1703
Peter the Great Founds St. Petersburg
On a swampy Neva delta claimed from Sweden weeks earlier, Peter drove the first stake into a mud island and declared a city. Thousands of conscripted peasants would die digging its canals. From this unlikely marsh rose a granite capital designed to face Europe and turn its back on old Muscovy.
Great Kantō Earthquake and Tsunami
The Genroku earthquake, estimated at magnitude 8.2, devastated the Kantō plain. Tsunamis smashed the coastline of Sagami Bay, killing over five thousand. Edo shook so violently that the shogun's castle walls cracked. Japan, perched on the Pacific Ring of Fire, received another reminder that the earth beneath its cities was never truly still.
Chikamatsu Dramatizes the Ronin
The puppet playwright Chikamatsu Monzaemon produced an early dramatization of the Forty-Seven Ronin on the Osaka stage. Forbidden to portray recent samurai events, he set it in a safer century. Audiences saw through the disguise and wept. Japanese popular theater had discovered its greatest single story, and one of its greatest playwrights.
The Great Storm of 1703
A hurricane-force cyclone tore across southern England, toppling the Eddystone lighthouse with its builder inside, killing eight thousand sailors, uprooting four thousand oaks in the New Forest. Defoe collected eyewitness accounts and published them as a book, inventing something close to modern journalism. Ships were driven from the Thames estuary into the fields of Kent, and the queen lost the lead from the roof of her own palace.
Genroku Earthquake Levels Edo
A magnitude-eight quake struck the Boso Peninsula before dawn, followed by a tsunami that swallowed fishing villages whole. Fires consumed much of Edo. Over ten thousand died. The Tokugawa bureaucracy, schooled by centuries of disaster, began rebuilding with firebreaks and tile roofs before the ashes cooled. The earthquake also devastated Odawara Castle and shattered the prosperity of the Genroku cultural golden age.
Camargo Scandalizes the Paris Opera
Marie Camargo, Belgian-born, made her Paris debut and scandalously shortened her skirts above the ankle so audiences could see her entrechats. Voltaire would later write verses about her legs. Ballet, which had been a courtly reinforcement of hierarchy, began its slow transformation into a virtuoso theatrical art. Her rival Marie Salle countered with dramatic expressiveness, and between them they redefined what dance could be.