continent among Protestants and Roman Catholics as Pietism and Quietism. In England it was
referred to as Evangelicalism.

1701  May 23, New York sea captain William Kidd was hanged on the banks of the Thames after being found guilty of piracy and murder. Kidd had reluctantly became a privateer for England in 1696 and was expected to fight pirates on the open sea, seize their cargoes, and provide a hefty share of the spoils to the Crown. According to his British accusers, Kidd turned to piracy himself as the deadline for reporting to his employers in New York approached and he had not taken enough booty to fulfill his commission. Kidd himself did not know he was a wanted man until he dropped anchor in the West Indies in April 1699. He chose to surrender to the authorities and submit to a London trial, believing to the end that he could clear his name. After a trial in which important evidence in his favor was suppressed, he was hanged.

1701  Sep 7, England, Austria, and the Netherlands formed an Alliance against France

1702  Mar 19, On the death of William III of Orange, Anne Stuart, sister of Mary, succeeded to the throne of England, Scotland and Ireland

1702  May 15, The War of Spanish Succession began

1704  Feb 28, Indians attacked Deerfield, Mass. killing 40 and kidnapping 100

1700-1709 Edmund Halley's studies propose that comets sighted in 1531, 1607, and 1682 are one and the same, and the celestial body is named Halley's Comet in his honor

1704  Apr 24, The Boston News-Letter was established, first successful newspaper in US

1705  The first steam engine was built

1700-1709   William Penn loses control of the government of Pennsylvania in 1701 when the Quaker oligarchy forces him to agree to a new Frame of Government, giving the colony the only unicameral assembly in British America

1706  The First Presbyterian church was organized in Philadelphia. It had begun in Scotland and the British Isles by John Knox around 1560

1707  May 1, Scotland and England were united by an act of Parliament. England, Wales and Scotland were united to form Great Britain

1700-1709  A famine hits Europe in 1709 after crops are killed by a bitter winter

1711  Aug 23, A British attempt to invade Canada by sea failed

1711  Sep 22, The Tuscarora Indian War began with a massacre of settlers in North Carolina, following white encroachment that included the enslaving of Indian children

1712  Apr 7, There was a slave revolt in New York City. A slave insurrection in New York City was suppressed by the militia and ended with the execution of 21 blacks. 1712  Jul 4, Twelve slaves were executed for starting a slave uprising in New York that killed nine whites

1712  Jun 7, The Pennsylvania Assembly banned the importation of slaves

1712-1862 England taxed soap with the declaration that it was a frivolous luxury of the aristocracy

1713  Apr 11, The Peace of Utrecht was signed, France ceded Maritime provinces to Britain. The French colony of Acadia, now Nova Scotia, was ceded to Great Britain. The Acadians had come from western France to fish and farm. Those who would not swear allegiance to the crown were deported. Many of these deportees went to the bayou country of Louisiana. Spain ceded Gibralter in perpetuity to Britain under the Treaty of Utrecht.

1714  Oct 20, George I of England was crowned. Queen Anne of England died and was succeeded by the Elector of Hanover as George I. The Hanoverian dynasty ruled to 1901.

1718  Edward Teach, aka Blackbeard, began to pillage settlements along the Atlantic coast and around the Caribbean.

1716  The Virginia Colonial Assembly passed a law that required every householder to plant at least ten grapevines.

1717  Jun 4, The Freemasons were founded in London.

1718  Aug 25, Hundreds of French colonists arrived in Louisiana, with some of them settling in present-day New Orleans.

1718  The "Casket Girls" of New Orleans began to arrive from France with casket full of dowry articles to marry settlers.

1719  Daniel Defoe published Robinson Crusoe based on the story of Alexander Selkirk, a man who was voluntarily put ashore on a desert island.

1720  England passed a law that prohibited the emigration of skilled craftsmen and the export of machinery, models and plans.

1720s  The German Dunkers founded their communal society at Ephrata Cloister in Amish country near Philadelphia.

1720s  Timothy Hanson took a seeds of a European perennial grass known as hay from New York to the Carolinas. The hay is called Timothy.

1721  May 29, South Carolina was formally incorporated as a royal colony.

1722  Jonathon Swift, author and pamphleteer, urged his fellow countrymen to boycott English goods and "burn everything that came from England, except their people and their Coals."