1693

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( 1690s: )     1693
An earthquake devastates large parts of Sicily, killing 60.000
Year 1693

Events

January–March

• January 11 – 1693 Sicily earthquake: Mount Etna erupts, causing a devastating earthquake that affects parts of Sicily and Malta.
• February 8 – The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia is granted a Royal charter.
• March 27 – Bozoklu Mustafa Pasha becomes the new Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, after Sultan Ahmed II appoints him as the successor of Çalık Ali Pasha.

April–June

• April 4 – Anne Palles becomes the last accused witch to be executed for witchcraft in Denmark, after having been convicted of using powers of sorcery. King Christian V accepts her plea not to be burned alive, and she is beheaded before her body is set afire.
• April 5 – The Order of Saint Louis, the first medal to be awarded in France to military personnel who are not members of nobility, is created by order of King Louis XIV, and named after his ancestor, King Louis IX.
• April 28 – The 90-gun English Royal Navy warship HMS Windsor Castle is wrecked beyond repair on the Goodwin Sands.
• April – Tituba, a slave who had been convicted at the Salem witch trials of practicing witchcraft after making a confession, is released from jail in Boston after 13 months when an unknown purchaser pays her jail fees.
• May 18 – Forces of Louis XIV of France attack Heidelberg, capital of the Electorate of the Palatinate.
• May 22 – Heidelberg is taken by the invading French forces; on May 23 Heidelberg Castle is surrendered, after which the French blow up its towers using mines.
• June 27 – Nine Years' War – Battle of Lagos off Portugal: The French fleet defeats the joint Dutch and English fleet.

July–September

• July 29 – Nine Years' War – Battle of Landen: William III of England is defeated by the French (with Irish Jacobite mercenaries).
• August 21 – The Indian Ocean port of Pondicherry, capital of French India is captured by a 17-ship fleet from the Netherlands and 1,600 men under the command of Laurens Pit the Younger.
• September 9 – Francesco Invrea, King of Corsica, begins a two-year term as the Doge of the Republic of Genoa in Italy, succeeding Giovanni Battista Cattaneo Della Volta.
• September 10 – France begins the siege of the Spanish Netherlands (now Belgium) fort of Charleroi.
• September 14 – King Louis XIV of France sends a letter to Pope Innocent XII announcing the rescission of the Declaration of the Clergy of France issued in 1682.
• September 23 – Manuel Afonso Nzinga a Nlenke, ruling as King Manuel I of the Kingdom of Kongo (in present-day northern Angola) is executed on orders of the new king, Álvaro X.

October–December

• October 4 – The Battle of Marsaglia is fought near Turin in the Duchy of Savoy, with a French force under the command of General Nicolas Catinat defeating the Savoyard forces and leaving 10,000 dead or wounded while sustaining only 1,000 casualties.
• October 11 – Charleroi falls to French forces.
• November 7 – King Charles II of Spain issues a royal edict providing sanctuary in Spanish Florida for escaped slaves from the English colony of South Carolina.
• November 14 – General Santaji Ghorpade of the Maratha Empire in India is defeated by General Himmat Khan of the Mughal Empire near Vikramhalli, and retreats. A week later, after regrouping his troops, Santaji defeats Himmat at their next encounter.
• November 21 – The 46-gun Royal Navy frigate HMS Mordaunt founders off of the coast of Cuba.
• November 29 – A fleet of 30 English and Dutch ships captures the French port of Saint-Malo
• December 16 – Diego de Vargas, Spanish colonial governor of Santa Fe de Nuevo México (now the area around the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico, returns to the walled city of Santa Fe and requests the Pueblo people to accept the authority of the colonial government. Negotiations fail and a siege begins on December 29. The Pueblo defenders surrender the next day and the 70 rebels are executed soon after. The 400 civilian women and children are made slaves and distributed to the Spanish colonists.
• December 27 – The new 80-gun English Navy warship HMS Sussex departs Portsmouth on its maiden voyage, escorting a fleet of 48 warships and 166 merchant ships to the Mediterranean Sea. The fleet runs into a storm on February 27, 1694, and on March 1, Sussex and 12 other warships sink, along with a cargo of gold.

Date unknown

• China concentrates all its foreign trade on Canton; European ships are forbidden to land anywhere else.
• A religious schism takes place in Switzerland, within a group of Swiss and Alsatian Anabaptists led by Jakob Ammann. Those who follow Ammann become the Mennonite Amish sect.
• The Knights of the Apocalypse are formed in Italy.
• The Academia Operosorum Labacensium is established in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
• Financier Richard Hoare relocates Hoare's Bank (founded 1672) from Cheapside to Fleet Street in London.
• John Locke publishes his influential book Some Thoughts Concerning Education.
• William Penn publishes his proposal for European federation, Essay on the Present and Future Peace of Europe.
• Dimitrie Cantemir presents his Kitâbu 'İlmi'l-Mûsiki alâ Vechi'l-Hurûfât (The Book of the Science of Music through Letters) to Sultan Ahmed II, which deals with melodic and rhythmic structure and practice of Ottoman music, and contains the scores for around 350 works composed during and before his own time, in an alphabetical notation system he invented.

