1708
Piano Invented by Cristofori
In a Florentine workshop maintained by Ferdinando de Medici, Bartolomeo Cristofori published an inventory listing his latest device: a harpsichord that could play soft and loud. Its hammer action would slowly conquer Europe. He died almost unknown. His invention became the century's instrument. By the time Mozart sat at one in Vienna, the pianoforte had displaced the harpsichord from every serious salon on the continent.
Death of Guru Gobind Singh
The tenth and last human Guru of the Sikhs, having fought the Mughals for years and lost his four sons to them, died near Nanded of wounds from a Pathan assassin. Before dying he declared that henceforth the Guru Granth Sahib, the scripture itself, would be the eternal guru. A religion of the book was fully born.
Akamatsu Earthquake Devastates Hōei Japan
A magnitude-8.6 earthquake tore along the Nankai Trough, triggering tsunamis that drowned coastal villages from Shikoku to the Kii Peninsula. Weeks later, Mount Fuji erupted for the last time in recorded history, burying Edo in ash. Japan's shogunate spent a decade rebuilding what the earth had broken in an afternoon.
Battle of Oudenarde
Marlborough force-marched his army fifty miles in two days and caught a French army mid-crossing of the Scheldt. The fighting went on until moonrise. Prince Eugene and the Elector of Hanover, future George I, both fought in the line. Another French army destroyed; another winter of Louis XIV's despair. The victory opened the road to Lille, whose siege and capture would follow before the year was out.