1729
Nader Khan Drives the Afghans from Persia
A tribal chieftain from Khorasan, Nader Khan Afshar took service with the exiled Safavid claimant Tahmasp and began a campaign that would expel the Ghilzai Afghans from Isfahan. A new soldier of fortune had emerged. Within six years he would make himself shah. Persia's long convalescence would be his, and his alone.
A Modest Proposal
Jonathan Swift, watching Ireland starve under English economic strictures, published a pamphlet suggesting that the country's excess infants be sold as food for the rich. Written in the cool register of a political arithmetician, it remains the greatest satire in the English language. The laughter it elicited froze in the reader's throat.
Chinese Emperor Bans Opium
The Yongzheng Emperor issued an edict prohibiting the sale and smoking of opium throughout the Qing Empire, noting its spread among soldiers and officials. The ban was largely ignored. A century later, when British merchants industrialized the trade, this early prohibition would look less like prudence than prophecy. The drug that the emperor tried to stamp out would eventually bring his dynasty to its knees.
Natchez Revolt
In French Louisiana, the Natchez people rose against the colony that had demanded their sacred cornfield for a tobacco plantation, killing two hundred French. French retaliation, aided by Choctaw allies, all but annihilated the Natchez nation. Survivors scattered among neighboring peoples. A sophisticated mound-building culture was effectively extinguished. Their Great Sun, a living deity, was captured and sold into slavery in Saint-Domingue.