Births

• February 7 – Empress Anna of Russia (d. 1740)
• February 24 – James Quin, English actor (d. 1766)
• March 5 – Johann Jakob Wettstein, Swiss theologian (d. 1754)
• March 7 – Pope Clement XIII (d. 1769)
• March 16 – Malhar Rao Holkar, Indian nobleman (d. 1766)
• March 24 – John Harrison, English clockmaker (d. 1776)
• April 3 – George Edwards, English naturalist (d. 1773)
• June 17 – Johann Georg Walch, German theologian (d. 1775)
• July 21 – Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1768)
• August 8 – Laurent Belissen, French composer (d. 1762)
• September 3 – Charles Radclyffe, British politician (d. 1746)
• September 21 – Thomas Secker, Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1768)
• November 22 – Louise Élisabeth de Bourbon, daughter of Louis (d. 1775)

Deaths

• January 6 – Mehmed IV, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (b. 1642)
• January 7 – Federico Visconti, Cardinal Archbishop of Milan (b. 1617)
• January 8 – Marguerite de la Sablière, French salonist and polymath (b. 1640)
• January 31 – Ahasuerus Fromanteel, English clockmaker (b. 1607)
• February 7 – Paul Pellisson, French writer (b. 1624)
• February 9 – William Turner, British politician (b. 1615)
• February 11 – John de Brito, Portuguese Jesuit missionary and martyr (b. 1647)
• February 13
  • Johann Caspar Kerll, German composer (b. 1627)
  • John Rashleigh, English politician (b. 1619)
• February 22 – Henrik Horn, Swedish military leader and noble (b. 1618)
• March 21 – Walter Chetwynd, English antiquary, politician (b. 1633)
• April 4 – Isaac Aboab da Fonseca, Portuguese Sephardic rabbi (b. 1605)
• April 5
  • Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans, Duchess of Montpensier, French writer (b. 1627)
  • Christian Scriver, German hymnwriter (b. 1629)
• April 9 – Roger de Rabutin, Comte de Bussy, French writer (b. 1618)
• April 17 – Rutger von Ascheberg, Courland-born soldier in Swedish service (b. 1621)
• April 20 – Claudio Coello, Spanish Baroque painter (b. 1642)
• April 30 – George Louis I, Count of Erbach-Erbach (1672–1693) (b. 1643)
• May 2 – Ernest, Landgrave of Hesse-Rheinfels and later of Hessen-Rheinfels-Rotenburg (b. 1623)
• May 3 – Claude de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon, French courtier (b. 1607)
• May 13 – Thomas Jervoise, English politician (b. 1616)
• May 8 – Jan Verkolje, Dutch painter (b. 1650)
• May 25 – Madame de La Fayette, French writer (b. 1634)
• June 2 – John Wildman, English soldier and politician (b. c. 1621)
• June 3 – Camille de Neufville de Villeroy, Archbishop of Lyon (b. 1606)
• June 20 – Juliana of Hesse-Eschwege, German noblewoman (b. 1652)
• June 23 – Sir John Wittewrong, 1st Baronet, English parliamentarian (b. 1618)
• July 12
  • John Ashby, English admiral (b. c. 1640)
  • Johan Hadorph, Swedish director-general of the Central Board of National Antiquities (b. 1630)
• July 26
  • Ulrika Eleonora of Denmark, Queen of Sweden (b. 1656)
  • Johann Daniel Major, German professor of theoretical medicine (b. 1634)
• August 7 – John George II, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau (b. 1627)
• August 27 – Edward Rawson, American settler (b. 1615)
• September 12 – Lionel Copley, Colonial governor of Maryland (d. 1648)
• September 13 – Flavio Chigi, Italian Catholic cardinal (b. 1631)
• September 19 – Johann Weikhard von Valvasor, Slovenian nobleman and polymath (b. 1641)
• October 1 – Pedro Abarca, Spanish theologian (b. 1619)
• October 9 – Unshō, Japanese Buddhist scriptural commentator (b. 1604)
• October 17 – Charles Schomberg, 2nd Duke of Schomberg, English general (b. 1645)
• November 9 – Samuel Hales, Connecticut settler and politician (b. 1615)
• November 16 – Francis Marsh, Irish bishop (b. 1626)
• November 23 – Job Adriaenszoon Berckheyde, Dutch painter (b. 1630)
• November 24 – William Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 1617)
• November 30 – Francesco Lorenzo Brancati di Lauria, Italian Catholic cardinal (b. 1612)
• December 12 – Countess Palatine Anna Magdalena of Birkenfeld-Bischweiler, Countess of Hanau-Lichtenberg (b. 1640)
• December 14 – Giuseppe Felice Tosi, Italian composer (b. 1619)
• December 16 – Jacques Rousseau, French painter (b. 1630)
• December 22 – Elisabeth Hevelius, Danzig astronomer (b. 1647)
• December 29 – Vere Fane, 4th Earl of Westmorland, England (b. 1645)
• date unknown – Lars Nilsson, Sami shaman in Sweden

 

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