1733
John Kay's Flying Shuttle
A weaver in Bury, Lancashire, patented a shuttle carried on wheels through a race by jerks of a cord. One weaver could now do the work of two; looms could be wider than arm's reach. Other weavers beat Kay when they understood. The textile revolution, about to remake a nation, had started.
Molasses Act
Parliament, responding to sugar-lobby pressure, slapped a duty of sixpence a gallon on foreign molasses entering British colonies. Rum-distilling New Englanders simply bribed customs officers. The act was widely ignored but set a precedent. When Britain began enforcing its successors thirty years later, American tempers would remember. The molasses trade taught colonists that imperial law was negotiable, a lesson London would later regret.
Oglethorpe Founds Savannah
With one hundred and twenty settlers, Oglethorpe landed at Yamacraw Bluff on the Savannah River and laid out a town of squares and wards with the help of the Yamacraw chief Tomochichi. It was the first planned city in the Americas. The trustees outlawed slavery; by 1750 that ban would be gone.
War of the Polish Succession Begins
When the Polish throne fell vacant, France backed Stanislaw Leszczynski; Russia and Austria backed Augustus of Saxony. Armies marched; Leszczynski was besieged in Danzig. The war that followed was fought mostly in Italy and the Rhineland. Poland's consent was not really required, which was, by then, the Polish condition. The peace rearranged Italian duchies and confirmed that Poland existed chiefly for others to quarrel over.